Adam Curtis - Master Documentarian
A few years ago I was lucky enough to see the three part documentary "The Power of nightmares"To say I was blown away.. would be an understatement
Three 2 hour episodes which had me riveted to every word.
The documentary for those of you who have not seen it is about the history of the modern clash between Muslims and the " Neo-conservatives who currently run our country. " Where they got their ideas from and trying to explain why what we are seeing on both sides a world which doesn't appear to make much sense.
Come to find out Nightmares was only one in a long list of other documentaries which have been done by Adam Curtis
Rather than review each one, wikipedia with the link does a quite good job of it, complete with links to some of his works which you can view on line.
The trap his latest work I would suggest seeing after you have a few of his other works.. Not that its bad.. but seeing some of his earlier work might help you understand the concepts he is making with the film "the trap"
I am now watching the "The century of self" and once again glued to every word. One of my hobbies is look at the news and try to figure out who is putting out the story and why. I have been aware for years the the news we get here in the US is full of concepts we are being spoon fed.. Its fun sometimes when I am right and see it too clearly who is telling us something and why.
The century of self, is in many ways the story of the how the modern day spin doctors came to being.. and how deep in our society they really are.
Adam chronicles Edward Bernays who is the father of the first public relations company. in an interview with Edward he claims that what he was doing was really propaganda but with the negative feelings surrounding that word he had to come up with something new.. Thus the birth of the first Public Relations Firm.
Edwards uncle Sigmund Freud helped shape his idea on how people could be motivated to buy things based on the need to feel better about ones self, instead of the truth , or logical motivation based on quality and customer need. He found that people were motivated by their need to feed the subconscious and he could use that to have thousands of people to think the way he wanted without them even knowing they were being manipulated.
This practice didnt stop with just getting people to buy products they didnt need, it started being used as a way to promote moves and even governments used the practices to get people to think positive about programs or wars they wanted to fight.
These videos are pretty easy to find on the net.. its just too bad these have not been picked up by Discovery or PBS .
Honestly, these documentaries are as educational and well documented as anything I have ever seen.
They are all well worth you time .
If you torrent things like this here is a link
Bob
posted by Bob Lee @ 12:10 AM
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