A very special documentary series sent to me by my friend Dirk de Bruyn

Just the other day Dirk recommended this very rich TV series examining the fluctuations of the world order over the past 70 - 80 years, approximately the time of Dirk's life and mine too. Dirk sent this to me...

"Peter, I really want to recommend this documentary series: 

"Can’t Get You out of My Head".

Well, so far I have only viewed the first 4 parts of this 6 part package put together by Adam Curtis but even in the first episode I was well aware that this was very different from most of the historical/political docos fed to us by the major networks.

https://watchdocumentaries.com/cant-get-you-out-of-my-head/

From Wiki:

Kevin Adam Curtis (born 26 May 1955) is an English documentary filmmaker.^[1]

Curtis was a relatively conventional documentary producer for the BBC throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The release of Pandora's Box (1992) marked the introduction of Curtis's distinctive presentation that uses collage to explore aspects of sociology, psychology, philosophy and political history.^[2][3] His style has been described as involving, "whiplash digressions, menacing atmospherics and arpeggiated scores, and the near-psychedelic compilation of archival footage", narrated by Curtis himself with "patrician economy and assertion".^[4] Curtis's films have won four BAFTAs.^[5]

Inspired by the division between political liberals and populists, filmmaker Adam Curtis demonstrates how all factions in the 21st century have lost the ability to establish a practical vision for the future.

Can’t Get You Out of My Head  was crafted from a massive archive of music and video footage. It begins with the cultural revolutions of the 1960s and continues through Donald Trump’s fraught presidency and Britain’s Brexit crisis. In addition to the fast-paced visuals, Curtis provides a personal, emotional element by incorporating the stories of an eclectic range of people, from a 1970s Civil Rights leader to the wife of Mao Zedong.

Curtis decries the connections necessary to concoct conspiracy theories while simultaneously constructing them himself. Likewise, his series shows the ever-changing nature of politics juxtaposed with its lasting effect on history. Can’t Get You Out of My Head traces the roots of such events and proposes what can be expected in the future.

 

Dirk added:

 

This work seems to deliver an unprecedented emotive pitch of review of the history I have lived through. It touches so many things that have been part of my conversations with Peter Tammer. Perhaps an emotive pitch I have also experienced in dialogue with Peter himself and the emotive plumbing of experience I find in Peter’s films. 

Curtis with his apparent unlimited access to the BBC archive reaches a level of unprecedented review of those historic moments, events I have experienced down the decades. Curtis changes my mind, Curtis asks questions on the histories I have been duped into believing. Curtis’s use of long takes, songs and personal histories, the pitch of his voice, just trumps anything that the news delivers and cuts through.

I did not think that was possible anymore in this era of media overload. I also find a connection here of intent that I have always aspired to in Curtis’s strategies, but that I could never reach, a filmmaker’s filmmaker. Watching this made me feel energised in the same way that a good talk with Peter has. So re-assured that Peter too finds it engaging. In these covid times, it produced moments of recognition, moments of insight, so that I feel I am talking to a friend.

 

 

 

Dirk de Bruyn

Associate Professor of Screen and Design

School of Communication and Creative Arts

Deakin University

mobile: 0427057439

Work (03)92517658

email: dirk@deakin.edu.au

That's very flattering Dirk, but I really appreciate that you sent me this series... I found it extremely demanding viewing. It took me in many directions I was certainly not expecting. It also provided a lot of background information to events we have lived through which I think were not available via the media when those events were taking place. The young woman in this photograph is one such example:

The face of an incredibly courageous young woman 

who is central to one of the stories Curtis delves into.

This piece from "The Guardian" review by Lucy Mangan:

He moves from the infiltration of the Black Panthers by undercover officers inciting and facilitating more violence than the movement had ever planned or been able to carry out alone, to the death of paternalism in industry and its replacement by official legislation drafted by those with hidden and vested interests.

There are far too many incidents or events for me to mention here, so I pass this series on to all our friends with a warning: "This series is not easy viewing, it's extremely demanding. But if you make the effort I'm sure you will find it rewarding."

Now I guess it's time for me to bite the bullet and view the last two episodes.

PT