
All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace - jpswade
http://archive.org/details/AdamCurtis-AllWatchedOverByMachinesOfLovingGrace/
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cvursache
You should be careful about claims made in Adam Curtis videos. His
cinematography is great and I love him because of the ADD-style and music he
uses, but a lot of information is very biased and, in very many cases, just
plain false (e.g. In one of his movies he calls Herbert Marcuse the leader of
the student movement of the 60s and shows a short clip of him talking. The
short clip is taken from an interview in which one finds, if watched
integrally, Marcuse himself explaining why he is NOT an important figure in
the movement). So maybe one should see the movies as entertainment rather than
documentaries.

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tatsuke95
> _"The short clip is taken from an interview in which one finds, if watched
> integrally, Marcuse himself explaining why he is NOT an important figure in
> the movement"_

That's called modesty. To deny Marcuse had no influence because he said he
didn't is incredibly naive.

As far as "bias", every piece of media we consume has bias. Making claims of,
"This is biased!" is something you do in high school readings; of _course_
it's biased. Mr. Curtis is using film to express an opinion and theory about
how he sees things work. That's what all artists, writers and film makers do.

Some of his ideas are a bit of a stretch, yes. But I think people are doing a
great disservice to others by attaching a disclaimer to these films. In my
opinion, Curtis makes some of the most well-done, stylized, intellectual and
entertaining documentaries going (and this series is probably his worst). If
you don't like his films, that's fine. But don't try to pass him off as a
nutter. That's unfair and biased.

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cvursache
You are completely right, Marcuse is very modest in portraying himself as an
influential figure, and I didn't want to sound as if arguing that he had no
influence. He had an influence, but he was in NO way involved in organizing
any of the actions the students took. To quote him, he was a "father figure"
to them, rather than a leader.

To answer your second point, I don't want to argue that Adam Curtis makes bad
movies, quite the contrary. But his intellectual contributions are very
questionable. There is a reason why contrarian people like Noam Chomsky are
widely respected, and there is a reason why people like Adam Curtis are not.
To quote Carl Sagan: 'Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.'.
And Curtis seems to provide the former without the latter.

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tatsuke95
I suppose I was a bit defensive because I generally consider this forum to
have a slightly "high-brow" slant. I also take much advice from it. So while
you're certainly entitled to your opinion, and to like or dislike the films, I
think the works are all good enough that people should be encouraged to watch
them. As opposed to you telling me Transformers 3 sucks, and me never having
to think about watching it after that.

When I leapt into the comments there happened to be a slightly unfavourable
sentiment regarding Adam Curtis. I just wanted people to know that everything
he's produced is _at least_ worth a viewing.

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jacques_chester
Adam Curtis bugs me.

He basically makes music videos for conspiracy theories.

His smug tone, the apparently relentless fondness for animistic fallacies and
the surface-level treatment of complex phenomena really gets up my delicate
nostrils.

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juhanima
Sorry to hear that. This subject was new to me but by now I have watched the
OP's series and the first episode of the living dead (thanks HN for another
stimulating experience). I find them extremely interesting, more like essays
than lectures. You know, in an essay there are a bit more artistic liberties.

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juhanima
I have now finished The Living Dead and am halfway through Pandora's Box. Some
observations with your permission.

Adam Curtis most definitely does not make music videos around conspiracy
theories. He makes intellectually challenging documentaries based on
absolutely stunning archive footage and refreshingly radical observations.

He seems to apply a kind of a dialectic method. For instance in the Living
Dead he combines three quite remote subjects. The first episode is how the WW2
was painted as the battle between good and evil, while some think that in a
war bad things happen at both sides. The second one is about cold war
brainwashing techniques both in the U.S. and in Russia. The final one is all
about how Margaret Thatcher bought Winston Churchill's dream of a Greater
Britain. Looks like the last one is the point he really wanted to make and the
two first are just preliminaries, although extremely insightful.

He is also obsessed about the relativity of truth and the feasibility of
rational planning and free will. Which are not subjects readily emptied
methinks.

And I don't find his voice annoying at all. So all in all, my first impression
is extremely good and I have already recommended him to a couple of friends.

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jacques_chester
That was exactly my point.

Curtis takes reams of archival footage, sets it to funky music, then ties
together disparate historical events into a seamless narrative.

The problem is that he likes that narrative to have agency. But a lot of
history is "one damn thing after another". No particular cabal animates this
or that outcome, people just act based on what's in front of them.

And that's what I mean by the animistic fallacy. Curtis sees the lightning
bolts of history and supposes that some god is throwing them (usually, dunh
dunh duuuuh, it's economists). But it basically doesn't happen that way.

