New Adam Curtis Documentary: HyperNormalisation
New Adam Curtis documentary, available on BBC iPlayer today October 16:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04b183c
Vice trailer:
https://www.facebook.com/VICE/videos/1414301661936421/?pnref=story
BBC blogs:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/02d9ed3c-d71b-4232-ae17-67da423b5df5
"I have a new film going up on iPlayer this Sunday - the 16th. Here’s a background to what the film is about. And a trail.
We live in a time of great uncertainty and confusion. Events keep happening that seem inexplicable and out of control. Donald Trump, Brexit, the War in Syria, the endless migrant crisis, random bomb attacks. And those who are supposed to be in power are paralysed - they have no idea what to do.
This film is the epic story of how we got to this strange place. It explains not only why these chaotic events are happening - but also why we, and our politicians, cannot understand them.
It shows that what has happened is that all of us in the West - not just the politicians and the journalists and the experts, but we ourselves - have retreated into a simplified, and often completely fake version of the world. But because it is all around us we accept it as normal.
HyperNormalisation
The film has been made specially for iplayer - and is a giant narrative spanning forty years, with an extraordinary cast of characters. They include the Assad dynasty, Donald Trump, Henry Kissinger, Patti Smith, the early performance artists in New York, President Putin, intelligent machines, Japanese gangsters, suicide bombers - and the extraordinary untold story of the rise, fall, rise again, and finally the assassination of Colonel Gaddafi.
All these stories are woven together to show how today’s fake and hollow world was created. Part of it was done by those in power - politicians, financiers and technological utopians. Rather than face up to the real complexities of the world, they retreated. And instead constructed a simpler version of the world in order to hang onto power
But it wasn’t just those in power. This strange world was built by all of us. We all went along with it because the simplicity was reassuring. And that included the left and the radicals who thought they were attacking the system. The film shows how they too retreated into this make-believe world - which is why their opposition today has no effect, and nothing ever changes.
But there is another world outside. And the film shows dramatically how it is beginning to pierce through into our simplified bubble. Forces that politicians tried to forget and bury forty years ago - that were then left to fester and mutate - but which are now turning on us with a vengeful fury."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04b183c
Vice trailer:
https://www.facebook.com/VICE/videos/1414301661936421/?pnref=story
BBC blogs:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/02d9ed3c-d71b-4232-ae17-67da423b5df5
"I have a new film going up on iPlayer this Sunday - the 16th. Here’s a background to what the film is about. And a trail.
We live in a time of great uncertainty and confusion. Events keep happening that seem inexplicable and out of control. Donald Trump, Brexit, the War in Syria, the endless migrant crisis, random bomb attacks. And those who are supposed to be in power are paralysed - they have no idea what to do.
This film is the epic story of how we got to this strange place. It explains not only why these chaotic events are happening - but also why we, and our politicians, cannot understand them.
It shows that what has happened is that all of us in the West - not just the politicians and the journalists and the experts, but we ourselves - have retreated into a simplified, and often completely fake version of the world. But because it is all around us we accept it as normal.
HyperNormalisation
The film has been made specially for iplayer - and is a giant narrative spanning forty years, with an extraordinary cast of characters. They include the Assad dynasty, Donald Trump, Henry Kissinger, Patti Smith, the early performance artists in New York, President Putin, intelligent machines, Japanese gangsters, suicide bombers - and the extraordinary untold story of the rise, fall, rise again, and finally the assassination of Colonel Gaddafi.
All these stories are woven together to show how today’s fake and hollow world was created. Part of it was done by those in power - politicians, financiers and technological utopians. Rather than face up to the real complexities of the world, they retreated. And instead constructed a simpler version of the world in order to hang onto power
But it wasn’t just those in power. This strange world was built by all of us. We all went along with it because the simplicity was reassuring. And that included the left and the radicals who thought they were attacking the system. The film shows how they too retreated into this make-believe world - which is why their opposition today has no effect, and nothing ever changes.
But there is another world outside. And the film shows dramatically how it is beginning to pierce through into our simplified bubble. Forces that politicians tried to forget and bury forty years ago - that were then left to fester and mutate - but which are now turning on us with a vengeful fury."
Comments (30)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFtsrjlsclQ&feature=share
https://piratebay.bid/torrent/16055882/BBC_Adam_Curtis_HyperNormalisation_WebRip_x264-MCTV
YouTube video has awful quality.
Dang. Where's that delete button?
Pretty bleak and enlightening at the same time.
