[Closed] If you watched HyperNormalisation..

Watched it but didn't think it was very good. Constructing a nice story to explain the way things are that sounds plausible is what humans are very good at doing.
Unfortunately those stories are usually bollocks.

Will try to find time for that. Enjoyed the other two. Bitter lake in particular.

Thanks for the reminder. I've just finished watching The Mayfair Set again by Adam Curtis. Delves into the murky world of business and politics.

Brilliant, been waiting for some new stuff from him!

Tried to watch HyperNormalisation, just lost interest very quickly. I find TV documentaries just too drawn out and slow, you could probably read the entire script in 10 minutes.

you could probably read the entire script in 10 minutes.

Reminds me, I once read the entire script to Eraserhead. Took me about three minutes. FFWD twenty years and now I have youtube and can feed my attention deficit disorder with what feels like a flip-book animation of blipverts. I wonder if one day we could ‘watch’ (absorb) a whole documentary by the medium of Twittersized txtlets on HUD 6G spectacles?

Watched a feature film (‘The Dig’) the other night, and it occurred to me that it was the first time I’ve watched a feature film since June 2020. Consumption is accelerating, media included. The news cycle is dizzying and getting faster. I once wondered if there would become a time where it might seem that the less we actually see and experience - the more we know? But is that time now? Aren’t words and pictures simply propaganda/counter-propaganda?

I'll have a look at that Bitter Lake Edit. I've not watched it for a while but I remember there was quite a lot of long sections with no narration so an abridged edit probably is a good thing.

Personally I think "The Trap" is probably Adam Curtis's most accessible work, most of what he puts forward still rings true.

I think his episodic stuff that he has done for TV tends to be a bit tighter, the long form iPlayer films kind of feel like fever dreams combined with being 20 links deep in a mad Wikipedia session.

Be interesting to see what he does with 6 episodes

Here’s a bite-sized extract of an Adam Curtis interview with Russell Brand. 3 minutes long.

Curtis appears to hold a mirror to the zeitgeist, and you hear Brand almost shrink, wither and mumble as he sees maybe his own ‘priapic gargoyle’, reflected now as Donald Trump?

20 links deep in a mad Wikipedia session.

Charlie Lyne (film critic) wrote something spookily similar when reviewing Hypernormalisation

Curtis veers from social history to conspiracy theory via the odd rambling bar-room anecdote, like a man who’s two-dozen browser tabs into a major Wikipedia binge"

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/oct/15/hypernormalisation-adam-curtis-trump-putin-syria

Again, (as with feature films) these days I’ll give a lot of stuff (most) a miss in favour of reading the critics. Life is short and misinformation is plentiful.

A well observed parody of Curtis documentaries.

It raises questions. Such as who critiques the critics? Who watches the watchers? Who browses the browsers? Who documents the documentarists?

Its like a council job, one to dig the hole, one to watch the digger and one to watch the watcher.

Its like a council job, one to dig the hole, one to watch the digger and one to watch the watcher.

You forgot the one who blackmailed the one who bribed the one who payed the one who ordered the orderer to order the hole be dug

I agree with Richmtb, Curtis work is extremely well observed and his research is staggering, but it could be edited down massively!

"Oh, the jobs people work at! Out west near Hawtch-Hawtch there's a Hawtch-Hawtcher bee watcher, his job is to watch. Is to keep both his eyes on the lazy town bee, a bee that is watched will work harder you see. So he watched and he watched, but in spite of his watch that bee didn't work any harder not mawtch. So then somebody said "Our old bee-watching man just isn't bee watching as hard as he can, he ought to be watched by another Hawtch-Hawtcher! The thing that we need is a bee-watcher-watcher!". Well, the bee-watcher-watcher watched the bee-watcher. He didn't watch well so another Hawtch-Hawtcher had to come in as a watch-watcher-watcher! And now all the Hawtchers who live in Hawtch-Hawtch are watching on watch watcher watchering watch, watch watching the watcher who's watching that bee. You're not a Hawtch-Watcher you're lucky you see!" - Dr Seuss

Curtis describes his work as journalism that happens to be expounded via the medium of film. His films have won four BAFTAs.

