Adam Curtis’ interpretation of current events viewed through a historical and political lens is a tour de force in explaining the absurdity and cognitive dissonance of our current reality. I recommend watching all of them, twice. Curtis is picking up where the greats like Kenneth Clark and Jacob Bronowski have left off. He is their worthy successor.

The Trap

Google Video: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3a, Part 3b, Part 3c

The Trap consists of three, one-hour programs which explore the concept and definition of freedom, specifically “how a simplistic model of human beings as self-seeking, almost robotic, creatures led to today’s idea of freedom.”

(via wikipedia)

The Mayfair Set

Google Video: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

The Mayfair Set looked at how buccaneer capitalists of hot money were allowed to shape the climate of the Thatcher years, focusing on the rise of Colonel David Stirling, Jim Slater, James Goldsmith, and Tiny Rowland, all members of The Clermont club in the 1960s. It received the BAFTA Award for Best Factual Series or Strand in 2000.

(via wikipedia)

The Power of Nightmares

Google Video: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

The Power of Nightmares, subtitled The Rise of the Politics of Fear, is a BBC documentary film series, written and produced by Adam Curtis. The series consists of three one-hour films, consisting mostly of a montage of archive footage with Curtis’s narration, which were first broadcast in the United Kingdom in late 2004 and have been subsequently aired in multiple countries and shown in several film festivals, including the 2005 Cannes Film Festival

(via wikipedia)

Century of the Self

Google Video: Part 1, Part 2,Part 3, Part 4

This series is about how those in power have used Freud’s theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy.

(Adam Curtis via wikipedia)