#Adam Curtis

[gifmovie]

[thequietabsolute]

David Graeber, via Adam Curtis’s I Can’t Get You Out of My Head [2021]

[swdefcult]

[wandering-alien]

Adam Curtis talks about how our age of individualism with ideas about needing completely free and independent identities means that nobody falls head over heels in love and gives themselves up to the emotion and the person they love but when Hozier sung 'No grave can hold my body down/I'll crawl home to her' that hit. That was beautiful.

And this is coming from the person who still doesn't really understand romantic relationships.

[hyper-bounce]

[henriquelage]

New video!

An analysis of "Disco Elysium" and the relationships between role-playing games, identity, politics, labor rights and art as a remedy. Zizek, Fisher, Benjamin, LeGuin, Graeberg. Bonus track: Planescape Torment, Baldur's Gate 3 and Kentucky Route Zero.

[rrrauschen]

Adam Curtis, {2022} TraumaZone 01 (1985-1989)

[thursdayisbetterthanfriday]

THE WAY - NOSTALGIA

Production: The Way Director: Adam Curtis, Michael Sheen Starring: Steffan Rhodri, Sophie Melville, Michael Sheen Release: 2024

"I guess that's why we're here - failure to imagine a different future"

[louderfade]

[angie-words]

The Way, episode 1: initial thoughts

At some point, I want to go more in-depth with my thoughts on this first episode. For now, I'll say that I've seen it described as "too weird". I don't think that's a bad thing. In fact, The Way episode 1 is one of the most startling, affecting and interesting pieces of television I've seen in a long, long time. There's a strange dream-like quality to the scenes and it's one of the first shows in ages that's given me something to chew on and analyse.

There's a criticism that's come out in the reviews that it's "political" and "preachy". Again, I don't think that's a bad thing. It's theatrical and cinematic at the same time, carrying a political message about class structure, being left behind, feeling socially alienated and the loss of hope. When they say political, they mean "critical of institutions and inequality".

I want to watch the rest of the episodes so I can see it as a whole piece but, so far, I'm enthralled. Basically, for anyone saying The Way is too weird or alienating or "political", well:

[techniche]

The Century of the Self - Part 1: "Happiness Machines"

The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses. 

He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires. Bernays was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion, using every trick in the book, from celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to eroticising the motorcar. 

His most notorious coup was breaking the taboo on women smoking by persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom. But Bernays was convinced that this was more than just a way of selling consumer goods. It was a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified, people could be made happy and thus docile. 

It was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate today's world. 

Originally broadcast on 29th April 2002.

[thequietabsolute]

my brain, each and every single day

[swdefcult]

[oneeighth]

Halfway through episode 1 of The Way and the Adam Curtis influence is so real

[geekcavepodcast]

The Way Trailer

The Way follows a family caught up in a civil uprising. The Driscolls are forced to escape their home and country. "Will they be overwhelmed by their memories of the past, or will they lay their ghosts to rest and take the risk of an unknown future?" (BBC)

The Way is directed by Michael Sheen from a screenplay by James Graham. The series was created by Sheen, Graham, and Adam Curtis. The series stars Steffan Rhodri, Mali Harries, Sophie Melville, Callum Scott Howells, Michael Sheen, and Maja Laskowska.

[luxe-pauvre]

I think there are two reasons [for our obsession with youth] - both related to the rise of the individual and the focus on peoples inner feelings. That spread from consumerism to politics - and in the 1990s, starting with Clinton and Blair, politicians gave up on the idea of dramatic ideas of changing society. They didn’t tell grand stories any longer. Instead they became like managers who would read, through focus groups, what individuals wanted (especially the swing voters) and give it to them. But the problem with not telling stories about the future is that the only way to go is back into the past. And I think that lack of narrative is one of the driving forces behind the contemporary nostalgia. The other is that the in the age of the individual the problem is - how do you deal with the fact of your own mortality? In the past when you could be part of different collective groups - like political parties, churches, trades unions - which meant you could feel part of something that would go on past your own death. I have always thought that the real function of religion is to give consolation in the face of the fear of your own obliteration. Without that consolation you are frightened - and to hide from that fear you constantly go back into the past to try and hang on to what was then, and hold it close. And you fetishise the idea of youth. Because somehow, maybe that makes you immortal.

Adam Curtis interviewed by Eli Kessler, Icons: Eli Kessler in Conversation with Adam Curtis