Adam Curtis

Patrick Swayze

I'm trying to shut up
An old friend of mine knows him quite well. Says he's also a global warming denier who believes it became an issue after some old upper-class eugenicist/Nazi sympathiser persuaded the world's leading scientific bodies that AGW was a reality as some dastardly plot to advance the cause of population control. (My mate actually believes this shit too, he wasn't trying to discredit him.)

That's a doc I'd like to see, though I hope for his rep he never makes it.

edit: Curtis, that is., not Rupey.

this sounds like the plot of utopia
 

sufi

lala
this account has been pretty good value recently, impossible to tell whether it's tribute, spoof, genuinely ac sub-twitting himself or what. but with his repoire does it even matter?
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
i went to his presentation as part of the bbc arabic festival.
first of all, he should not have been there.
not because hes not an arabic filmmaker, but because, despite his opening talking about how most brits' view of the middle east is one dimensional and simplistic, his presentation was largely not to do with arab countries, or even libya, really, but about the west, western politics, british citizens' somewhat ignorant view of our own govt's hypocrisies.
all well and good, as these are good things to make us think about, but again, despite saying we reduce the ME to simplistic caricatures, what does his presentation on the west's use, abuse, and manipulation of gaddafi do? make gaddafi into a LOL meme, more or less.
okay, gaddafi is a bit cartoonish, but curtis wasnt really interested in much of libyan history or gaddafi's own politics, faulty though they may be, he was just interested in looking clever, using some cool archive footage (he is far too limited by the available footage in what he has to say, sometimes i wondered if he had anything to say that he couldnt find footage for), and making some good montages set to rihanna songs.
i am simplifying (ho ho) what he did of course, but the end result was that adam curtis, for all his good intentions, and his intelligence, isnt so much a smug propaganda-ist as he said, but a documentary version of an opinion columnist, around the same level as someone like stewart lee, or that guy from peep show maybe.
he made some good points about nationalism, the stories we tell to establish it, and how a figure like gaddafi is used to justify western views of arabic nations and their leaders and people, but it was all really in the service of telling us more about ourselves, than this 'other' that we have constructed over many decades, and how that other may not be entirely what we have been led to think it is.
as he himself said when someone asked him about the modern political situation in libya, 'im no expert, maybe someone in the audience knows?'
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Good post, rdr.

his presentation was largely not to do with arab countries, or even libya, really, but about the west, western politics, british citizens' somewhat ignorant view of our own govt's hypocrisies.

Well yeah, I'm sure no-one here needs to be told that (Westerners') anti-imperialist/anti-colonialist politics can be just as West-centric as the imperialism they criticize.
 

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
Good post, rdr.

Well yeah, I'm sure no-one here needs to be told that (Westerners') anti-imperialist/anti-colonialist politics can be just as West-centric as the imperialism they criticize.

ill be upfront and say ive only watched a few of his films, but i find them most interesting as archive aesthetic assemblies and for his use of music, on the whole, though of course, there are many things he does say that i think are interesting, and agree with, but he takes so many cheap shots, often that arent followed through, or arent really investigated thoroughly beyond their immediate worth as provocative 'ooooh!' sensations, that make me worry a bit about all the people who put him on a pedestal.

the funniest part of the whole night (for me anyway, most people were howling each time gaddaffi appeared behind one of curtis' voiceovers) was when someone asked him about his use of music, and he, not without appearing a little pleased with himself, while at the same time trying to contain his enthusiasm, said 'i think burial is a genius!', sort of as if he was admitting some uncommon view that no one else has considered, and people (well, okay, not the whole audience, but a significant handful) started clapping in agreement.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I note that all these comments are endorsing my historic dismissal of Curtis dating back to the ludicrous 'Power of Nighmares' which I eviscerated on an bad-tempered thread back in the day.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I note that all these comments are endorsing my historic dismissal of Curtis dating back to the ludicrous 'Power of Nighmares' which I eviscerated on an bad-tempered thread back in the day.

First Fry and now Curtis - any other middlebrow sacred cows you wanna go full "I HATED HIM FIRST!" on?

You're not keen on Will Self either, if memory serves.
 

you

Well-known member
I do feel that Curtis' much sniggered at Hypernormalisation seems more relevant and less fanciful now post-Trump... his whole Surkov/Chaos shtick doesn't feel like quite the narrative liberty it was taken to be back in 2016. There, I said it.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
First Fry and now Curtis - any other middlebrow sacred cows you wanna go full "I HATED HIM FIRST!" on?

You're not keen on Will Self either, if memory serves.

Let's hope not - Will Self is a different class from those two, as much as his novels are bizarrely unreadable. Excellent speaker - clear and usually right, shows contempt towards the right people etc.
 
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luka

Well-known member
I do feel that Curtis' much sniggered at Hypernormalisation seems more relevant and less fanciful now post-Trump... his whole Surkov/Chaos shtick doesn't feel like quite the narrative liberty it was taken to be back in 2016. There, I said it.

cCurtis is great
 

luka

Well-known member
One of craners claims was that the links between Sadam Hussein and al quaeda were "massive, comprehensive incontrovertible"
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
I quite like Curtis's old BBC blog, I think his ideas are easier to swallow in that less intense, less overwhelming format. Plus the archival footage he dug up was amazing.
 

catalog

Well-known member
he deserves a round of applause for producing the richard billingham film about his family ('fishtank'). total classic right there, another great one to fall asleep to
 

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
I can appreciate what lanugo is saying here but as has been stated, it really is an argument about the accidental/deterministic nature of both the origins and continuing perpetuation of our current global system of op unsustainable, exploititive economics. I will once again bring the discussion back round to Curtis and state emphatically that the real thrust and purpose of all of his work in the last twenty years has been to suggest that trends of mass disempowerment are as a result of exactly this type of thinking - Lanugo's, I mean.

History is crafted in such a way whereby worldviews such as that of the irresponsible conspiracy-theorist, a tired '60s leftist approach of us-vs-them, as Grizzleb states, are both welcomed and easily festered. It's a disempowering worldview to have because it attempts to create and energize this image of the global elite as all-powered, supremely intelligent and endlessly cunning - whereas in fact, they might just be impaled on their own greed, trapped in their social class, completely subject to economic and social forces, and no more intelligent than anybody. It's as if the system itself has now been cultivated and has now taken on a chaotic and monstrous intelligence of it's own - continual 'enslavement' is assured so long as the belief is upheld that we no longer have any say or any power in the matter. Curtis films, particularly The Trap, The Living Dead and All Watch Over... have this theme and this message as their central tenet.

I enjoyed this interview with Errol Morris that Curtis recently did, in which this exchange occurred:

EM: "Is history primarily a history of conspiracy? Or is it just a series of blunders, one after the other? Confusions, self-deceptions, idiocies of one kind or another? "

AC: "It’s the latter. Where people do set out to have conspiracies, they don’t ever end up like they're supposed to. History is a series of unintended consequences resulting from confused actions, some of which are committed by people who may think they're taking part in a conspiracy, but it never works out the way they intended."

Curtis' other triumph is the way that he curtails the dull Leftist approach of endlessly demonizing the Right, the seperationist attitude that perpetuates a Christian image of 'evil'. There certainly are bad people, as IdleRich states, but perhaps mostly it's just a case of ingnorance and sometimes even well-meaning self-delusion that has created the situation we are in now. That doesn't mean we shouldn't submit and forget the Bastards, but only doing so with a realistic and holistically-understanding attitude will get anywhere, surely. If you want to defeat the Right, you have to understand them and where they are coming from, etc.

Nice thread
 
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