Adam Curtis' New Documentary: Shifty

[khaine]

Adam Curtis, a British documentary maker, has released a new documentary called Shifty. It is basically examining the shift the world has gone through since the end of the 1970s into the atomised culture of today. Its available on BBC iPlayer, and all good private sites.

I haven't watched it yet, but his other documentaries that I have seen have been fascinating and insightful. He did the century of self, that focuses on the work of psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Anna Freud, and PR consultant Edward Bernay and how it has been used since ww1 to influence the masses

He also did HyperNormalisation. In it he argues that following the global economic crises of the 1970s, governments, financiers and technological utopians gave up on trying to shape the complex "real world" and instead established a simpler "fake world" for the benefit of multi-national corporations that is kept stable by neoliberal governments

Keen to know your thoughts on if its any good, and any other documentaries he has done that are worth watching

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I don't know dude, BBC and the first episode seething about Thatcher, which is the deadest horse in the UK politics. I'm going by the rule of thumb that anyone who called out the powers that be 20+ years ago has shifted to sucking the corporate left cult cock.

I'd be surprised if he admits that having hordes of immigrants and hatred of your own past has done more to atomize society more than right wing politics.

 

[General Emílio Médici]

I'd be surprised if he admits that having hordes of immigrants and hatred of your own past has done more to atomize society more than right wing politics.

If it is on the BBC then I am positive it does not mention this at all.

 

[The Grognard]

I don't know dude, BBC and the first episode seething about Thatcher, which is the deadest horse in the UK politics. I'm going by the rule of thumb that anyone who called out the powers that be 20+ years ago has shifted to sucking the corporate left cult cock.

I'd be surprised if he admits that having hordes of immigrants and hatred of your own past has done more to atomize society more than right wing politics.

Migration is mentioned but focus is more on deindustrialization causing a major spike in unemployment. Style of the documentary is clearly modeled after the Traumazone series with only archival footage and captions used.

 

[raspberry mocha]

TraumaZone was one of the best, largely because the footage spoke for itself.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Migration is mentioned but focus is more on deindustrialization causing a major spike in unemployment. Style of the documentary is clearly modeled after the Traumazone series with only archival footage and captions used.

Issue is Britain industry would have died either way. Too much regulation, backward thinking and inefficiency. Trying to blame Thatcher for killing it is disingenuous.

 

[The Grognard]

Issue is Britain industry would have died either way. Too much regulation, backward thinking and inefficiency. Trying to blame Thatcher for killing it is disingenuous.

Pulling out the IV drip needle out of a badly injured man is still contributing to the matter. Still, I'd agree that they were very complacent before the winter of discontent and had their lunch eaten by Japan and West Germany because they had real companies who made products that were much more exportable than what Britain was making at the time. Then again, the Brits had lost their old captive markets.

 

[windymill]

Necroing this thread because I recently rewatched Century of Self, by chance just a few days prior to the Steve Wright interview blowing up.
Listening to Wright speak, he comes across like an Adam Curtis documentary would without the BBC constraints and stock footage.
For example, in the first 10-15 minutes of this interview he brings up Barneys, Lippmann, etc, just like in the first part of Century of Self, but has no problem connecting it to the glob internationalists.

He also kind of speaks with the same tone and cadence (and accent maybe, but I'm not Brit) of Curtis.