Adam Curtis' Bitter Lake (3 Viewers)

[pete]

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The film is called Bitter Lake. It is a bit of an epic - it’s two hours twenty minutes long.

It tells a big historical narrative that interweaves America, Britain, Russia and Saudi Arabia. It shows how politicians in the west lost confidence - and began to simplify the stories they told. It explains why this happened - because they increasingly gave their power away to other forces, above all global finance.

But there is one other country at the centre of the film.

Afghanistan.

This is because Afghanistan is the place that has repeatedly confronted politicians, as their power declines, with the terrible truth - that they cannot understand what is going on any longer. Let alone control it.

The film shows in detail how all the foreigners who went to Afghanistan created an almost totally fictional version of the country in their minds.

They couldn’t see the complex reality that was in front of them - because the stories they had been told about the world had become so simplified that they lacked the perceptual apparatus to see reality any longer.

And this blindness led to a terrible disaster - support for a blatantly undemocratic government, wholesale financial corruption and thousands of needless deaths.

BBC - Blogs - Adam Curtis - TRAILER TRASH

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

Pysched for this.

I don't always align with his viewpoint, but he's always engaging.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

THE FILM'S LAUNCH DATE ON BBC iPLAYER IS NOW 25TH JANUARY 2015

 

[Lili Marlene]

Looks very interesting.

I don't really know much about Adam Curtis, what should I expect?

 

[Lili Marlene]

wait, should I expect to just watch the video at the start of the thread?

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

Looks very interesting.

I don't really know much about Adam Curtis, what should I expect?

Check this one out, I think

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[Lili Marlene]

Check this one out, I think

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Right. Just watched both trailers. I might give it a miss, I'll only end up shouting at the screen demanding citations.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

Right. Just watched both trailers. I might give it a miss, I'll only end up shouting at the screen demanding citations.

Yeah, he's not big on those.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

They are more like alternate thought journeys.

Maybe this one might be more to your liking

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[Lili Marlene]

They are more like alternate thought journeys.

Ok, that's a way of putting it.

 

[hugh]

He's great. Though I've only seen one or two ..

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

Sunday, bitches

Adam Curtis: 'I try to make the complexity and chaos intelligible' | Television & radio | The Guardian

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

Oh man

BBC iPlayer - Adam Curtis: Bitter Lake

 

[Lili Marlene]

so is it good... eh.. bitches?

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

so is it good... eh.. bitches?

Bitter Lake – review: Adam Curtis’s beautiful, gripping film unravels a story of violence, bloodshed and bitter ironies | Television & radio | The Guardian

 

[nooleen]

so english

"how...how long have you been..with the taliban?...if you don't mind me asking"

 

[nooleen]

this guy is not a fan

Pandora's Docs

Historically, this has been a dangerous and volatile constituency, and it's no less so today. Sometimes its members find harmless outlets like Trotskyism or music journalism or stand-up comedy, where they can pretend their resentment has something to do with art or truth or liberation, and no one will really notice.

ouch

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

I don't like to say it, but the evidence seems to suggest that Curtis is under the influence of a radical right-wing ideologue so bizarre and manipulative that he truly belongs in his own Adam Curtis documentary.

I think he really really likes to say it.

 

[hugh]

Wow. Wasn't there some other thread a while ago where there were links to that Spiked site?

 

[Gambra]

Yeah he's supposedly linked to the "Living Marxism" network which comes from the Revolution Communist Party. I dunno if it's such a massive deal, Mark Kermode is constantly calling himself a Trotskyist on the air and no one cares. I think the main criticism that people on the left have with Curtis is that he seems dismissive of the masses, theres an underlying feeling that he thinks the best way of running a country is by an enlighted/educated ruling class who know what's best for the masses.