GOPHER'S FAVOURITE DOCUMENTARY MAKER
I found a scrap of paper with a Gopher URL hurridly scribbled on it
sitting next to my old mid-90s PC from which I like to browse the
text-only side of the internet. I don't really remember how it got
there, but it's among the company of many others which have built
up recently, especially since publishing my own little gopher hole.
I keep checking it breifly while I'm meant to be doing other
things, seeing that it's still exactly how I left it (whoah, big
surprise), then to fill the void left by this unsatisfying
investigation I set out to find something else of interest. Then
wow! I find a great phlog or some other content, but immediately
realise that if I look at it properly I'll never get back to
whatever I'm meant to be doing. So I tear a corner off of a piece
of paper and scribble down the URL, to be deposited next to the
computer designated for such unproductive activities.
Today's paper scrap pointed me at:
gopher://dataswamp.org/1/%7elich
Actually I'd already read one post there before, and I found it
today as my most recent bookmark in Gopher, but grant me a bit of
artistic licence here won't you?
"How do we get past platforms?" seems to be a good example of a
phlog post folding in on itself and managing to get spat out onto
the network just shy of being confronted with the author's Delete
button, but it's an interesting read nonetheless:
gopher://dataswamp.org:70/0/%7elich/musings/past-platforms.md
[And yeah, I'm not going to follow the footnote style of linking. I
prefer it this way, put up with it]
But the thing that really grabbed me was _yet another_ reference to
an Adam Curtis documentary, this time not The Century of the Self,
but All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. You just don't
see that much reference to Curtis docos around Usenet and the web.
In fact I don't remember seeing any on the former (yeah yeah, I
know it's practically dead), and on the latter only when I'm
specifically searching for them. Somehow Gopher (or maybe IRC and
Mastodon (I don't care what you say, my mind jumps to
"masturbation" every time I start to read that name), but unlike
many others here I don't use those) seems to have accidentally
brought together a little Adam Curtis fan club.
I'm sure not everyone with content on Gopher likes his docos, but I
for one certinly agree that they are wonderful on both counts of
entertainment and insight. It wasn't Gopher that first put me on to
them though, I found them the old fashioned way back when I was a
teenager and All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace premiered
on SBS (a partially government funded Australian TV station
specialising (theoretically) in somewhat niche/foreign content). It
was shown in the UK in 2011 but could have been a year or two
before it reached Aus (you'd think these things still had to come
on a ship). I first chose to watch it because the ads suggested
that it had something to do with computers, but of course as soon
as it started I was completely sucked in by the history, social
analysis, and unique use of archival footage.
I don't think I had any luck at pushing friends at school to follow
it. Heck hardly anyone in my year probably watched _any_
documentaries when they weren't being forced to by a teacher
(whereas I'd already seen some of the ones being shown, and even
suggested a few of them). I was hooked though - soon hitting
Wikipedia to read up on Adam Curtis and finding the table there of
his past productions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Curtis
-
gopher://gopherpedia.com:70/0/Adam%20Curtis
The Internet Archive then had most of his docos for download
(they've since mostly been taken down, presumably by the BBC,
though there aren't any official DVDs or anything because the BBC
can't get permission for all of the archive footage that Curtis
uses to be sold commercially - anything on Ebay is probably a
fake), so over many hours with the free internet computers at the
local library (I wasn't allowed to download anything sizable at
home unless it was the end of the month and there was data left in
the quota) I amassed the full Curtis collection.
After each downloading session I'd have some evenings sat in front
of my loudly whirring computer, swivel chair replaced by an old
sitting chair from the 70s, some second-hand headphones of the same
era making sure that no parents heard any islamic war cries echoing
out from The Power of Nightmares and concluded that I was being
radicalised on the internet. Making my way right from Pandora's Box
through to the latest installment where I began. By the end of an
episode there'd be that pause of wonder while my mind would churn
over everything it had seen and try to remember how it all went
together - not always successful, but I liked it anyway. Then there
might be some searches on the web trying to dig up some more
details on things that had been mentioned, though these were often
mixed between tons of information that makes one appreciate Curtis'
ability to summarise (albeit often from an angle that benefits his
own message), and complete failures to find reference on the web to
events that Curtis had dug up from forgotten books and/or BBC news
footage.
