Harvey, thanks for the tip-off about Herzog's latest. I'll definitely watch that asap. Now there's a filmmaker. He's been amazingly productive in recent years, and his work just seems to get more and more interesting as he ages. All of his films are very recognisably
his, and yet each film is surprisingly different from anything he has done before. Long may he live and work.
Harvey wrote:I paraphrase, but as Philip K Dick mused (with particular regard to Curtis) "how does one make a work of resistance from inside an empire of falsehood"?
Did Dick say that? It's a good question and he was a very interesting guy. I must read more of him.
But as regards Curtis: The question is moot, because Curtis's works are not works of resistance. They are the extended musings of a
concerned but scatterbrained upper-middle-class English liberal. Or -- the same thing -- a person with "no politics" at all. Or perhaps a libertarian. Or maybe in fact a neoconservative. I documented all that (with quotes from the man himself) on the previous page of this thread. He just can't seem to make his mind up about anything, really. The thing is: He belongs to a very common
type.* Look at the quotes from him, throughout this thread. I have rarely heard him say anything that wasn't either fairly obvious, entirely vacuous, factually inaccurate, actually obnoxiously wrong, or (often) just damn silly. (And NB: Adam Curtis is now 61.)
Do I fail to give him his due? Well, OK then: 1) He's a skilled manipulator of images, like many admen. 2) He (or his research team) do often find fascinating and unfamiliar footage in those archives. 3.) Curtis does at least notice and acknowledge that some things have gone very badly wrong with the world in the last couple of centuries, and that there are strange transformations afoot, not all of them easily explicable. 4) If Jonathan Cook is right, then the section of his latest that examines the West's treatment of Ghadaffi and his changing image in the media is illuminating and therefore worth watching. (So I do want to watch at least that bit of HyperNormalised as soon as I can.) - That's all I can think of.
Again, re: "how does one make a work of resistance from inside an empire of falsehood"? - I regard Curtis's oeuvre as part of that empire of falsehood, and it is now a mini-empire of falsehood all on its own (still firmly within the walls of The Black Iron Prison, though, and not struggling very hard to get out. Because it's a very
comfy prison, for men of his means.) Therefore, I'm struggling to resist it, for example by posting my objections to his work on a moribund message board in an obscure corner of the internet. It may not be much of a "work of resistance", but at least I'm not bowing down in reverence to the emperor (or The Master).
Harvey wrote:Edit: If you're going to critique, at least know what you're criticising by having watched it
I knew that was coming, Harvey. And the damn thing has only just been broadcast. And I have other responsibilities and other priorities. And I assure you I've watched plenty of his stuff by now. But I will buy a ticket for The Amazing Admo's latest extravaganza eventually (it's
three hours long?) ... after I've extracted my own wisdom teeth with pliers.
(By the way, and very seriously: Mesmerism is a fascinating phenomenon with very real -- and still badly under-studied -- effects. It can be used for good or evil, of course, like practically everything else.)
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*Wilde (a real artist) identified that type 121 years ago:
LADY BRACKNELL What are your politics?
JACK Well, I am afraid I really have none. I am a Liberal Unionist.
LADY BRACKNELL Oh, they count as Tories. They dine with us. Or come in the evening, at any rate.
-from The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
"Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte." - Max Liebermann,, Berlin, 1933
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman, NYC, 1966
TESTDEMIC ➝ "CASE"DEMIC