Adam Curtis

Kevin Adam Curtis (born 26 May 1955) is an English documentary filmmaker. Curtis began his career as a conventional documentary producer for the BBC throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The release of Pandora's Box marked the introduction of Curtis's distinctive presentation that uses collage to explore aspects of sociology, psychology, philosophy, and political history.

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". His films have won five BAFTAs.

Early life Adam Curtis was born in Dartford in Kent, and raised in nearby Platt. His father was Martin Curtis (1917–2002), a cinematographer with a socialist background. Curtis won a county scholarship and attended the Sevenoaks School. It was there that an influential art teacher introduced him to the work of Robert Rauschenberg. Curtis completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in human sciences at Mansfield College, Oxford. He began a PhD and taught in politics, but ultimately became disillusioned with academia and decided to leave.

Politics Curtis is inspired by the sociologist Max Weber, who, he argues, challenged the "crude, left-wing, vulgar Marxism that says that everything happens because of economic forces within society".

In a 2022 interview, Curtis reiterated the neoconservative interpretation of "The Century of the Self" but added it is not what he himself believes. This time, Curtis states that he does not know his exact politics, saying:

Documentaries

Curtis cites the U.S.A. trilogy, a series of three novels by John Dos Passos that he first read when he was thirteen, as the greatest influence on his work: You can trace back everything I do to that novel because it's all about grand history, individual experience, their relationship. And also collages, quotes from newsreels, cinema, newspapers. And it's about collage of history as well. That's where I get it all from. Discussing his process in an interview with fellow documentary-maker Jon Ronson for Vice, Curtis said his extensive work with footage acquired from the BBC Archives is often led by "instinct and imagination", with the aim of creating "a mood that gives power and force to the story I'm telling".

Instead of specially composed music, which Curtis has said "creates a sort of monoculture", he uses tracks from a variety of genres, decades, and countries, as well as sound effects that he discovers on old tapes. According to a profile of Curtis by Tim Adams, published in The Observer: "If there has been a theme in Curtis's work ... it has been to look at how different elites have tried to impose an ideology on their times, and the tragicomic consequences of those attempts".

In 2005, Curtis received the Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival. In 2006, he was given the Alan Clarke Award for Outstanding Creative Contribution to Television at the British Academy Television Awards. In 2009, the Sheffield International Documentary Festival gave Curtis the Inspiration Award for inspiring viewers and other documentary filmmakers. In 2015, he was awarded the True Vision Award by the True/False Film Fest. Curtis's critics have accused him of exaggeration and distortion, even wilful misrepresentation.

Blog Curtis administered a blog subtitled 'The Medium and the Message' hosted by the BBC and updated between 2009 and 2016.

