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Adam Curtis’ “Bitter Lake”: A Review

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Re: Adam Curtis’ “Bitter Lake”: A Review

#11

Post by renjimen »

austinjp wrote: post #9

I genuinely like Curtis' work, and Bitter Lake is peppered with interesting stuff and fantastic stock footage. But the dialogue in his recent films has been predictable: *But the old systems had never gone away. And then one person realised there was a vacuum at the heart of it all. But they had forgotten to program the computers with the one thing that really mattered. And then...." etc. I honestly can't tell if it'…

You'll enjoy this parody then https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg

It hits the nail on the head (but I still enjoy Curtis' work)

Re: Adam Curtis’ “Bitter Lake”: A Review

#12

Post by teh_klev »

austinjp wrote: post #9

I genuinely like Curtis' work, and Bitter Lake is peppered with interesting stuff and fantastic stock footage. But the dialogue in his recent films has been predictable: *But the old systems had never gone away. And then one person realised there was a vacuum at the heart of it all. But they had forgotten to program the computers with the one thing that really mattered. And then...." etc. I honestly can't tell if it'…

> I honestly can't tell if it's meta-parody. And that's why I'll keep watching.

I'm kinda in the same boat. But I think one of the things I like about Curtis is that he's made me read more about things I didn't know about.

For example I'd never given much thought about Afghanistan (other than Afghan coats) until the Soviet Union invaded. I was an early teenager (I'm in my mid 50s now), but reasonably interested in world politics, and even back then, and the Afghan war seemed like another cold war proxy conflict, and same old same old.

There were many events like that for me, and then I bumped into Curtis in 1992 and his Pandora's box series and I was sort of wowed at his take on the world. These wee snippets of, often obscure, history made tantalisingly accessible and fascinating by the way he assembles his final cuts, so much so that I went off and bought books on history rather than be informed by the opinion pieces in the Times (London), The Guardian etc. I will caveat that I realise history books are not free of bias.

Whatever he's doing I think it's a good thing. Sure he often reaches no conclusions but he throws many ideas at us to make us think. Maybe proper historians rue the day he got the cart blanch from the BBC to make these films and series and don't find them "academic" enough. And maybe his work is just a form of meta-parody art, but there's always something in these films to tickle your grey matter.

Finally, if anyone's interested in a docu-fictional story about the British Empire's comeuppance in Afghanistan the I'd recommend the first book in George MacDonald Fraser's "Flashman" series:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashman_(novel)

Re: Adam Curtis’ “Bitter Lake”: A Review

#13

Post by ayngg »

pan69 wrote: post #2

> Curtis draws a conclusion without a narrative trajectory; he leaves multifarious discordant happenings to interplay... I think Curtis does this on purpose. Whenever I watch a Curtis doco, I feel I'm being told a compelling story. However, if you ask me afterwards what it was about, I will stumble to explain what it was about. I think Curtis is trying to show the viewer the complexity of the world and how difficult…

I think it is like what you said, most of his work seems to fundamentally revolve around how incomprehensibly complex systems in society have become, and the consequences of attempts to control many of those systems (either by necessity or arrogance). Most of this stories are just myths, strings interwoven in the much larger fabric of interlinking events meant to show how many of these discrete simplifications of reality interact and often clash with each other.

Re: Adam Curtis’ “Bitter Lake”: A Review

#14

Post by sammalloy »

My only complaint about Curtis is that some of the music samples he uses over and over again are phenomenally bad and distracting to the viewer. The trope of using discordant, clashing notes is obviously retro, but its day has come and gone.

It's never been clear to me as to why he would want to turn his audience away, but the only thing I can come up with is that it's generational, as many of these bad sound clips come from the 1960s and 1970s, and it's possible they sound different to his ear than they do to mine.

