It seems relevant to mention to anyone who isn't english that the BBC channel Adam Curtis works with is British State Media. A lot of his indecisive dialogue and orthodoxy being weirdly at odds with the information and footage he shows the viewer might be explained as a man with more controversial opinions trying to subvert from inside the establishment. If he'd come out too damningly against the UK military or establishment he'd probably lose his comfortable platform.
Adam Curtis’ “Bitter Lake”: A Review
51–60 of 65 posts
Re: Adam Curtis’ “Bitter Lake”: A Review
#52> 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 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. Agreed. > I think Curtis is trying to show the viewer the complexity of the world An alternative, more reasonable take is that Adam Curtis is a bullshitter, whose documentaries give the illusion of understandi…
> Adam Curtis is a bullshitter, whose documentaries give the illusion of understanding complicated subjects without any actual understanding
Only God knows the whole truth! /sarcasm
Both can be true imo.
The problem is that the media which we consume is made ephemeral by way of omission. Media is turned into 'intellectual property' by our outdated copyright/IP system, which makes (now)digital media artificially scarce. Someone like Adam Curtis is merely lucky because he has both the time and the access to this material, and the BBC is paying the 'licensing fees' for the footage he uses.
The average working class person in the US is constantly bombarded with media, yet our collective memory (in the form of archival video/media) is often lacking universal access. So the means to reflect and make connections and conclusions is artificially scarce, which means we jump from newsworthy 'event' to 'event' (without seeing and understanding their interconnectedness):
"To describe the spectacle, its formation, its functions and the forces which tend to dissolve it, one must artificially distinguish certain inseparable elements. When analyzing the spectacle one speaks, to some extent, the language of the spectacular itself in the sense that one moves through the methodological terrain of the very society which expresses itself in the spectacle. But the spectacle is nothing other than the sense of the total practice of a social-economic formation, its use of time. It is the historical movement in which we are caught."
- Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord [1]
or Wikipedia summary:
"Debord analyzes the use of knowledge to assuage reality: the spectacle obfuscates the past, imploding it with the future into an undifferentiated mass, a type of never-ending present; in this way the spectacle prevents individuals from realizing that the society of spectacle is only a moment in history, one that can be overturned through revolution." [2]
In other words, the schizophrenic capitalist-owned media isn't followable without serious mental health implications as it's an overwhelming never-ending assault that captures the working class' imagination. The confusion and alienation it creates solely benefits the propertied class.
[1] https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/debord/society.ht...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Society_of_the_Spectacle
Re: Adam Curtis’ “Bitter Lake”: A Review
#53I didn't care much for the review; way too much verbiage before he gets to talking about the film. I found the film difficult to consume. He mentions "wahaabism" very early on. Then he keeps linking the Taliban to wahaabism. Well, they're related, in that both are islamic revivalists. But from the start, the mention of "wahaabism" put me off, and led me to question his arguments. You see, there is nobody that refers…
aq & taliban are both the result of a chain of events you can draw to the post meccan siege shift in power among the saudi elite to the clerics that led to the mass establishment and funding of salafi madrassas abroad, sending young men and funds abroad to the afghan conflict, etc. the taliban come directly out of these madrassas. they are part of the same great cultural current which is at its root a dialectic between royals and clerics in ksa. wahhabism is an exonym but is a perfectly valid descriptor.
Re: Adam Curtis’ “Bitter Lake”: A Review
#54I didn't care much for the review; way too much verbiage before he gets to talking about the film. I found the film difficult to consume. He mentions "wahaabism" very early on. Then he keeps linking the Taliban to wahaabism. Well, they're related, in that both are islamic revivalists. But from the start, the mention of "wahaabism" put me off, and led me to question his arguments. You see, there is nobody that refers…
aq & taliban are both the result of a chain of events you can draw to the post meccan siege shift in power among the saudi elite to the clerics that led to the mass establishment and funding of salafi madrassas abroad, sending young men and funds abroad to the afghan conflict, etc. the taliban come directly out of these madrassas. they are part of the same great cultural current which is at its root a dialectic betwe…
I don't think it's reasonable to describe the Taliban as "part of the same great cultural current which is at its root a dialectic between royals and clerics in ksa".
The Taliban are interested in Afghanistan. In fact I suspect they are primarily interested in "Pashtunistan", or Waziristan. They are interested in western Afghanistan only insofar as it is primarily Shia, and the Taliban are very much sectarian Sunnis. I don't think many Taliban are particularly interested in what happens in faraway Saudi Arabia.
