Adam Curtis

Anyone know what he's working on at the moment?

I am looking for books that cover common topics like politics or war, but also - maybe - have a similar narrative structure.

I’m writing a paper and trying to tie Curtis’ montages to situationism. I feel like there’s something surreal about them. It’s interesting bc he ties together concrete facts with these montages that evoke affect.

I was reading this thread on the YCombinator forums and I think it explains (or at the very least) provides some context to HyperNormalisation and why we seem stuck, without having a way forward.

A few comments from the thread:

Today, we have become citizens of a global, Brezhnevian capitalist state, which, in its failure to provide an inspiring frontier—gone are the days of Kennedy’s “New Frontiers” or Obama’s “Change We Can Believe In”—has slowly ossified and wrapped back upon itself. My feeling is that all the troubles we’ve been witnessing over the last decade—Trumpism, Brexit, the rise of nationalism all over Europe, Russia’s virulent imperialism—are attempts to disrupt not just the dominant political systems, but the zone of eternal repetition. ⁠

The idea that Western capitalism is self-defeating precisely because it is so successful in ensuring political and social stability, thereby stifling the people living under it. ⁠

The original article is this:

What are your thoughts?

Welcome to the post-post-post-truth AI world. You know it’s not real. But you find yourself making out with bots and shoes. And there is more out there. ASMR is distracting you from a slightly higher priority: survive. The Future will be weird AF.

The synthetic voice of Adam Curtis

Is there a documentary that Adam has done that tells the story of Israel and Palestine?

If so, please drop it below 👇🏽

Not necessarily ones with Adam in as Ive seen most of what he’s appeared on in recent years!

This beast of a documentary drops on Thursday and I think will be a fascinating watch. For those unfamiliar with Adam Curtis, he's a documentary filmmaker whose films like to examine history and from it he tries to create a narrative of how we got the place we're in. He then uses footage from the BBC archive to create hypnotic and dream like films he narrates you through.

Related to collapse: Curtis' access to the BBC archives means he has access to tens of thousands of unseen footage from that time. It will be a window into what it was like to live through a collapse.

Synopsis and trailer:

At the start of the 1990s the Soviet Union - one the largest empires in the world - imploded.

It was not a slow collapse like the British Empire, but one that collapsed suddenly - in just a few months.

In the west we didn’t really see or understand what then happened because we were blinded by victory in the cold war. In reality what the Russian people experienced was a profound disaster which left behind it deep scars and a furious anger - that led to what is happening in Russia now and in Ukraine.

This series of films is a record of what it felt like to live through that catastrophe.

It is also the story how a society of millions of people stopped believing in all politics. Not just communism, but democracy too. Something that no-one else has experienced in the modern world. Yet.

Edit: Few people asking where this can watched. It can now be watched on iplayer: . Outside of that I'm not sure but Curtis' documentaries always end up on youtube.

Because I would listen to it all the time.

Here is a list of songs (music list) in Curtis Can't Get You Out of My Head.

• Natalie Beridze – When Dreams Become Responsibility

• The Specials – Do Nothing

• Nine Inch Nails – Your Touch

• Phosphorescent – Song for Zula

• Royal Ballet Sinfonia – The Ladykillers (Main Titles)

• Zhou Xuan – Age of Bloom (Hua Yang De Nianhua)

• Pye Corner Audio – Pulse Threshold

• John Carpenter – Theme from The Fog

• Nine Inch Nails – The Worriment Waltz

• The Incredible String Band – Air

• Bill Ryder-Jones – The Reader (Malbork)

• Nine Inch Nails – Letting Go While Holding On

• Aphex Twin – #4

• In the Nursery – Haunted Dancehall

• Thomas Ragsdale – Warning Mass

• Stars of the Lid – Humectez la Mouture

• Burial – Beachfires

• Aphex Twin – Avril 14th

• Brian McBride – Girl Nap

• Brian McBride – When the Detail Lost its Freedom

• Clint Mansell & Kronos Quartet – Ghosts of Things to Come

• Natalie Beridze – Silently

• Natalie Beridze – Blue in Grey

• Loreta Kovacic – Tortured Tendon Time

• Marlene Dietrich – Sag Mir Wo Die Blumen Sind

• Nine Inch Nails – Run Like Hell

• Chromatics – Broken Mirrors

• Aphex Twin – #23

• Henry Mancini – Experiment in Terror

• The Raveonettes – Recharge & Revolt

• Sex Pistols – Who Killed Bambi?

• Claude Channes – La Chinoise (Mao Mao)

• Arne Weinberg & Shawn Rudiman – The Lost Arts

• The Mekons – Where Were You?

• Atticus Ross & Leopold Ross - Eleven Fifty Eight

• Brian McBride – A Gathering to Lead Me When You're Gone

• Stars of the Lid – Don't Bother They're Here

• Geneva Skeen – A Parallel Array of Horses

• Natalie Beridze – Barely Barely

• John Barry – God Save Us

• Richie Hawtin – No Way Back

• 2Pac – Violent

• Cocteau Twins – Lorelei

• John Barry – Yes, Who is That?

• Bonnie Guitar – Dark Moon

• C9 – A1t6i

• Roger Eno – Quixote

• Natalie Beridze – Lavandar Lips

• Ennio Morricone – La Casa Delle Streghe

• Lawrence Welk & His Orchestra – Calcutta

• Harold Budd – Jane 16 (For Pale Saints)

• Pye Corner Audio – Vorsicht

• Demen – Korridorer

• The Secret Sisters – House of Gold

• Thomas Ragsdale – Teeth Upon Teeth and Limbs Dangling Beneath

• Thomas Ragsdale – Self Zero

• Thomas Ragsdale – It Froze Me

• Pye Corner Audio – It May Not be Real

• Thomas Ragsdale – Take a Look at God's Face

• Stars of the Lid – A Meaningful Moment Through

• This Mortal Coil – The Lacemaker

• Aphex Twin – #3

• Nine Inch Nails – A Warm Place

• Pye Corner Audio – It May Not Be Real

• Starry Eyes – Cigarettes after Sex

• Headless Heroes – True Love Will Find You in the End

• Stars of the Lid – The Evil That Never Arrived

• Schneider TM & Kptmichigan – The Light 3000

• Burial – Forgive

• Вечная весна – Гражданская Оборона

• Stars of the Lid – Articulate Silences Part 2

• Johnny Boy – You are the Generation That Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve

• This Mortal Coil – With Tomorrow

• Arsenic1987 – Pac-Man Theme (Remix)

• Stereo Total – A L'amour Comme A La Guerre

• Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra & Lukasz BoroWicz – Kolysanka

• Roger Williams – What Lies over the Hill

• Kenneth McKellar – Faery Song

• Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, London Symphony Orchestra, & George Szell – Morgen, Op.27/4

• Bright Eyes – Lua

• Death in Vegas – Lever Street

Is there a reading list or bibliography of books that has informed Adam Curtis in making his films?