Adam Curtis - Can't Get You Out Of My Head, Feb 11th

[Mobius]

I love that parody. It's all true, but doesn't change my love of Curtis. I think Adam even commented on how much he enjoyed that too? Or maybe I made that up.

I just like the style and the mood of his documentaries, even if what he says is sometimes a bit silly. Sometimes it's brilliant and sometimes you're like "well that's a stretch" but yeah they're enjoyable immersive unique viewing for me, you can really lose yourself in them and the footage and music used creates a strange sort of sensation.

[Dr Syntax Head]

I love that parody. It's all true, but doesn't change my love of Curtis. I think Adam even commented on how much he enjoyed that too? Or maybe I made that up.

I just like the style and the mood of his documentaries, even if what he says is sometimes a bit silly. Sometimes it's brilliant and sometimes you're like "well that's a stretch" but yeah they're enjoyable immersive unique viewing for me, you can really lose yourself in them and the footage and music used creates a strange sort of sensation.

This is exactly my take on it. It's like those lectures you had by a charismatic and energetic lecturer where you may not have learned as much as you could but inspired you to go deeper into the subject matter. I recently watched Bitter Lake and it led to a (rather depressing and confusing) couple of weeks reading and researching a lot about the Syrian conflict and it's history. Curtis films for me are great springboards for further exploration. Weirdly I find his films comforting also.

[Petey Pate]

The message has themes deliberately carried over from previous works but each time you feel like he is building on his previous realisations or reordering them to try and make sense of them.

Not just themes but the same footage in some cases. I'm pretty sure the interview with the MK Ultra victim was from one of his early 90s documentaries.

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

Not just themes but the same footage in some cases. I'm pretty sure the interview with the MK Ultra victim was from one of his early 90s documentaries.

Yep, maybe Pandora's box?

[Mobius]

Adam Curtis has had a long chat with Charlie Brooker if anyone is interested

https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/4ad8db/adam-curtis-charlie-brooker-cant-get-you-out-of-my-head

edit - oh he does mention the parodies

"I really like the parodies when they are good. That one called The Loving Trap I loved, because it was so sharp. It spotted that really it was the voice. It was just really well done. I liked the bingo cards when they started, but now lots of people seem to have bingo cards, so I feel a little less interested."

[gib]

I love that parody. It's all true, but doesn't change my love of Curtis. I think Adam even commented on how much he enjoyed that too? Or maybe I made that up.

I just like the style and the mood of his documentaries, even if what he says is sometimes a bit silly. Sometimes it's brilliant and sometimes you're like "well that's a stretch" but yeah they're enjoyable immersive unique viewing for me, you can really lose yourself in them and the footage and music used creates a strange sort of sensation.

Excellent summary.

[ProvanFan]

Madame Curtis

[Dr Syntax Head]

Nah actually fuck all your smug criticisms of Adam Curtis this is totally brilliant. I do get it mind, the style over substance thing. But fuck me if this hasn't been the most emotionally and intellectually engaging thing I've seen on TV for a long time. I'm on episode 3 for context. I could be watching dancing on ice instead. For context.

[Theremin]

Yep, maybe Pandora's box?

Edit, wrongo.

[Theremin]

https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/4ad8db/adam-curtis-charlie-brooker-cant-get-you-out-of-my-head

From the opening crawl:

Adam is perhaps the best British filmmaker of his generation...

Yes, absolutely.

...and Charlie is one of the most important television writers working anywhere right now. 

You fucking what? The bloke who wrote 5 episodes of 'Wot If Your Compootah Was Scary?'

[katzenjammer]

Not just themes but the same footage in some cases. I'm pretty sure the interview with the MK Ultra victim was from one of his early 90s documentaries.

It's from The Living Dead as mentioned by Bentley Sheds a page back. There's quite a lot of footage from that, the interview with Mahler and the West German student protests of the 60s, for example.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Nah actually fuck all your smug criticisms of Adam Curtis this is totally brilliant. I do get it mind, the style over substance thing. But fuck me if this hasn't been the most emotionally and intellectually engaging thing I've seen on TV for a long time. I'm on episode 3 for context. I could be watching dancing on ice instead. For context.

It has reached the point where the fact this exists, even hidden away on iplayer, on the BBC, is a bit fucking mad.

How can one watch even episode 1 and not come away with a visceral hatred of nationalism and parochialism? It would be genuinely incendiary to expose the rabble to this content.

[TrenterPercenter]

Curtis films for me are great springboards for further exploration. Weirdly I find his films comforting also.

This 100% and I love them too; he is a great distiller and facilitator; He has great way of making people feel "in the know" and getting people to the "ahhhh" moment that would normally just scoff at things.

I was talking about Baudrilliard and hyperreality since 2010 to some friends who never really saw the importance of it then all of sudden Curtis starts talking about hypernormalisation and they all became chin stroking philosophers about it.

