Can't Get You Out Of My Head (Adam Curtis)

[kool maudit]

The wizard of the BBC archive rooms is at it again with a new, six-part video series on "the emotional history of the 20th century".

I've now watched five of six, and essentially what this covers is the development, both organic and managed, of individualism as the dominant Western cosmology, with all its liberations and alienations, as well as the construction of contemporary surveillance and the managed dreamworld of the internet.

It also provides some good coverage of the transition out of Bretton Woods, which was kind of a sequel to the Theory of Relativity in terms of the whole "the centre cannot hold" arc of modernity.

There are not many people who can tell a six-hour story connecting Jiang Qing, Oxycontin, Boris Yeltsin, Médecins Sans Frontières, Appalachian workers' movements and the development of the 24-hour FX desk.



https://thoughtmaybe.com/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head/

[hipster duck]

I like Adam Curtis' movies, and I'll probably watch this, although it's good to view his movies with a healthy dose of skepticism and treat them as entertainment rather than as historical analysis.

When I was younger I took much of what he said at face value. In my early twenties I remember watching The Century of the Self and having knives out for Edward Bernaise. However, by the time he came out with HyperNormalisation and started off with narration that went (I'm paraphrasing) "This story begins in the 1970s with two men: Donald Trump and Hafez al Assad" I just chuckled and said to myself "okay, let's see where he takes this".

He has hit on an excellent sensory combination to trigger the amygdala: a soft, but erudite British accent serving as a reassuring narrator's voice and quick cuts of archival footage layered with contrasting colours set to ominous background music.

[flar]

Century of the Self is one of the best documentaries ever, I will be sure to watch this new one. And, it's a series, I finally have something to watch.

The Trap was also a good series.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I like Adam Curtis' movies, and I'll probably watch this, although it's good to view his movies with a healthy dose of skepticism and treat them as entertainment rather than as historical analysis.

Well, they are his analysis, which is to say the perspective of one individual. This one is even more novelistic in terms of how it treats its characters, so it's clearer that he is telling a story, i.e. there is some artifice there.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I like Adam Curtis' movies, and I'll probably watch this, although it's good to view his movies with a healthy dose of skepticism and treat them as entertainment rather than as historical analysis.

When I was younger I took much of what he said at face value. In my early twenties I remember watching The Century of the Self and having knives out for Edward Bernaise. However, by the time he came out with HyperNormalisation and started off with narration that went (I'm paraphrasing) "This story begins in the 1970s with two men: Donald Trump and Hafez al Assad" I just chuckled and said to myself "okay, let's see where he takes this".

He has hit on an excellent sensory combination to trigger the amygdala: a soft, but erudite British accent serving as a reassuring narrator's voice and quick cuts of archival footage layered with contrasting colours set to ominous background music.

He certainly makes leaps in HyperNormalization, that, uh, test the bounds of credulity.

It's just a little too neat a package for my liking. Humans have always been flailing about blindly into the future; the 'narrative' of history can only be retrospective, because life is simply that way. The illusion of control by leaders is mostly a safety blanket we use to pretend that much of what happens isn't just random or dumb luck.

Stuff we'd previously attribute to "God's plan" or something of the like is revealed to be just random, or serendipity. If I was a betting man, I'd say the realization that 'randomness' is the modus operandi is probably far more terrifying to the evolved apes than thinking there's some sky God guiding the whole thing.

[flar]

You guys are harsh. It's not possible to make a documentary that meets your standards of objectivity, and someone like Curtis is acutely aware of that.

Take it for what it is, one man's novel interpretation of the chaos. These docs are meant to be thought-provoking, and they succeed on that front.

I hunger for this type of material, it's extremely rare in a world where 99% of thought and opinion is basically regurgitation.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by wave46

If I was a betting man, I'd say the realization that 'randomness' is the modus operandi is probably far more terrifying to the evolved apes than thinking there's some sky God guiding the whole thing.

Interestingly, this new series goes into the mid-60s psychological research surrounding exactly that premise, as well as some related cultural stuff like the Discordians etc.