It's style over substance. Mind-candy. Sweet and ultimately unfulfilling.

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brazzy
_He smiled. “My dear girl, in Culture history alone it has been about nine
thousand years since a human, marvellous though they are in so many other
ways, could do anything useful in a serious, big-guns space battle other than
admire the pretty explosions… or in some cases contribute to them.”

“Contribute?”

“Chemicals; colours. You know.”_

\-- Iain Banks, "Surface Detail"

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zachrose
A list of assertions from the film:

Ayn Rand was very influential to the Silicon Valley of the 90s.

There was a dream of large scale cybernetic/emergent self-regulation enabled
by computers, which would do away with hierarchical organizations and
government as we knew it.

This "Californian Ideology" held that government would need to become a
facilitator rather than a regulator. Bill Clinton was originally opposed to
this ideology, believing in the regulatory role of government.

Meanwhile, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan had been a follower of
Rand's philosophy since the 1950s.

In 1992, Greenspan convinced Clinton to cut government spending to lower
interest rates and grow the economy, the opposite of Clinton's original
intentions as president.

A belief emerged called the New Economy, which said the booming economy would
be different than previous booms because computers could calculate risk in a
way that enabled more feedback and self-regulation.

In 1996, Greenspan noticed that rising profits were not tied to rising
productivity, and warned of a speculative bubble. He then reversed this
outlook due to political pressure.

Implied cinematically: Rand's affair with Nathaniel Brandon, which she
considered rational, had parallels to Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky.

The rising economy of the 90s prompted a speculative boom in Southeast Asia.
Concerns about this were intercepted and put down by Robert Rubin, former head
of Goldman Sachs and believer in computer self-regulation.

Carmen Hermasillo (Humdog) raised concerns about cyberspace not being a
utopian platform, but rather a corporate profit center for user generated
content.

The speculative bubble in Southeast Asia collapsed at the same time as Clinton
became entangled with the Lewinsky scandal, leaving the treasury to deal with
a fiscal crisis in Indonesia.

Indonesia signed with the IMF, but their currency collapsed anyways. The IMF
loans were really to pay off western investors, who then left.

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anamax
> In 1992, Greenspan convinced Clinton to cut government spending to lower
> interest rates and grow the economy, the opposite of Clinton's original
> intentions as president.

Clinton didn't cut total spending at any time during his 8 years. (He did cut
defense, but spent that money, and more, elsewhere.)

The rate of increase may have decreased somewhat after 94, when the Dems lost
both the House and Senate.

[http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-
unde...](http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-
clinton/) shows that the deficit reduction trend started a couple of budget
cycles before Clinton's first budget.

Note that none of this counts unfunded liabilities. They erase much of the
Clinton surplus.

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xefer
Make sure to read the original poem:

[http://allpoetry.com/poem/8508991-All_Watched_Over_By_Machin...](http://allpoetry.com/poem/8508991-All_Watched_Over_By_Machines_Of_Loving_Grace-
by-Richard_Brautigan)

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rjknight
Obligatory parody link: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg>

~~~
HarrietJones
Psych.

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arethuza
Watching his videos reminds me of the punishment described in Anathem where
people are forced to learn random or illogical content and then pass an oral
examination:

<http://anathem.wikia.com/wiki/Book>

[PS A Machine of Loving Grace would be a splendid name for a Culture GSV].

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colonel_panic
Given that three people posted a link to the same parody video within three
minutes of each other, I'm forced to assume that Adam Curtis is a brilliant
filmmaker.

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davidarkemp2
The rest of the comments go too far. Adam Curtis does nothing that "real news"
doesn't do. I'm not saying that everything that he says is true (he doesn't
provide references, so it would be difficult to verify anyway), but I think
the other comments are a little unfair.

With regards to the parody, I think it places too much weight on the belief
that people can't watch a succession of images and follow a (albeit winding)
narrative at the same time.

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rjknight
To back you up on this, another parody, this time of conventional news:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHun58mz3vI>

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HarrietJones
If you're going to watch any Adam Curtis documentary, it's worth watching the
parody video "The Loving Trap"

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg>

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callil
For a better watching experience, here is is on Vimeo
<https://vimeo.com/29865018>

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garethsprice
"Century of the Self" was my favorite of Curtis' films, and very relevant for
anyone involved in marketing.

Describes how industry went from manufacturing necessities to constructing
lifestyles by linking consumption to self-expression.

Part 1 of 4 (links to the others):
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prTarrgvkjo>

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craig552uk
These are not good films. These are bad films. Adam Curtis is not a good film
maker. Adam Curtis is a bad film maker.

This is better <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1bX3F7uTrg>