Today the documentaries can be most easily found at:
https://thoughtmaybe.com/by/adam-curtis/
If you want to download, search the video page source code for
"mp4" and last time I tried the complete download links were still
there in plain text. Or maybe their player actually has a button
for a download link - I don't allow such scripts to run in the
first place.
But besides the documentaries, I also found Adam Curtis' excellent
blog, then still regularly updated with new stories accompanied by
archive footage (which I found a way to download using rtmpdump and
following the trail of XML files used) and images. Even a "rough
cut" documentary "Every Day is Like Sunday" found its way there,
and in typical Curtis style no mention of a finished version has
ever been made since:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/2016/10
Sadly he seems to have adandoned that, even though Wikipedia used
to claim that it was once the most visited blog on the BBC website
(not sure what competition it had at the time though). Hours of
reading to be enjoyed going over his old posts though, in fact I've
probably forgotten enough that I could start over and read/watch
through them all again.
His last two documentaries weren't shown on TV but made as
movie-length productions for iPlayer, also probably avoiding issues
with some of the more graphic content. They rely more on narrative
than interviews, which personally I don't like as much. I think he
used interviews well in the TV documentaries, by letting them run
and tell a story while at the same time leaving in some of the
perculiarities and charisma of the people being interviewed,
trusting the viewer to still be able to follow the story without
cutting down to single statements. The locations and framing of the
interviews are great as well, especially when they so contrast with
the story being told. I did still enjoy the iPlayer docos though,
and Bitter Lake seems to have been quite well received even though
Hypernormalisation seemed to be less of a success.
I do think that Curtis has pretty much exhausted ways to express
the message that he said himself formed a common thread from The
Century of the Self (did he include this one? I think so), The
Power of Nightmares, The Trap, and All Watched Over by Machines of
Loving Grace; about manipulation of society by different actors in
the name of new, individual, freedoms. His series in the 90s:
Pandora's Box, The Living Dead, and The Mayfair Set, were
facinating without taking on a wider, or at least so clearly
defined, social message. Also his single documentaries on the
collapse of Barings Bank, and cancer research based on the cells of
Henrietta Lacks, work well with his unique style. I'd say that The
Mayfair Set is actually my favourite series by Curtis overall.
Recently Curtis has been behind the visual design of concerts by
the band Massive Attack, reported to be decidedly unconventional.
The Guardian seems to be good at following him:
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/adam-curtis
Documentary-wise, the last word was about a nine (nine!) part doco
with the working title "What Is It That Is Coming?":
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jan/18/adam-curtis-and-vice-director-adam-mckay-on-how-dick-cheney-masterminded-a-rightwing-revolution
Given how little of Curtis' produced work corresponds to what he
claims to be working on earlier, "What Is It That Is Coming?" seems
about the right question. One can only wait and see.
While you're waiting, here's one other interview with Curtis
published a few years back:
https://www.e-flux.com/journal/32/68236/in-conversation-with-adam-curtis-part-i/
https://www.e-flux.com/journal/in-conversation-with-adam-curtis-part-ii/
And here's an article that Curtis write for The Guardian to promote
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving grace, in a similar style to
his blog posts:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/may/29/adam-curtis-ecosystems-tansley-smuts
---
IDEA
Not really worth putting in the Ideas section, but I've long wanted
to set up a Wiki for Adam Curtis documentary fans. In particular
for building up references and deeper research into some of the
topics that he touches on in his docos and blog posts, perhaps even
to the point of contradicting some of his statements.
To much work though, especially to build up enough initial content
myself, and I'm not sure if it would attract the right crowd.
- The Free Thinker.