People mocking Curtis for not being as clever as he thinks he is are not getting what he is about.

[Petey Pate]

You fucking what? The bloke who wrote 5 episodes of 'Wot If Your Compootah Was Scary?'

I've probably written several [Black Mirror parodies] myself, inadvertently, as episodes of the series. Daniel M. Lavery summed up some of the early episodes with the phrase "What If Phones But Too Much", which made me laugh, so I wrote an episode with almost precisely that plot in a cowardly attempt to co-opt the burn.

No mention of Corbyn in either the Charlie Brooker or the Blind Boy interview. Beginning to wonder if Curtis has even heard of him.

[BlodwynPig]

People mocking Curtis for not being as clever as he thinks he is are not getting what he is about.

"AAAAAHHHHH!"

[Sebastian Cobb]

I'm going to get really, really stoned before watching these, cheers.

[Head Gardener]

Part 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bud9zF8e1zU

Part 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GeDN9Jw4E0

Part 3 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmTzGcDboME

Part 4 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vrqGlGnBUg

Part 5 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AI2lRVifwg

Part 6 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_XdqHP5EUg

[Blumf]

Is anybody else irritated by the font in the BBC Film logo?

[Endicott]

Now you mention it, yes. I knew something was bugging me.

[BlodwynPig]

Is anybody else irritated by the font in the BBC Film logo?

Event television for Gen Z. Pathetic. *raises crutches*

[mothman]

Shazamming all the music, and the answers are popping up immediately, so I guess a lot of others are doing the same... never heard that Phosphorescent track before, sent it to my 16yo, it's right up her alley.

[damien]

FYI there's a 5-hour playlist on Spotify of all the choons played.

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

Part 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bud9zF8e1zU

Part 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GeDN9Jw4E0

Part 3 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmTzGcDboME

Part 4 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vrqGlGnBUg

Part 5 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AI2lRVifwg

Part 6 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_XdqHP5EUg

Bless you

[mothman]

FYI there's a 5-hour playlist on Spotify of all the choons played.

Ta muchly

[wooders1978]

FYI there's a 5-hour playlist on Spotify of all the choons played.

You blessed man - cheers

[Petey Pate]

Finally, someone asks Curtis about Corbyn.

You argue that no one is offering alternative visions of the future. Could you argue that in recent years we have seen relatively different visions come very close to power – Jeremy Corbyn's Labour and Bernie Sanders; both with flaws but at least willing to explore new ideas like Universal Basic Income and the Green New Deal?

But they still failed. You've got to accept the fact that you're not giving people a powerful enough idea of an alternative future, one that will attract people who voted for Trump and Brexit, who you need on your side. If you look at what Sanders was saying in the 2016 campaign, it was almost word-for-word what Trump was saying – why have they shipped factories off to China, why are people living in derelict places addicted to opioids, why are we killing thousands of people in foreign wars, why is there so much corrupt lobbying? I still think he might have won in that moment, it's terrible that the Democrats stitched him up. Remember that many of the people who voted for Trump in 2016 were the same people who voted for Obama, and unless the left really comes up with something bigger that can grab those people imaginatively then some really nasty people, much nastier than Trump, will.

[BlodwynPig]

Flaws are actually good, of course. Perfection is for the bland at heart.

I see nothing in any of Curtis' great body of work that offers an alternative or a solution. The opposite in fact. "Not my job" he says. Then your opinion should be kept private.

[NoSleep]

If you look at what Sanders was saying in the 2016 campaign, it was almost word-for-word what Trump was saying – why have they shipped factories off to China, why are people living in derelict places addicted to opioids, why are we killing thousands of people in foreign wars, why is there so much corrupt lobbying?

Bloody hell. Bernie Sanders and Trump are the same?

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Bloody hell. Bernie Sanders and Trump are the same?

Not the point he makes at all! He is saying how they were aiming at a similar audience*. Obviously they were offering different approaches, as is implied by the end of his reply.

*disaffected rust belt, pro-protectionist, pro-isolationist voters

[greenman]

Flaws are actually good, of course. Perfection is for the bland at heart.

I see nothing in any of Curtis' great body of work that offers an alternative or a solution. The opposite in fact. "Not my job" he says. Then your opinion should be kept private.

I think you could argue that is really his job, to breed hopelessness and apathy miced in with smug superiority, its why the BBC keep him around.

Yeah I would say it's from 'all watched over by machines of loving grace' onwards which has suffered from this issue more obviously.

I say that while absolutely loving his style and being enthralled by it all the same. It does annoy me sometimes when he conveniently ignores stuff that wouldn't fit with his narrative through line though. I don't think anyone actually wants broad conclusions drawn so I don't know why he tries to tie things together so crudely as he does.

It has always seemed a little hypocritical that a man obsessed with the idea of the public being manipulated gets his idead across in films which are themselves obviously manipulative.