One might say that Curtis made the mistake of dressing in long baggy trousers in an age of tight shorts?

As ever, am not certain if satirising his critics or simply voicing my opinion. I’ll probably rely on someone else to encapsulate.

To quote critic Charlie Lyne more completely, he wrote:

(Curtis) argues that an army of technocrats, complacent radicals and Faustian internet entrepreneurs have conspired to create an unreal world; one whose familiar and often comforting details blind us to its total inauthenticity. Not wishing to undersell the concept, Curtis begins the film with a shot of a torch shining limply into a thicket, so that viewers find themselves literally unable to see the wood for the trees.

Yes that.

Curtis describes his work as journalism that happens to be expounded via the medium of film.

To me, that's just long winded journalism, which I can't be arsed with.

Just watched the The Loving Trap above - captures it perfectly, 99% style 0% substance, 1% glib generalisations.

To me, that’s just long winded journalism, which I can’t be arsed with.

I disagree, the reach & impact of the work can be increased massively if its well presented

Amd for me his stuff is great to watch whilst on the train commute, as well as on the sofa with a beer in one go

You might say his work informs, educates, and entertains.

That spoof video makes some good points.

He's definitely guilty of throwing stuff both narratively and visually and seeing what sticks.

"Citation Needed" would probably be all over a lot of his stuff.

The veracity of his over arching themes vary massively.

Without re-watching all of them from what I remember:

The Power of Nightmares: Western governments need "bogeymen" to keep the population in control.

This was pretty spot on.

The Trap: "Freedom" doesn't really exist, democracy is just a system of control based on ever more arcane set of numbers and targets, but the alternative is violent revolution which us Guardian readers aren't really up for so we are stuck.

He's still on pretty solid ground, especially around the KPI culture that developed in the 90s but there are obviously some big leaps.

All Watched over by Machines of Loving Grace: We were told technology would solve all our problems and it hasn't

This one is all over the place, I don't think anyone really believed technology would solve all our problems. After some interesting bits about Ayn Rand and Silicon Valley it rapidly disappears up its own arse.

Bitter Lake: He's using Afghanistan as an allegory for how we fail at things because we take to simple a view of the world?

Its over long but there is a good documentary in there somewhere.

Hypernormalisation: The world is complicated and scary be we are fed simple narratives to keep us in check - Like Gaddafi playing the role of world bogey man and the West playing along when the truth is much more complicated.

The length makes a bit more sense than Bitter Lake because its broken down in to chapters and the narrative thread about Syria, Libya and the US (Kissinger, Beirut, Lockerbie etc) is really interesting but then he has to throw in some random shit about hackers, Trump and opioids?

Its interesting that a lot of his earlier stuff relies on interviews rather than just the archive footage plus narration that is present in a lot of his later stuff. He's blurring the line between documentary and polemic at times.

I watched all of hypernormalisation after it was much-hyped on here and thought it was garbage. Just one man's conspiracy theory that has (for reasons I can't fathom) got bbc backing

but it could be edited down massively!

yes it could, but for some the appeal of Adam Curtis’ work is to a large part  about the art direction. It will either appeal or it won’t.

PSA - Parts 1 - 6 are up on iplayer.

(parts 1-3 are on youtube)

I started tuning out during the first 20 minutes of episode 1. I'm usually pretty good with documentaries but I wonder if the last couple of years and the rise of twitter arguments and political scumbags never being held to account has enveloped me in a sheen of "oh who gives a crap anymore, nothing changes"

It helps not to categorise Curtis' stuff. I like the style, but don't think "documentary" is a good description. It is one person's view, entertainingly presented. No doubt heavily researched, but to what end is unclear. I get the impression that the nature of the research is somewhere in between how a writer of fiction will research their next novel and how an academic will research their next book. It is the fact that it lives on that kind of boundary that makes the work interesting to me.

Just one man’s conspiracy theory that has (for reasons I can’t fathom) got bbc backing

^ Doubly ironic if true, considering part 1. of his latest documentary addresses (to some degree) modern conspiracy theories.

Just one man’s conspiracy theory

You couldn't have being paying that much attention then if that was your take-away.