Re: Adam Curtis’ “Bitter Lake”: A Review

#15

Post by mc32 »

ayngg wrote: post #13
pan69 wrote: post #2

> Curtis draws a conclusion without a narrative trajectory; he leaves multifarious discordant happenings to interplay... I think Curtis does this on purpose. Whenever I watch a Curtis doco, I feel I'm being told a compelling story. However, if you ask me afterwards what it was about, I will stumble to explain what it was about. I think Curtis is trying to show the viewer the complexity of the world and how difficult…

I think it is like what you said, most of his work seems to fundamentally revolve around how incomprehensibly complex systems in society have become, and the consequences of attempts to control many of those systems (either by necessity or arrogance). Most of this stories are just myths, strings interwoven in the much larger fabric of interlinking events meant to show how many of these discrete simplifications of rea…

Not just the modern world. Any connected civilization which needs to contend with factions, differing interests, foes, allies, and "intersectionality". If you lived in an isolated island a half dozen centuries ago or more, then it would be simpler till a voyager tribe, society or civilization landed.

Re: Adam Curtis’ “Bitter Lake”: A Review

#17

Post by jgalt212 »

renjimen wrote: post #11
austinjp wrote: post #9

I genuinely like Curtis' work, and Bitter Lake is peppered with interesting stuff and fantastic stock footage. But the dialogue in his recent films has been predictable: *But the old systems had never gone away. And then one person realised there was a vacuum at the heart of it all. But they had forgotten to program the computers with the one thing that really mattered. And then...." etc. I honestly can't tell if it'…

You'll enjoy this parody then https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg It hits the nail on the head (but I still enjoy Curtis' work)

quote from video

> the audience didn't notice the chasm between argument and conclusion.

due to all the crap he throws up on the screen.

Re: Adam Curtis’ “Bitter Lake”: A Review

#18

Post by raidicy »

I really do not like it at in episode 1, of his latest doc series, Curtis did not show the very questionable results from MK Ultra and chose only to cherry-pick the only woman coming forward to say that it wiped her memory and cut it so that it looked very credible. And then went on further to say that it only wiped patients memories which from my understanding all it did was create a bunch of people with PTSD or Nothing at All.

Ironic that the episode is largely about paranoia,disinformation and persuading someone's thoughts based on narratives. Curtis asserts shaky if not outright wrong results about a once popular American Mythos, MK Ultra.

If my suspicions are true; in that which he has assembled a series of facts that he believes fits a certain narrative that he is weaving into this documentary, the irony would further solidify into an ingot. As this first episode is also about succumbing to false narratives via paranoia and the false idea that appearance of patterns alone are evidence enough of a phenomenon. While this episode attempts to dispel the notion that grand conspiracies and higher forces are driving the centuries narrative, his cuts and edits and how he presents the information may weave his own.

It's disappointing because I want to watch something like this that condenses and attempts to form some kind of understanding on how the state of the world is today.

Re: Adam Curtis’ “Bitter Lake”: A Review

#19

Post by kafkaIncarnate »

raidicy wrote: post #18

I really do not like it at in episode 1, of his latest doc series, Curtis did not show the very questionable results from MK Ultra and chose only to cherry-pick the only woman coming forward to say that it wiped her memory and cut it so that it looked very credible. And then went on further to say that it only wiped patients memories which from my understanding all it did was create a bunch of people with PTSD or Not…

I think this is a reference to Subproject 54. Take this information as you wish (pg. 40):

https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/hear...

> Senator SCHWEIKER. Subproject 54, MKULTRA, which involved examination of techniques to cause brain concussions and amnesia by using weapons or sound waves to strike individuals without giving and without leaving any clear physical marks. Someone dubbed it "perfect concussion" - maybe that was poetic license on the part of our staff rather than your poets over there. I wonder if you could just tell us what brain concussion experiments were about?

> Admiral TURNER. This project, No. 54, was canceled, and never carried out.

> Senator SCHWEIKER. Well, I do believe the first year of the project in 1955 was carried out by the Office of Naval Research, according to the information that you supplied us. The CIA seems to have been participating in some way at that point, because the records go on to say that the experimenter at ONR found out about CIA's role, discovered that it was a cover, and then the project was transferred to MKULTRA in 1956. Again, this is all from the backup material you have given us. So, it was canceled at some time. I am not disagreeing with that, but apparently for at least a year or two, somebody was investigating the production of brain concussions with special blackjacks, sound waves, and other methods as detailed in the backup material.

> Admiral TURNER. The data available to me is that this project was never funded by the CIA, but I will double-check that and furnish the information for the record for you as to whether there was ever any connection here and if so, what the nature of the work was.

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