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“The Century of the Self” by Adam Curtis. https://youtu.be/eJ3RzGoQC4s https://youtu.be/eJ3RzGoQC4s It goes through each decade of the 1900s and explains how
by orasis 4y ago
“The Century of the Self” by Adam Curtis.
https://youtu.be/eJ3RzGoQC4s https://youtu.be/eJ3RzGoQC4s
It goes through each decade of the 1900s and explains how Freud’s psychology and the new field of marketing completely reshaped society. For the first time in my life I feel like I understood the “why” of how things work in American society. This film is probably best if you’re age 40+ and actually remember some of the events.
- nickdothutton 4y ago+1 for any Curtis documentary. They aren't something you necessarily need to agree with to enjoy. Most of them involve him attempting to stitch together an over-arching narrative for events of our time.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoYup. Curtis does a great job of explaining unintended consequences, humans being wrong, the world is far more complex than you know.
- type0 4y agoAlso see The Loving Trap for explanation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg
- woleium 4y agoHaha, came here to post this. it's a short explaier about Curtis, less than favourable. It does make you laugh though:)
- skinney6 4y agoSame here. I love watching them. They are very entertaining but don't care if his theme is sensible or not.
- bloqs 4y agohttps://youtu.be/x1bX3F7uTrg https://youtu.be/x1bX3F7uTrg obligatry response whenever anything by Adam Curtis is offered up. Sorry, I'm largely of the opinion that it is (well made) boomer-aimed catastrophe porn designed to give the viewer a smug sense of having "esoteric knowledge".
- colordrops 4y agoThere is some truth to this parody, but there is also a lot to learn from Century of Self, if you weren't already aware of, say, Edward Bernaise and his role in American society. Now his doc HyperNormalisation, I took nothing away from it, but oh boy was it an amazing way to spend the evening. The music and imagery is fricking amazing.
- nyolfen 4y agoi think you should watch it again. i feel like it has become significantly more relevant since it was released.
- ckw 4y agoAdam Curtis likes the parody.
- ethbr0 4y ago> boomer-aimed catastrophe porn designed to give the viewer a smug sense of having "esoteric knowledge" I'll just balance it out with some TED optimism porn.
- itronitron 4y agoopens arms
- woleium 4y agohttps://youtu.be/_ZBKX-6Gz6A https://youtu.be/_ZBKX-6Gz6A
- 4y ago
- sirsinsalot 4y agoAmazed given the site we are on nobody mentions "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace" by Curtis. I loved it, even being in the industry at the center of the topic. However the narrative is judged, it at least has a spark I find has died in our own.
- educatedkoala 4y agoI was really pleased to find this on The Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/all-watched-over-by-machines-of-loving-grace-1-1 https://archive.org/details/all-watched-over-by-machines-of-...
- kranke155 4y agoI watched it when I was 20 and it changed my life.
- denvaar 4y agoI really enjoy Adam Curtis’s documentaries, including “Can’t Get You Out of My Mind” but I always have to be careful watching any of his content because it tends to make me feel depressed.
- samstave 4y agoOne should immediately watch “Human Resources” after this one. Be prepared to feel rage and depression, but it’s so damn informative.
- alcover 4y agoI like it but frankly don't get a solid 'revelation' out of it. Hypnotic, that's about it (for me).
- bartimus 4y agoI thought how individualism is just something that was marketed uppon us was pretty powerful. Also how medical science became more about grouping symptoms than understanding where those things originated from.
- alcover 4y agoindividualism (...) was marketed uppon us Maybe but I tend to favor materialistic explanations before anything 'concerted'. So I'd say individualism was always here but blossomed fully when abundance came.
- jefc1111 4y agoI don't mind a bit of Adam Curtis, largely for the soundtracks. Still hugely enjoy this though https://www.tomscott.com/infinite-adam-curtis/ https://www.tomscott.com/infinite-adam-curtis/
- lilsoso 4y agoAdam Curtis is great. I recommend even looking into his older material, such as The Mayfair Set (won a BAFTA Award in 2000). Another older documentary of his that I recommend is The Way of All Flesh (1997) which is a rather remarkable story on HeLa cells with a depth I hadn't encountered before. To give you an idea of the subject matter, here's a quote from Wikipedia: "HeLa cell contamination has become a pervasive worldwide problem – affecting even the laboratories of many notable physicians, scientists, and researchers, including Jonas Salk. The HeLa contamination problem also contributed to Cold War tensions. The USSR and the USA had begun to cooperate in the war on cancer launched by President Richard Nixon, only to find that the exchanged cells were contaminated by HeLa." Some of his material is viewabled on BBC iPlayer if you have access to that. His older material can be challenging to find. You can download his complete collection via torrents.
- wyclif 4y agoI have to put in a word for Kenneth Clark's series called Civilisation. There's also a book. You can find all the episodes on YouTube with a simple search. They have almost all of them in a playlist but for some weird reason the first episode was deleted from the playlist, but exists separately on YouTube so you can still watch all the episodes.
- Theory42 4y agoThis is a work of art--I must say though that I remember thinking of his subject as a bit of a mirror for his work: in the first episode he remember him talking about propaganda in its many forms, and then getting the impression that he was using those exact techniques on the viewer within the documentary itself.
- SteveDR 4y agoThis would only be hypocritical if he claimed in the doc that the techniques weren’t effective or were unethical. Honestly I haven’t seen it recently enough to know if he does this, just saying.