Adam Curtis

sufi

lala
well it was good to see the archived footage, but apart from that it was a lightweight treatment (iirc) - he does tend to skip through topics rather hastily and i don't think lumumba was the main focus of whichever film it was that he was featured in

nice drc/rwanda list btw "the Tutsi/Hutu schisms in Rwanda/Burundi" could do with expanding as it's multifactorial by itself
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
This is a story about a blogger, and how he realized that everything we thought we knew about the conflict in Rwanda and the DR Congo was untrue.

He had discovered that, far from being explained by a single, cosily conspiratorial narrative tenuously held together by a dazzling, disconnected montage of archival footage overlaid alternately with menacing ambient music and the saccharine pop of yesteryear, and connected somehow to a computer scientist in California, something far more sinister was at work. In reality, these events were explained by a large number of very complex social and economic forces emerging from the region's colonial and post-colonial history, and took a lot of hard work to understand.

But in the end, none of it mattered...
 

griftert

Well-known member
I'm not sure what the point is in bashing a guy who openly and avowedly uses mashups of ideas, archive footage, pop music and leaps of logic for not making entirely different kind of TV shows (and indeed, mixed media art installations) altogether? Why didn't you make this? I haven't seen anyone else do what Curtis does, certainly not with the same panache. If you want ultra-cautious and dry analysis it exists elsewhere. And Curtis doesn't purport to produce such work.
 
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craner

Beast of Burden
For future reference, you can tell when I am writing plastered, not simply by mistakes, but by the appearence of multiple, boastful posts that end up sounding like I am talking to myself and go on for too long. Otherwise I am a very calm, rational, quiet sort of person.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Thanks - may owe something to the hilarious 'Loving Trap of Pandora's Nightmare' or whatever that pisstake video was called...
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
to quote <70's Family TV Entertainer>

PBF247-Catch_Phrase.jpg
 

ome

Well-known member
the most poetic piece of his so far!

Bitter Lake: 20 days left of iPlayer:

This is a masterpiece of archive research and editing, the use of juxtaposition to create metaphor is outstanding.

Yes the piece is simplistic for the complexity of the subject matter. It mostly ignores Pakistan and Iran, falls prey to bashing Wahhabism as an evil, without fully justifying it via its own history/background beyond Saudi Arabia. But on the whole, for an hour and a half it provides an antidote to popular journalism, delivered with exquisite craft.

What it lacks in narrative authenticity it more than makes up in poetic justice.
 

sufi

lala
there was a very short, very fast-cut, blipvert style trailer for bitter lake on telly last night, (much shorter that the 4mins screenwipe version)
I found it almost as great and perhaps as infomative as the 2 hour version, which was a bit of a slog tbh

no doubt he is great tho: an important, if unfocussed voice, i worry a bit that that the feds are feeding him lsd
 
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ome

Well-known member
i worry a bit that that the feds are feeding him lsd
:D

I can understand that to enjoy two hours of Curtis would require some tolerance. It's style is like an anti-propaganda 'clockwork orange' ludovico info-bomb, influenced heavily from post-moderm documentary work such as Chris Marker's 'Sans Soleil', that i am accustomed too. I wouldn't mind if this trip lasted even longer.
 
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luka

Well-known member
There has been a Curtis backlash and I'm inpatient with it. I'm impatient with the philistinism of career leftists.I'm impatient with their need for simple storylines, for heroes and villains, noble sacrifices, noble savages, noble proles and a moral at the end of every story.
Every man and woman a self-apppointed party whip. Stick to the Script. Toe the Party Line. Denounce first ask questions later. There's a Revolution to Foment.

None of us, no matter what level of security clearance we have, know what is going on in the world. Cause and effect is not simple. It's not a mechanical process that can be mapped out in an easy to follow timeline. Chaos lies under the surface. People's motivations are not clearcut and one dimensional. Our motives are murky, even to ourselves. State and non state actors lie, obfuscate, deal in disinformation and misdirection until they tie even themselves in knots. Sorting the truth from fiction is a game of educated guesswork.

Stories are constructed by cherrypicking motes of data from a swirling dust storm, and joining them together. The truth of these stories can only ever be partial at best. Í got too drunk that night becasue my girlfriend said something mean to me and I felt sad' 'Terrorism is caused by Western Imperialism/The words of the Holy Koran'

Adam Curtis is not attempting to enter his own Overarching Explanation in the Grand Prize Draw, he is demonstrating how large the dust storm is, and how many motes of dust are caught up in it, and correspondingly, how many stories there are to be told.

His films say, the explanations you have been fed are too pat. One dimensional. Monocausal. The actor flashing his pearly whites on the red carpet was not the real star of the show. Here are just a few of the other characters and events which gave shape to history.

That approach is not for the literal minded. It is playful and yet it has a serious intent. Philistines like their Art with the ambiguity taken out. They resent Curtis. He is having fun. He is having a laugh and worst of all he is nobodys True Believer. He is an agnostic and he makes films which preach the gospel of Agnosticism. That is why they are useful.
 
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