He is one of my favourite documentary film maker of all time. Some people try to just to let scenes tell the story, but I think Adam Curtis is probably the only one who has the balls/delusion to derive a story from human history. It's very fascinating to me because unlike other people who work with history, who tend to just make the historical factual and snippet of that time, he's very about relating those very vast topics into one holistic whole. While I don't necessarily agree with everything he says, because he tends to extrapolate from the evidence he collects and there is no definitive proof he is correct, I still love he tries to derive meaning in the chaos. I think he's very much an author in that way. Anyway, what do you guys feel about him? Don't let my adoration for him scare you, I'm still sceptical most of what he says, I just think he's braver than most for saying it.
It needs a visual aid! Many people (myself included) have probably never heard of him: Fascinating stuff. Essentially the Kaneman guy (however it's spelled) was saying what Freud (in a limited way) and Jung before him already had said, that the conscious mind is an outgrowth of the much larger unconscious, since the modern apparatus in the brain that creates conscious thought (largely the neocortex or New Cortex) had only been with us since our ancestors stood up on their hind legs, started opposing their thumbs, and invented language. It's the stuff I prattle on about all the time in fact. My blog is filled with it. I'm not sure I agree though that there's nothing we can do, there's definitely a point to conscious thought and rationality. Yes, it's true, we do ultimately make many of our choices unconsciously, but rationality can change the way you think, and can affect your decisions strongly. I think just saying "Oh well, much of our thoughts are unconscious and beyond our control, therefore all is lost" is pure nihilism and just not true. Personally I believe more in existentialism, the idea that we create meaning through the way we think and act. Thought is a dialogue between the conscious and unconscious, you don't want to just cede all control over entirely to the unconscious! That would be equivalent to living like uneducated children. While we will never know an ultimate meaning behind it all, that's just an abstract idea anyway. We must make our way here in this muddy and imperfect sphere where we live. And it's the struggle to understand, to create a narrative of life, and to make some sense of it all that gives it meaning. Lol sorry, I'm talking about the subject of that documentary, or rather the trailer for it. But that's all I have to go on right now. Yeah, the guy seems to make some cool docos!
All his documentaries are uploaded unto YouTube if you want to have a spin. I probably should have linked one or two. But I wanted to see if he was popular first. It's rare for documentary makers to have a narrative that runs through most of their career, but weirdly in Adam's case, I think it'd be better to watch from begining to appreciate his genius. Having said that, I started from "century of self". But as to your point about meaning, I heartily agree. We can and should always strive for meaning, even if we can never know if our meaning is correct. I think Adam does it incredibly well, he takes snapshots of various acts/scenes in history (incredible stuff I doubt I would ever have knowledge of outside of his docos) and tries to weave it into a cohesive tapestry of human history. It's actually inconceivable that he can create a narrative so convincing.