Part of the narrative concerns how, in Curtis' view, the era of (the assumption of) "rational actors" produced certain forms while the era of "random actors" produces other ones. He links the previous model to mass movements, and the latter to a sort of free-floating commercial image-sphere that contains a lot of expression but almost no coherent action.

Part 4 is called "but what if the people are stupid?".

[wave46]

Originally Posted by flar

You guys are harsh. It's not possible to make a documentary that meets your standards of objectivity, and someone like Curtis is acutely aware of that.

Take it for what it is, one man's novel interpretation of the chaos. These docs are meant to be thought-provoking, and they succeed on that front.

I hunger for this type of material, it's extremely rare in a world where 99% of thought and opinion is basically regurgitation.

The implication behind 'documentary' is that it holds some truth in facts.

My beef with Curtis is that - while maybe thought-provoking - the leaps are too far. His narrative is so far removed from the mundane reality of daily life (and mundane it is, truly) that a lot of stuff is generally not terribly connected.

The fiscal crisis of New York in the 1970s, UFOs, Syria, technological utopians and the Presidency of Donald Trump are so far divorced from each other as to be irrelevant.

Sometimes chaos is just chaos. There's no secret link. Being human - despite our insistence somehow we've beat being human - and looking for patterns where they don't exist like a compulsive gambler choosing the same shot machine on prime-numbered days of months that have the letter "J" in them.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by wave46

He certainly makes leaps in HyperNormalization, that, uh, test the bounds of credulity.

It's just a little too neat a package for my liking. Humans have always been flailing about blindly into the future; the 'narrative' of history can only be retrospective, because life is simply that way. The illusion of control by leaders is mostly a safety blanket we use to pretend that much of what happens isn't just random or dumb luck.

Stuff we'd previously attribute to "God's plan" or something of the like is revealed to be just random, or serendipity. If I was a betting man, I'd say the realization that 'randomness' is the modus operandi is probably far more terrifying to the evolved apes than thinking there's some sky God guiding the whole thing.

The first half of the 20th century made humanity not too fond of "surprises".

And so those of us who have the luxury of being able to "curate" our travels down the historical path have tried very hard to make things as predictable as possible during the past 70 years.

Generally with some success I'd say. At least in the western world.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by flar

You guys are harsh. It's not possible to make a documentary that meets your standards of objectivity, and someone like Curtis is acutely aware of that.

Take it for what it is, one man's novel interpretation of the chaos. These docs are meant to be thought-provoking, and they succeed on that front.

I hunger for this type of material, it's extremely rare in a world where 99% of thought and opinion is basically regurgitation.

I don't think they're bad movies. In many ways, I think he's even in on his own joke. There's an 8 minute non sequitur (for him!) cut of Jane Fonda's 80s aerobics video in Hypernormalisation, and the themes of many of his movies are very meta: the powers of persuasion, not believing everything you see, the birth of conspiracy theories. He knows that he traffics in similar themes if you don't watch his movies with a critical eye.

But if you suspend disbelief and watch his movies with the aim of learning something, you should also critique how rigorously he builds his arguments. His arguments are grandiose: "the world is the way it is because X". I don't have a problem with grand theories, but if you're going to step onto that minefield, your approach is better served by having a tight case study around a small group of people where you can more closely control the risk of their random interactions and behaviour spilling out and invalidating your theory. Examples would be documentaries where a filmmaker follows 3 generations of a family, or something suitably small and manageable. This may not be as exciting and punk rock as an Adam Curtis movie - and maybe not as exciting viewing - but it's much more airtight.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by Acajack

The first half of the 20th century made humanity not too fond of "surprises".

And so those of us who have the luxury of being able to "curate" our travels down the historical path have tried very hard to make things as predictable as possible during the past 70 years.

Generally with some success I'd say. At least in the western world.

A killing spree followed by a Depression and another much worse killing spree will do that. Then the ability to have one big last killing spree kind of sobers one up.

So yeah, managing things is a better alternative.

I think people got used to the last 70 years and just assumed things would blithely continue on. The problem being that the people being 'managed' had expectations based on historical precedent that might not hold up as we wander deeper into the 21st century.

