UKC

Watched the first half of this last night, well worth a watch. I found it riveting.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p04b183c/adam-curtis-hypernormalisatio...

In reply to Dell: All his stuff is very informative and well researched so I look forward to this one. Thanks.

In reply to Dell:

Some properly sickening scenes within this documentary and also intriguing concepts

In reply to Dell:

Worth watching for a bit of perspective on the his style. youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg&

I've always been a bit skeptical of his films

In reply to sheelba:



That is genius and very funny! Love Adam Curtis' films but that 3 minutes says an awful lot about his approach. Great find, shame the comments are disabled as that's one lot of YT comments I'd actually like to read...

I'll struggle to keep a straight face through them again. Will have to try the new one though. Thanks

In reply to sheelba:

All criticism I read about him has been about his style. But no one ever questions the content.

In reply to Dell:

I enjoy watching it as well-edited, stylish polemic, but a few too many friends view it as unassailable fact, because it agrees with their cynical view of the world. I share a lot of that cynical view, but approach Adam Curtis' stuff as one man's opinion rather than a comprehensive, objective analysis of its subject. I look forward to finding the best part of three hours to drink, watch and get riled up.

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

Having watched the rest of it, I didn't think it was too 'opinion heavy'
Assuming the facts presented are correct, the only way in which this represents Curtis' views are the ways in which he links various world events, and it was all very convincing.

In reply to Dell:

Anyone know the name of the opening song from the soundtrack?

In reply to drmarten:

The Vanishing American Family by ScubaZ. Gotta love Shazam.

In reply to HakanT:

I swear I've got a tab open on Shazam when I looked back to find you'd answered - thanks very much and the track is now downloaded. I'll have a mellow drive to work shortly.

In reply to Dell:
I did until I realised historical flaws and then I realsied that it was just a conspiracy theory. For example he talked about the fact that Human suicide bombs were first invented and used by the Arabs( and with a link to Assad)

Hate to say it but has Adam never heard of the Japanese suicide pilots and that it was quite common for japanese soldiers to pull greandes on themseleves to kill American, British soldiers at the same time.

At that point I realised it was just rubbish.

No doubt there is also a different interpretation of the money men and New York.

So I turned it off as a load of mumbo jumbo.

In reply to neilh:

I used to do a lot of terrorism studies in my old job and vaguely recall suicide bombing as a non state group being something attributed to the Tamil Tigers. Does that ring a bell with anyone else? And of course lots of history of military martyrdom ops down the ages!

In reply to neilh:
A little harsh, this is a minor niggle.

I didn't get the impression that he was implying that Iran invented suicide bombing per se, I understood it as they had brought suicide bombing into the realm of Islamic militancy, with structured and planned attacks.


See the graph:

https://aoav.org.uk/2013/a-short-history-of-suicide-bombings/

I'm sucked into watching this too.
On the face of it, it feels very easy to gorp through thinking "Oh yeah, I remember that, it must be true", but if you pause to look a little deeper there are little deficiencies and inaccuracies that make me disbelieve the extensive use of subtitles. How can I be sure that man is actually saying what the subtitles are saying?

It is very well edited, and does seem to tap into the zeitgeist. I haven't heard of any of the so-called experts he introduces but the way he presents them with associated imagery makes it so much more believable. I wonder how effective it would be in radio (I can already guess).

My biggest gripe with it is the way the iPlayer promotes it as a title, like they did with Bitter Lake. Makes me even more cynical.

In reply to drmarten:

If you haven't already, make sure to download the album Untrue by Burial while you are at it. He uses the song UK repeatedly in the film. Besides, it probably the best album in the past ten years.

In reply to TobyA:

Yeah, Tamil Tigers. Female Suicide bombers I seem to recall.

D