I agree and I definitely think he's a cut above many others --buuut, he's still, ironically, guilty of drastic oversimplification - he gets rid of the shady eminence grise you find in standard conspiracy fare, but he's replaced them with all-knowing supercomputers and infallible algorithms. And somehow Syria's role in the middle east conflict has become the role - all roads lead back to Syria, every time, every event - Kissinger slighted Assad once and that's why the middle east is the way it is today. (Even if you didn't know that Saudi Arabia existed, this movie about state-sponsored islamic terrorism would still be entirely intelligible!) What's lacking is an admission that he's only looking at certain pieces of the puzzle, and through a certain lens. Curtis seems constitutionally unable to present any historical fact as something less than infinitely significant. Everything is always presented within this grand narrative where each element fits perfectly into place. In other words: the world's complexity exceeds everyone's grasp except Adam Curtis.
I enjoy his movies, and I enjoyed this one too, but I think they're best understood as a kind of entertainment. (superior to some other forms of entertainment in that they can prompt you to undertake your own investigations. Vladislav Surkov is fascinating and I didn't know anything about him before this movie. I've been reading up on him and learning a lot about contemporary russian culture.)
Anyway, here's this:
lol
I particularly appreciated the way he told the story of Gaddafi. I knew most of it, but the sheer absurdity had never really hit me before.
I read about Surkov a while ago, and couldn't quite believe it.
I don't get the impression that Curtis' views are any less shallow and "fake" than the straw men he's criticizing.
Same here, besides the Surkov bit, it was probably my favorite part of the whole movie.
But as I recall, he says something to the effect that suicide bombing slipped out of Assad's control and into the hands of the Sunni extremists (then on to the Iraqi insurgency and Isis). This implies there's another story to be told, another coherent thread leading to our situation, namely, I guess, from Salafism in Egypt, through Saudi Arabian conservatism, then Afghanistan and al Qaeda (the last of which he did in another film, though from a different angle). I don't know that it's fair to say he's pretending these other stories are not important, though of course he doesn't say much about them. The story here was of man with a vision giving up on it and losing control, which is a nice tale to illustrate an underlying explanation of how we got here.
- Go Chon, chief advisor of Professor Wumbleton the third.
Who or what would it be propaganda or a polemic against though?
Or maybe his story is just propaganda for itself.
It is a good vision - though I think there might actually be something to Barry Etheridge's wild claim that there's nothing here that hadn't already been said in Augustine's City of God. On the level of content, it's very silly. But the form seems ancient--- Isn't this Plato's cave? The sophists and the poets feeding us a false reality? I suspect you could find voices saying the same thing at nearly any moment of history. I wonder when the world was really real and people really lived in it? F Scott Fitzgerald had Gatsby's library of uncut books in 1925. Flaubert was convinced a bankrupt culture had tragically falsified life itself back in 1856, when he wrote Madame Bovary. Don Quixote, in 1605, had the same theme. Another way of looking at things: The world is realest to us when we're young. Curtis is 61 - 40 years ago, right as the world was beginning to wax false, he was 21.
People have changed the world. Don Quixote may have been deluded but he did right wrongs.
What system?
But, I should say that there doesn't seem to be anything new here. And, if Curtis want's the invisible hand of the market to be actually some sort of puppet hand (in reality) of the powerful elites, then boo hoo. Or maybe his point is that the invisible hand is outta control and either needs to be controlled (by what?) or subverted to the needs of the people rather than the elite (therefore socialism?). Same shit different way of saying it.
Regarding terrorism, as at least half of the whole documentary was devoted to it, one can hope that the U.S will get the fuck out of meddling with the Middle East once and for all and leave the place be; but, that doesn't support the notion of "maintaining our power / the system" in place so given Hillary will likely be the next successor to maintain the status quo we're going to only see escalating tensions in the region as usual.
Regarding technology. It doesn't seem too far a stretch that people would prefer to live in a solipsist word of their own making. So, what? Does that make the job of the ruling elite all the much easier to rule us 'sheeple'? Probably; but, there really isn't one can do anything about that to any significant extent.
Strangely enough climate change wasn't mentioned in the documentary; but, oh does it deserve a mention. The calamities will only escalate in the future, natural, man-made, and artificial to such an extent that I fear people might start behaving in the extreme.
Anyhow, I think the term 'hyper normalization' is accurate; but, neglects to mention the amount of cynicism and revulsion present nowadays. This sweeps under the rug the disenfranchisement people feel and how that can be utilized or serve as a catalyst as a positive force for creating a better system. Most people are fed up with the situation; but, really have nothing to do; but, grumble under their noses about the festering sore that American politics has become. The EU is not much better in this regard. Austerity doesn't work, and neither does stimulus. I for one hold the belief that people are easily spoiled and simply do not appreciate the amenities we derive from commerce, finances, and such matters. Who fucking cares if someone has a billion in their bank. I feel sorry for the fuckers, as they have no time to live life, just manage fictitious numbers on a screen.
I suspect real change will come with technological advancement. Either that or a real financial breakdown will bring any significant change as future generations will never be able to pay off the current accrued debt of this and previous generations. C'est la vie.