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New Adam Curtis documentary - Bitter Lake. ALSO new Adam Curtis doc 2020

Sapa

By Sapa,
in Film, TV & Radio

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mushashi

mushashi

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I saw this recently, nice to see all that cutting room floor stuff he used.

But there was one glaring problem with it, somebody could have at least have mentioned the massive spoiler alert! for the Russian film Solaris :mad:

Spoiling the ending for a film I have not seen yet was a bit annoying, but apart from that sore point, some interesting stuff. Worth a watch for the footage alone.

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InsideOutBoy

InsideOutBoy

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Solaris, as with every Tarkovsky film, is immune from spoilers. You could read the ending to all of them and it wouldn't affect your enjoyment when you actually watched them. The movies are all about sensual experience and nothing to do with plot.

For example, his movie Stalker contains a magical zone with a room that grants people's ultimate wish. Thanks to watching a documentary about cinema, I found out exactly what the room grants when the characters enter it. But it doesn't matter one iota when you watch it because it's all so mystical and weird (in a good way).

Solaris is my least favourite Tarkovsky movie though.

Anyway, I enjoyed this documentary, though it was clear he knew he was going to be only on Iplayer so he went a bit overboard with the vintage footage stuff. Curtis makes great conspiracy "documentaries" (if you believe them is up to you, I happen to agree with most of what he says) and his use of stock footage is enough to shame most music video directors. He's an artistic storyteller mostly, and such a breath of air in the personality-void of modern TV.

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Gotters

Gotters

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I'm not sure Bitter Lake got a showing on their main channels either, apparently that got 1.8m iplayer views.

 

Watched the first hour last night but was a bit tired and want to pay attention to this stuff, loving it so far, his style is quite unique despite 'just' being newsy style footage, well chosen music and his narration.

 

I love what I learn watching his docs about how events shape and form countries/regions that my knowledge is very patchy on.

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Mentazm

Mentazm

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I've only been watching his stuff since Power of Nightmares, so saw none of his early stuff. Sat through Century of the Self in one sitting a few weeks ago, although a lot of it is obvious now, it must have have been pretty revelatory at the time.

 

Bitter Lake was good, but I like his films when they are broader in scope. Looking forward to watching this, probably tonight.

 

 

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Capwn

Capwn

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Had to leave it halfway through as it's so bloody long but am looking forward to getting back to it tomorrow. It's great background Telly, I love casually observing it and enjoy the music whilst browsing Facebook/twitter etc. 

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Capwn

Capwn

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Watched the rest last night, really enjoyed the history and storytelling of it all. My partner had a really negative reaction to it which I found odd, she'd never heard of Curtis before and seemed to see him as some lonely guy in a basement sticking pictures up on a wall and making up a story that suits his conspiracies. She felt like the way he was picking parts of history that suited his narrative, also that it was very opinionated rather than letting the viewer make up their own mind. In the end we agreed that there are just different approaches and styles to documentaries. She just doesn't like documentaries that have a clear agenda, she often brings up 'SupersizeMe' as the worst offender of this and put this film in the same camp.

 

So with Gaddafi as a specific example she felt like she wasn't able to make up her mind if he was really being used in the way this documentary suggested and would need to read various books/articles before she could make her mind up. Where as I just trust Curtis, he seemed to be showing other figures actually confirming his narrative. 

 

I suppose what I'm wanting to say is that yes, I could just read up on specifics and watch non judgmental history documentaries about such cases as Gaddafi but it wouldn't be anywhere near as entertaining so I don't. So is it bad to agree with his ideas and narrative without looking into these subjects further?

 

 

 

 

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Mentazm

Mentazm

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Finished this earlier. It felt a bit disjointed compared to his other stuff, and the footage just a little too random. I did find the earlier stuff interesting, and got a bit nostalgic at the early web stuff but it's not one of his better docs.

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Mr Hatfield

Mr Hatfield

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3 hours ago, Capwn said:

I suppose what I'm wanting to say is that yes, I could just read up on specifics and watch non judgmental history documentaries about such cases as Gaddafi but it wouldn't be anywhere near as entertaining so I don't. So is it bad to agree with his ideas and narrative without looking into these subjects further?

 

good points raised, and as one who used to be fully sucked in by curtis' previous work i now look at his new output in the same way

 

gaddafi was actually a pawn though - that is true

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Nick R

Nick R

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On 10/17/2016 at 10:40, K said:

"Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, a false equivalence was taking place"

 

*grainy footage of man walking into a brutalist office building, while Burial plays on the soundtrack*

 

 

 

(He wrote this and this about All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace.)

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Captain Novaforce

Captain Novaforce

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I thought it was decent, certainly had less self indulgent spaces as Bitter Lake. Clearly not perfect but some of the sections, such as Gaddafi made it worthwhile.

 

Also good to see a documentary really thinking and articulating how the internet makes echo chambers, and the impact of this on politics. Could do with being trimmed down but what do you expect from Adam Curtis.

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curium

curium

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On 10/17/2016 at 21:56, englishbob said:

He needs to hire an editor, his stuff is too long.

 

This new film is nearly 3 hours long, and Bitter Lake was way too long to get to the point

 

On 10/18/2016 at 17:26, MidWalian said:

I've watched about half of it so far. I love his work, but I do wish this was edited into a 3 part series. I think many will be put off due to length unless already familiar with him.

 

While I accept your point to a degree, I often find myself frustrated by news and documentary programs that dumb-down or simplify things. I think they should use mediums like the iPlayer, YouTube and the Red-Button to put forward everything they've discovered during the research for their documentary and engage experts in in-depth discussions.

 

Given the above, I'm not going to complain about Adam indulging himself.

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curium

curium

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On 10/19/2016 at 18:00, Capwn said:

Watched the rest last night, really enjoyed the history and storytelling of it all. My partner had a really negative reaction to it which I found odd, she'd never heard of Curtis before and seemed to see him as some lonely guy in a basement sticking pictures up on a wall and making up a story that suits his conspiracies. She felt like the way he was picking parts of history that suited his narrative, also that it was very opinionated rather than letting the viewer make up their own mind. In the end we agreed that there are just different approaches and styles to documentaries. She just doesn't like documentaries that have a clear agenda, she often brings up 'SupersizeMe' as the worst offender of this and put this film in the same camp.

 

So with Gaddafi as a specific example she felt like she wasn't able to make up her mind if he was really being used in the way this documentary suggested and would need to read various books/articles before she could make her mind up. Where as I just trust Curtis, he seemed to be showing other figures actually confirming his narrative. 

 

I suppose what I'm wanting to say is that yes, I could just read up on specifics and watch non judgmental history documentaries about such cases as Gaddafi but it wouldn't be anywhere near as entertaining so I don't. So is it bad to agree with his ideas and narrative without looking into these subjects further?

 

Do you have iPlayer in Canada?

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Guest

Guest

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Posted

It doesn't need edited, it's broken into quite succinct parts, I'm just not sure why BBC sticks it up as one piece instead of multiple, is it better for their metrics somehow?

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Sapa

Sapa

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Really enjoyed this. I just love his documentaries for the use of old archival footage and how he splices it all together. I loved the sequence with Suicide's Dream Baby Dream and all of the footage of pre-911 disaster movies. That really sent a shiver up my spine!

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