There is also the fact that the world is demographically moving away from the same groups who managed things. It's one thing to get orderly Germans or Japanese to operate in a managed world, it's not going to get easier with a much more heterogeneous mix of people to do the same.

[Acajack]

I mean, in the early days of the pandemic I found it a bit unsettling to go to grocery stores and find empty shelves where you'd normally have seen basic stuff in plentiful supply.

Pretty sure I wasn't the only one.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I don't think they're bad movies. In many ways, I think he's even in on his own joke. There's an 8 minute non sequitur (for him!) cut of Jane Fonda's 80s aerobics video in Hypernormalisation, and the themes of many of his movies are very meta: the powers of persuasion, not believing everything you see, the birth of conspiracy theories. He knows that he traffics in similar themes if you don't watch his movies with a critical eye.

But if you suspend disbelief and watch his movies with the aim of learning something, you should also critique how rigorously he builds his arguments. His arguments are grandiose: "the world is the way it is because X". I don't have a problem with grand theories, but if you're going to step onto that minefield, your approach is better served by having a tight case study around a small group of people where you can more closely control the risk of their random interactions and behaviour spilling out and invalidating your theory. Examples would be documentaries where a filmmaker follows 3 generations of a family, or something suitably small and manageable. This may not be as exciting and punk rock as an Adam Curtis movie - and maybe not as exciting viewing - but it's much more airtight.

As a meta thing, Hypernormalisation might work. Will most see it for what it's trying to be, if that's the case?

Does Curtis truly believe what he posits? Or is he trying to be too clever?

[flar]

We're going to disagree at a basic level, we seem to be taking something different from these films. Air tight is impossible when it comes to society and history, contradiction is fundamental to understanding. That's kind of what I like about these documentaries, I feel that they are a rare glimpse into that nebulous and contradictory nature of social reality.

[rousseau]

Never heard of him, but considering that this is the calibre of conversation he inspires, I will definitely check this out.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by wave46

As a meta thing, Hypernormalisation might work. Will most see it for what it's trying to be, if that's the case?

I'm not sure. I'm not even confident in my own interpretation of his films.

Maybe I'm seeing similarities between his films and a genre of mockumentaries like Exit Through the Gift Shop, where Banksy, being known as an artist who disguises his true identity, makes a seemingly genuine portrayal of a French artist (who is likely fake), who he discovers is making bad art and claiming them to be authentic Banksy pieces, which, because of the fact they were made for a film by Banksy, are probably real Banksy pieces that are intentionally bad!

Does Curtis truly believe what he posits? Or is he trying to be too clever?

I think that Curtis realizes and probably even revels in the fact that his theories are incredulous. But I don't think his intent is malicious. Far from it. I think he wants to provoke thought and stimulate more people to explore radical ideas, maybe even in a more rigorous way than he has in his films.

But I think he's motivated not by ideas but by aesthetics. I don't really have any glimpse into his creative process, but sometimes I wonder if he just loves stitching together archival footage the way a hip hop producer loves sampling diverse tracks, and he writes the narrative after that. So, on that level, I appreciate his work as an artist if not a scholar.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by flar

We're going to disagree at a basic level, we seem to be taking something different from these films. Air tight is impossible when it comes to society and history, contradiction is fundamental to understanding. That's kind of what I like about these documentaries, I feel that they are a rare glimpse into that nebulous and contradictory nature of social reality.

Just to be clear, I probably used the wrong word when I said "air tight". I don't believe any analysis or theory is air tight. There was a saying somewhere that I love to use: "all models are wrong, some are useful".

Like I said in the post above, I like Adam Curtis as an artist and his movies did encourage me to question a lot of what we held as orthodox, so I respect him a great deal for that.

On another note - and to bring it back to Canada somehow - I have to give credit to the BBC for basically giving him the keys to their archive room and letting him go nuts.

Can you imagine the CBC doing such a thing? At one point, maybe the NFB would have let an artist have complete creative carte blanche to use their footage for whatever crazy projects he/she had in mind, but, sadly, like a lot of Canadian cultural output, the NFB seems like it's a gutted husk of its former self.