r/Documentaries • u/Tengoles • 2d ago
Political Movements Adam Curtis-Can't Get You Out Of My Head (2021) [1:14:16]
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbPZYrS_g_At_AciykufZokPrN53wyZ0w&si=HbXnkNCoayPb5_CqCasually ran into this documentary, "Can't Get You Out of My Head" by Adam Curtis. It's a fascinating deep dive into how history, politics, and culture have shaped the modern world. What makes it so compelling is the style – the entire documentary is made up of archival footage, clips from the eras he explores, and haunting music that gives it a dreamlike, almost hypnotic feel. Curtis weaves together the rise of individualism, the spread of conspiracy theories, and the hidden forces that shape our emotions, creating connections between events you wouldn’t expect. Haven't reached the end but I feel like I have a clear understanding of why the world feels so fragmented today. It’s the kind of documentary that doesn’t just tell you history – it immerses you in it.
I put only the duration of the first episode in the title to avoid scaring people off but the whole thing consists of six episodes totalling 7 hours and 40 minutes.
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u/Wedonthavetobedicks 2d ago
Glad you enjoyed it. I would happily recommend many of Curtis' documentaries, though I know his style doesn't appeal to everyone and the way he draws very thick lines between sometimes quite nebulous concepts does sometimes require leaps of faith. I suspect that his presentation style might seem a bit...self-indulgent (?), maybe, and disjointedly slow if you aren't fully immersed - but it's definitely my bag!
I re-watched All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace recently which still mostly stands up, thirteen years later - which isn't easy to do when the subject matter is around the impact of computers and tech. Expected it to feel much more dated than it did.
Personally feel Hypernormalisation is peak Curtis and always relevant, though Bitter Lake is also memorable (might have aged a bit, that one though).
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u/Buck-Nasty 2d ago
the way he draws very thick lines between sometimes quite nebulous concepts does sometimes require leaps of faith.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg&pp=ygUSQWRhbSBjdXJ0aXMgcGFyb2R5
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u/merryman1 2d ago
Bitter Lake 100% is Curtis in his purest art form. Genuinely feels like a modern art piece, the filmography is so surreal and so much is implied through the style and use of clips rather than said directly.
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u/Tengoles 2d ago
I actually got to know him through Hypernormalization. After finishing it I immediately needed to know his take on things that happened after 2016 and that's how I found this.
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u/Prosthemadera 2d ago
the way he draws very thick lines between sometimes quite nebulous concepts does sometimes require leaps of faith
But that is kind of a fundamental issue for a documentary, isn't it? Why should I watch several hours of something that may not be accurate and whose conclusions are questionable? I don't do that for Dinesh D'Souza so why should I do that for Adam Curtis?
I don't get it.
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u/Wedonthavetobedicks 1d ago
I suppose that depends on your faith in the documentarian and what you expect from the documentary. I trust that the more factual elements of Curtis' works are correct, and that is the fundamental issue. The way he connects his threads and embellishes stories with social commentary is obviously going to be much more subjective. He usually makes his case well, but sometimes it seems a bit overdone - that's fine: he's just presenting a thesis, and I'm not obligated to take everything unquestioningly.
I wouldn't do the same for Dinesh D'Souza because I don't have the same degree of faith in him, his arguments, or his intentions. Others will disagree (also hard not to admit that political/social alignment is a factor).
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u/Prosthemadera 1d ago
The way he connects his threads and embellishes stories with social commentary is obviously going to be much more subjective
But that is what people take as the truth. He is telling a story based on vibes and people accept it because Curtis tells it convincingly.
I'm not obligated to take everything unquestioningly.
You say that but I don't see anyone question anything.
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u/enter_the_dog_door 2d ago
“Century of the Self” was a watershed pic for me.
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u/_hyperotic 1d ago
This is not really true, some documentaries are dealing with subject matter that is much more cut and dried, e.g. historical or current events, niche topics, true crime.
Adam Curtis docs take a birdseye view of global geopolitics and make very clear and sweeping statements about what happened in the world and why.
Of course reality is much messier than this and impossible to cover in a single film, but Curtis paints a very neat and clear cut picture of the global elite masterminding world orders and regime changes which may or may not really exist or have happened as he claims.
His perspective is interesting but of course his bird’s eye view of the world by definition must be taken on faith as he’s presenting his opinions and beliefs about all of modern human civilization.
It’s all from one perspective of someone who clearly thinks they have it mostly figured out.
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u/lanczos2to6 2d ago
A friend told me to watch his "Century of the Self" doc but I haven't got around to it. Thanks for the reminder.
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u/random_precision195 2d ago
Century of the Self and Hypernormalisation are among his best works.
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u/merryman1 2d ago
The Power of Nightmares is absolutely mind-blowing as well.
Or it was for me watching it in the late 00s stoned out my brain.
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u/Jaylow115 2d ago
I’ve seen all of his stuff and I know he loves connecting seemingly disparate threads and some are kind of a reach, but Century of Self is probably his best work.
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u/tetral 2d ago
Watched it with my daughter and it helped explain a lot of history to her. There's a certain amount of dots he's not connecting, and many of these things that Curtis describes as "just happening" are the results of clear dialectical materialist principles.
This isn't to invalidate this ambitious and striking documentary. Just keep your eyebrow up and your critical thinking sharp.
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u/Tengoles 2d ago
Yes, one of the things that hooked me is that even ignoring the big message he is trying to convey you still get to know a lot of history in a format that just gets to you.
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u/Leading_Factor_8236 2d ago
probably my favorite documentary series of all time, saw it with a close friend of mine while enjoying some beers and we were completely enthralled, finished 4 episodes in one night.
I agree with the other commenters that some of the parallels Curtis draws are oversimplified or exaggerated (this is a problem with pretty much all of his documentaries), it never falls into conspiracy theory territory though, and the archival footage is just so endlessly fascinating it's hard to look away.
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u/ergotpoisoning 2d ago
Adam Curtis is fantastic at teaching you to think laterally, follow threads, make inferences, connect disparate ideas, ask questions. Whether or not he's objectively correct is, to me at least, a bit beside the point. His docs are like training wheels for inquiring minds. Watch them and learn to look at the world through similar prisms of your own devising
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u/Crackracket 2d ago
Roll a big fat hogs leg, smoke it, turn off the lights and get fully immersed. That's the best way to watch his documentaries
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u/Uwofpeace 2d ago
This series is good, maybe a little slow at times but if you break it into episodes and don’t binge it all in a day or two very digestible.
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u/Gazmus 2d ago
How depressing is this one?
I've only seen Bitter Lake by him...its a great documentary...but rather a downer to say the least.
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u/Tengoles 2d ago
As far as I've gotten is not that much of a downer. You can not mind that much his overall message and just enjoy some cool history lessons with great footage.
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u/Phermaportus 2d ago
I stopped watching around episode two because I started crying uncontrollably (it was a scene of someone recording themselves trying to escape the California(?) fires on her car and ugly crying/being scared), but maybe I wasn't in the best headspace. Still something that I'm hoping to watch at some point.
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u/Prosthemadera 2d ago edited 2d ago
the hidden forces that shape our emotions
That's not a thing.
It’s the kind of documentary that doesn’t just tell you history – it immerses you in it.
That is the issue. It creates a vibe, its intention is to make feel and believe that what you're seeing is insightful. It's not important to gain knowledge about history, it's all about creating a story that makes the viewer feel enlightened.
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