He might have something interesting to say, but I can't stand his style; it's just too long winded and all over the place. I much prefer reading articles to TV, it's a much better way of laying out an argument etc.

+1 greyspoke’s take. The footage and music is very entertaining/evocative for my tastes. Enjoyed the first one immensely. Plenty of springboards/threads for further research.

There’s a track listing on the wiki entry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can%27t_Get_You_Out_of_My_Head_(TV_series)

I've watched all of it and I enjoyed them.

Kind of like an Adam Curtis greatest hits. Psychiatry, Opiods, Bankers, Afghanistan, Baader Meinhof, even a bit of BF Skinner thrown in.

I liked the stuff about China, that was pretty interesting. Overall, its clever and well researched but I wasn't blown away by it. It's not full of profundity and revelation, its just an interesting take on some of the events of the 20th century and what they might mean for us now.

I get the impression that the nature of the research is somewhere in between how a writer of fiction will research their next novel and how an academic will research their next book. It is the fact that it lives on that kind of boundary that makes the work interesting to me.

Yeah likewise. I think it's not helpful to try to summarise what he is saying because part of it is the network of connections that may or may not mean anything, and the style it's presented in. I found it thought provoking and interesting - that's already something. Is it all "right" - I doubt it, but that doesn't matter.

because part of it is the network of connections that may or may not mean anything

Haha, partner and I were coming to the same conclusion...most of his stuff seems to be "While Lt Gen Jonty Cleft-Palette-Smythe was wargaming the British Army's next phycological warfare exercise, paranormal investigator and part time pipe smoking Chinese intellectual Sing Gong Hu was setting fire to pigeons in an attempt to..."

Watched half of 2, had to keep rewinding. It packs a lot in. Edgar Mittelholzer was a fascinating (if tragic) character? Never heard of him but will be reading more.

The footage of the (Maoist) Revolution was surreal/terrifying in the extreme. And there’s surely a compelling film-script re Jiang Qing’s abuse of power to wreak vengeance on those in her personal life? Chilling.

because part of it is the network of connections that may or may not mean anything

Zeitgeist innit? My take is that whether or not there are connections is not necessarily an objective of (all of) the footage and commentary. It’s just footage of a time in the world. Some threads connect, some don’t. It’s almost like we’re duty-bound to look for patterns in every brush-stroke of an impressionistic painting. Then we blame the painter when we only see *some* patterns. ‘So why did he paint that pigeon? What the hell has a pigeon got to do with the British Empire??? What’s the message???’

Maybe.

I enjoy watching these - there is always a sense of the sinister lurking only just in the background or out of shot....

The 'Take Home' messages are:

1. People are inherently lazy and prefer easy solutions to actually thinking and addressing issues.

2. This makes them easy to manipulate.

3. Narcissists and psychopaths are uniquely equipped to benefit from this.

4. Narcissists and psychopaths are bad people.

5. Other opportunists can make a lot of money advising narcissists and psychopaths.

6. Always ask yourself 'who benefits from this?'

The ‘Take Home’ messages are:

They may well be yours 😉

AC: It’s partly the history I’m charting in the films. After the Second World War, people were absolutely horrified by what big ideas had led to; what Nazism, communism, fascism had led to. They led to horror. The alternative to that was individualism. It was rising up anyway, the idea that you don’t have big stories any longer, that they’re dangerous. People run away with themselves and turn hysterical, which leads you into that idea of being on your own. When it goes bad, all sorts of bad things crowd in and I do think that’s what I’m trying to get at in the final film.

Everyone fell into strange, weird, dark stories built out of fragments that have no real logical meaning to them at all. It’s not just QAnon, it’s a belief that Vladimir Putin gave you Donald Trump. Everyone fell into a rabbit hole because there was no explanation given to them by the society of why strange things like Donald Trump or Brexit were happening. They just came out of the blue. Those in power have no explanation for it. So you have working class, middle class and upper class people who feel completely lost. They search for explanations and God bless the internet, it gives it to them.

https://www.anothermag.com/design-living/13105/adam-curtis-cant-get-you-out-of-my-head-new-documentary-series-2021

Interesting interview IMO. Some choice tidbits about music of Kylie and Aphex Twin featuring/not featuring.