AQ are interested in destroying the enemies of their kind of Sunni islam, especially in Saudi Arabia and the USA. So while the Taliban and AQ share a Sunni affiliation, the former want to run Afghanistan; the latter want to change the whole world.
Re: Adam Curtis’ “Bitter Lake”: A Review
#55I had trouble understanding what this review is talking about. I searched and found this review which is more expository:
https://letterboxd.com/gdw/film/bitter-lake-2015/
I was then able to go back and read the submitted link and it no longer seemed to be written in a foreign language.
Re: Adam Curtis’ “Bitter Lake”: A Review
#56I 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)
That’s a great parody, and Adam Curtis himself agrees:
> [Brooker] I’m guessing you’ve seen the parodies, things like the Adam Curtis Bingo Card, where people are – I think affectionately – listing some of your stylistic quirks. How do you feel about those?
> [Curtis] 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.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/4ad8db/adam-curtis-charlie-b...
Re: Adam Curtis’ “Bitter Lake”: A Review
#57I didn't care much for the review; way too much verbiage before he gets to talking about the film. I found the film difficult to consume. He mentions "wahaabism" very early on. Then he keeps linking the Taliban to wahaabism. Well, they're related, in that both are islamic revivalists. But from the start, the mention of "wahaabism" put me off, and led me to question his arguments. You see, there is nobody that refers…
The connection he was making was that wahhabism threatened the monarchy in the 1920s, and ever since the SA monarchy has dealt with the threat via deflection. A couple of those are the religious schools abroad in greater arabia and having their agitators release their vigor abroad in things like the afghan wars. There is a mix and struggle between warlords and taleban and aq. In the end the conflict in AF arose from SA exporting their internal conflict externally --various factions and ethnic group divisions in AF didn't help the situation. All in exchange for propping up the SA monarchy which the West contributes to as well due to the importance of energy to the world.
Re: Adam Curtis’ “Bitter Lake”: A Review
#58[deleted]
Re: Adam Curtis’ “Bitter Lake”: A Review
#59I didn't care much for the review; way too much verbiage before he gets to talking about the film. I found the film difficult to consume. He mentions "wahaabism" very early on. Then he keeps linking the Taliban to wahaabism. Well, they're related, in that both are islamic revivalists. But from the start, the mention of "wahaabism" put me off, and led me to question his arguments. You see, there is nobody that refers…
The connection he was making was that wahhabism threatened the monarchy in the 1920s, and ever since the SA monarchy has dealt with the threat via deflection. A couple of those are the religious schools abroad in greater arabia and having their agitators release their vigor abroad in things like the afghan wars. There is a mix and struggle between warlords and taleban and aq. In the end the conflict in AF arose from…
I got the chain of connections. But I don't think he adequately presented evidence for the various links in that chain.
I mean, it all seems fairly plausible; but I felt after watching it that I wasn't convinced. I guess what I need reading material, with links to sources.
I just found "The Trap: What Happened To Our Dream Of Freedom" on iPlayer. When it came out I only managed to see episode 1, which I liked a lot. So now I'm (re)watching the whole set of 3.
Re: Adam Curtis’ “Bitter Lake”: A Review
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
The connection he was making was that wahhabism threatened the monarchy in the 1920s, and ever since the SA monarchy has dealt with the threat via deflection. A couple of those are the religious schools abroad in greater arabia and having their agitators release their vigor abroad in things like the afghan wars. There is a mix and struggle between warlords and taleban and aq. In the end the conflict in AF arose from…
I got the chain of connections. But I don't think he adequately presented evidence for the various links in that chain. I mean, it all seems fairly plausible; but I felt after watching it that I wasn't convinced. I guess what I need reading material, with links to sources. I just found "The Trap: What Happened To Our Dream Of Freedom" on iPlayer. When it came out I only managed to see episode 1, which I liked a lot.…
I’m not sure the point of the review was to make a convincing argument for the veracity of the preceding claim (SA exported their internal problems, the US unwittingly helped, leading to disaster across the greater Middle East). I haven’t watched the documentary yet but I suspect that wasn’t the “point” of the film either. It’s a complex claim (that I personally find very convincing) that is one historians get to make later with the gift of historical distance from the events in question. So, time will tell I suppose.