Filmography Year Title Subject Parts Channel/Venue Notes & Awards 1983 Just Another Day: "Selfridges" Behind the scenes at Selfridges, a department store on Oxford Street, London. S01E03 BBC Two, 29 March 1983 1983 Just Another Day: "The Seaside" A typical day in Walton-on-the-Naze. S01E06 BBC Two, 19 April 1983 1983 Trumpets and Typewriters: A History of War Reporting The history of war correspondents.Film BBC One, 19 July 1983 1984 Inquiry: The Great British Housing Disaster. The system-built housing of the 1960s. Narrated by David Jones. Film BBC Two, 4 September 1984 1984 Italians: "The Mayor of Montemilone" The politics of a small Italian town and its communist mayor, Dino Labriola. S01E04 BBC One, 26 October 1984 1984 The Cost of Treachery The Albanian Subversion, in which the CIA and MI6 attempted to overthrow the Albanian government and to weaken the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War in 1949, and the role of double agent Kim Philby.Film BBC One, 30 October 1984 1987 40 Minutes: "Bombay Hotel" The luxurious Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai, contrasted with the poverty of the city's slums.Film BBC Two, 30 April 1987 1988 An Ocean Apart Explores the relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States from World War I to the 1980s. 7 BBC One, 20 April 1988 1989 40 Minutes: "The Kingdom of Fun" Documentary about the Metro Centre in Gateshead, developed by entrepreneur John Hall. It compares Hall's plans to regenerate North East England with those of Labour politician T. Dan Smith.Film BBC Two, 19 January 1989 1989 Inside Story: "The Road to Terror" How the Iranian Revolution turned from idealism to terror, drawing parallels with the French Revolution two hundred years earlier. E06 BBC One, 14 June 1989 1992 Pandora's Box The dangers of technocratic and political rationality. 6 BBC Two, 11 June 1992 Originality and Best Factual Series, BAFTA Awards 1993 1995 The Living Dead The different ways that history and memory (both national and individual) have been used and manipulated by politicians and others. 3 BBC Two, 30 May 1995 1996 £830,000,000 – Nick Leeson and the Fall of the House of Barings Nick Leeson and the collapse of Barings Bank.Film BBC One, 12 June 1996 An Inside Story special. Later titled 25 Million Pounds. 1997 Modern Times: "The Way of All Flesh" The story, dating back to the 1950s, of the search for a cure to cancer, and the impact of Henrietta Lacks, the "woman who will never die" because her cells never stopped reproducing.Film BBC Two, 19 March 1997 1999 The Mayfair Set Looks at the birth of the global arms trade, the invention of asset stripping, and how buccaneer capitalists shaped the Thatcher years, focusing on the rise of Colonel David Stirling, Jim Slater, Sir James Goldsmith and Tiny Rowland—members of the elite Clermont Club in the 1960s. 4 BBC Two, 18 July 1999 Best Factual Series or Strand, BAFTA Awards 2000 2002 The Century of the Self How Freud's theories on the unconscious led to the development of public relations by his nephew Edward Bernays; the use of desire over need; and self-actualisation as a means of achieving economic growth and the political control of populations. 4 BBC Two, 17 March 2002; art-house cinemas in the U.S. Best Documentary Series, Broadcast Awards; Historical Film of the Year, Longman-History Today Awards; Nominated for Best Documentary Series, Royal Television Society 2004 The Power of Nightmares Suggests a parallel between the rise of Islamism in the Arab world and neoconservatism in the United States, and their mutual need, argues Curtis, to create the myth of a dangerous enemy to gain support. 3 BBC Two, 20 October 2004 Best Factual Series or Strand, BAFTA Awards 2005 2007 The Trap Explores the modern concept of freedom, specifically, "how a simplistic model of human beings as self-seeking, almost robotic creatures led to today's idea of freedom". 3 BBC Two, 7 March 2007 2007 The Rise and Fall of the TV Journalist Short film chronicling the transformation of mainstream media and the balance of political power in the last few decades by looking at how the role of the broadcast journalist has changed since the 1950s. Short film Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, S4E03 2009 Oh Dearism Short film about how mainstream media simplify complex events and present them as "scattered terrible things happening everywhere, Oh Dear", leaving the public feeling powerless to do anything about them. Collaboration with theatre company Punchdrunk and Damon Albarn. Film Manchester International Festival 2010 Paranoia and Moral Panics Short film using the paranoia of Richard Nixon to explore how a similar outlook on life has been propagated on a larger social scale in the new media age and the resulting moral panics and immobilisation of politics. Argues that computers have failed to liberate humanity, and instead have "distorted and simplified our view of the world around us". The title is taken from a 1967 poem of the same name by Richard Brautigan. 3 BBC Two, 23 May 2011 2011 Every Day Is Like Sunday The rise and fall of press baron Cecil King, and the changing relationship between the public, politics and the media. Film His personal blog; not a full documentary, but "a rough cut". 2013 Everything Is Going According to Plan (Massive Attack v Adam Curtis) Collaboration with Massive Attack. Based on technocrats and global corporations establishing an ultraconservative norm, with the internet providing a "fake, enchanting world, which has become a kind of prison". Short film Manchester International Festival 2014 Oh Dearism II Short film examining the global events of 2014 to reveal a chaotic morass, the reporting of which is increasingly difficult to comprehend in the context of the 24-hour news cycle and the internet (special feature on Russian Vladislav Surkov). How Western leaders' simplistic good vs. evil narrative has failed in the complex post-war era, and how many Islamic terrorist groups have their origins in the U.S.'s long-standing alliance with Saudi Arabia. Film BBC iPlayer, 25 January 2015 2016 Living in an Unreal World Short film for Vice Media about the illusion of stability, freedom, and prosperity in the West, comparing it to life in the Soviet Union during the 1970s. Ends with a trailer for HyperNormalisation. Short film VICE (Facebook), 15 October 2016 2016 HyperNormalisation "How we got to this strange time of great uncertainty and confusion where those who are supposed to be in power are paralysed and have no idea what to do". Film BBC iPlayer, 16 October 2016 Nominated for Best Single Documentary, BAFTA Awards 2017 2017MK Ultra Dance collaboration with Rosie Kay Dance Company. Explores project MKUltra and conspiracy theories including the Illuminati, themes later reworked into Can't Get You Out of My Head. DanceLive performance. Commissioned by Birmingham Repertory Theatre, DanceXchange, Warwick Arts Centre & HOME 2019 Untitled Collaboration with Massive Attack. "How we have moved into a strange backward-looking world, enclosed by machines that read our data and predict our every move, haunted by ghosts from the past". Mezzanine XXI tour 2021Can't Get You Out of My Head A six-part BBC documentary series that "tells the story of how we got to the strange days we are now experiencing. And why both those in power – and we – find it so difficult to move on". It "explores whether modern culture, despite its radicalism, is really just part of the new system of power". 6BBC iPlayer, 11 February 2021 Seven hour-long films about the disintegration of the Soviet Union and subsequent rise to power of Vladimir Putin as the President of Russia, seen through the eyes of Russian people at every level of society.7Premiered at Telluride Film Festival, 2022

Music videos Year Title Subject 2023 God Turn Me Into A Flower A music video comprising edited concert footage of Weyes Blood.