Adam Curtis - HyperNormalisation

MookJong · 26 Sep 2016 at 12:07

Anyone a follower of Adam Curtis’ documentaries will want to look out for HyperNormalisation” which will be available on iPlayer from the 16th of October.

HyperNormalisation has been made specifically for BBC iPlayer. It tells an epic narrative spanning 40 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.

The film shows how 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 reveals how they too retreated into this make-believe world - which is why their opposition today has no effect, and nothing ever changes.

I would say that if you haven’t seen any of his work you might want to go to YouTube and find his critically acclaimed “The Century of the Self”, “The Power of “nightmares” and “Bitter Lake”.

His more recent TV series “The Trap” and “All watched over by machines of loving grace” did not receive such acclaim. However personally I’m a fan of “The Trap”. I can see some flaws in it especially in the first episode. The overall the premise however rings true and I think what Curtis was saying was a little ahead of it’s time to fully understand in 2007, well certainly for me. Curtis has admitted there were some weak areas in interviews.

Looking at the trailer for HyperNormalisation I think it will overlap with some of the themes of “The Trap” and also the shorts he produced for Charlie Brookers “Weekly Wipe”.

“Oh Dearism” and “Oh Dearism II” from Brookers show can also be found on Youtube and worth a look. If you think of “Oh Dearism” (made in 2009) in the context of what has unfolded during the medias reporting of the Syrian conflict, it is quite prophetic.

Here is the trailer for the new Film:

MookJong · 11 Oct 2016 at 16:16

Vice article and exclusive clip:

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/watch-this-exclusive-trailer-for-adam-curtis-new-documentary-hypernormalisation

randal · 11 Oct 2016 at 16:23

Thanks for the heads up, this looks fascinating.

ChroniC · 11 Oct 2016 at 16:36

Why are some people soo obsessed with trying to explain the fact that the system is broken by claiming it's all a cunning plan. It's rather retarded. Ocums razor etc.
We simple tried one way and our greed and stupidity have cause this whole mess.

robotSocks · 11 Oct 2016 at 19:20

more boring twaddle from the yawnsmith Mr Curtis.

MookJong · 12 Oct 2016 at 12:34

ChroniC said:
Why are some people soo obsessed with trying to explain the fact that the system is broken by claiming it's all a cunning plan. It's rather retarded. Ocums razor etc.
We simple tried one way and our greed and stupidity have cause this whole mess.

I'm not sure that is what Curtis has ever done. Curtis mainly focuses on the unintended consequences that have shaped the world.

As to him being a bore fest, have you watched the Century of the Self and The Power of nightmares?

robotSocks · 12 Oct 2016 at 22:34

yes. Yes I have. I have seen all of his work.

MookJong · 17 Oct 2016 at 10:30

This is now available on iPlayer...

Caged · 17 Oct 2016 at 20:59

It's important to note that every one of his pieces opens with "this is the story of" - it doesn't pretend to be a definitive work on a subject. As a piece of art they are brilliant, and they do tend to cover aspects of modern history that are easy to miss if you don't go looking for them.

I don't think the point being made in the programme was that a fake world was intentionally created by politicians etc., just that lying was a lot more convenient and the only option after that point was to continue with it.

beh · 18 Oct 2016 at 07:01

Found it a bit too disjointed. Perhaps that was the intention or that given it was nearly 3 hours I had to split watching it over 2 evenings.

Terminal_Boy · 18 Oct 2016 at 07:36

ChroniC said:
Why are some people soo obsessed with trying to explain the fact that the system is broken by claiming it's all a cunning plan. It's rather retarded. Ocums razor etc.
We simple tried one way and our greed and stupidity have cause this whole mess.

Exactly. Anyone that watches how the world's most powerful nations consistently fail to organise the proverbial drinking session in a brewery in both their foreign and domestic policies can't take any global conspiracy theories seriously.

MookJong · 18 Oct 2016 at 11:59

beh said:
Found it a bit too disjointed. Perhaps that was the intention or that given it was nearly 3 hours I had to split watching it over 2 evenings.

His previous TV shows have been in 3 one hour parts which may have suited better. This is clearly in chapters and the nature of iPlayer means you can dip in and out. I have downloaded it to my phone and watched it a bit at a time on my commute.

He always gets blasted for being disjointed but that is the nature of the style and stories he tells.

Anyway I'm half way through and so far it's good but I'm not blown away in the same way as I have been by his other work. I guess this is kind of a summary work, combining themes from The Trap, Oh Dearism and All watched over by machines of loving grace.

MookJong · 18 Oct 2016 at 12:34

Terminal_Boy said:
Exactly. Anyone that watches how the world's most powerful nations consistently fail to organise the proverbial drinking session in a brewery in both their foreign and domestic policies can't take any global conspiracy theories seriously.

Curtis doesn't believe in any global conspiracy, pretty much the opposite. The premise of this film is that the world has become too complex to control or understand anymore. In the face of this knowledge governments and institutions have retracted back to simplified ideas as they can no longer provide us with a vision of the future.

beh · 18 Oct 2016 at 16:41

MookJong said:
His previous TV shows have been in 3 one hour parts which may have suited better. This is clearly in chapters and the nature of iPlayer means you can dip in and out.

His previous series worked really well. Would probably be seen by more people if this was split up, currently it's quite a hard sell.

He always gets blasted for being disjointed but that is the nature of the style and stories he tells.

Bitter Lake just did it better. This pushed the disjointedness a bit far for me.

I'm not blown away in the same way as I have been by his other work. I guess this is kind of a summary work, combining themes from The Trap, Oh Dearism and All watched over by machines of loving grace.

Aye, a lot of it felt familiar so didn't really have the same effect.

Also agree with you on "unintended consequences" vs historian's fallacy. Never felt like he's been advocating a conspiracy.

MookJong · 19 Oct 2016 at 08:34

I have watched the whole thing now and I enjoyed it but the end felt rushed. Normally Curtis gives a bit of a summing up or a kicker / cliff-hanger and this had ample opportunity and material to do so but missed the mark.

I did find his theory on Trump interesting. There is an article in GQ at the moment where he goes into a bit more detail on Trump which explains it much better than the film did.

My feeling is that the end of the film particularly the stuff about the internet will become more true as time goes on. As I said abouve I watched "The Trap" in 2007 when it was first released and could not relate to some of it. Coming back to it last year it now rang true as there are now much clearer markers in society which Curtis could already see forming 10 years ago.

This is worth a read if you have never seen it before:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/f77519ae-1ab6-3755-8416-f18d1be078bc

mid_gen · 21 Oct 2016 at 09:09

About half way through it. It's pretty interesting, some history I didn't know about.

It's very obviously a case of his narrative and cherry-picked archive footage/history to support the narrative, so you have to take it all with a pinch of salt.....but a good watch.

MookJong · 21 Oct 2016 at 10:56

mid_gen said:
About half way through it. It's pretty interesting, some history I didn't know about.

It's very obviously a case of his narrative and cherry-picked archive footage/history to support the narrative, so you have to take it all with a pinch of salt.....but a good watch.

Yeah nearly every film of his has caused me to go away and find out more about "x". So if nothing else they are good at sparking your interest.