All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

[gnosticheresy_2]

Adan Curtis new documentary/ thing, Ayn Rand, computers and Alan Greenspan. First episode:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011lvb9

Well worth a watch. Non-UK peeps try and get hold of it if you can, excellent so far.

[seemslikeadream]

Adan Curtis new documentary/ thing, Ayn Rand, computers and Alan Greenspan. First episode:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011lvb9

Well worth a watch. Non-UK peeps try and get hold of it if you can, excellent so far.

I'd like to watch maybe someone will put it on YouTube, I'm gonna ask a few people

here's a couple of trailers





Good stuff
The Century of the Self

[Rory]

Adan Curtis new documentary/ thing, Ayn Rand, computers and Alan Greenspan. First episode:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011lvb9

Well worth a watch. Non-UK peeps try and get hold of it if you can, excellent so far.

Not that I would recommend that anyone would illegally download anything. But there is a torrent site that deals only in British TV. This show (and the future episodes will be on once broadcast) is on there. I think all of Adam Curtis's back catalogue is there too.

http://thebox.bz/login.php

The sign-up is open but they have limited membership and will close to new members periodically. It's not the kind of place you can rip and run from but this, first episode won't be counted against your download total.

btw. am not pr for the site or anything! Just find it a valuable resource if there's ever anything from tv in the UK I might want to catch

[Joe Hillshoist]

[8bitagent]

Hot damn this looks visionary, wouldn't be surprised if it's Curtis' best documentary to date. His work takes on this hypnotic sense of "non time"(to steal a word from another thread), and his choice of images, music and words is just too darn perfect.

The Trap wasn't my favorite, but I saw where he was going with it. By far my favorite Is The Power of Nightmares, even though it's 7 years old I still find it one of the best "9/11" documentaries.

Did anyone ever see his last series, "Kabul"?

At any rate, this one could not have come out at a more perfect time, as it really seems to have its finger on the pulse of right now.

[Wombaticus Rex]

It really irritates me that the work of Adam Curtis, as well as the classic documentary "Spin," are not available in any format that is worth a shit. I would happily pay out money, cash dollars, for a proper functional high-resolution DVD actual copy of all these great works and yet all I have available is low-res google video rips and segmented youtube clips. The fact there's not more demand for this particular product, well...that really says it all. And I do mean it all.

[Stephen Morgan]

I used to have a DVD of The Power of Nightmares. Got it off some foreign branch of Amazon.

[gnosticheresy_2]

Hot damn this looks visionary, wouldn't be surprised if it's Curtis' best documentary to date. His work takes on this hypnotic sense of "non time"(to steal a word from another thread), and his choice of images, music and words is just too darn perfect.

I posted the OP as I was watching it and now, after some reflection, if the rest of it is as good as the first episode then I'd put it up there with the Power of Nightmares easily. Absolutely great the way he jumps from one subject to another seemingly unrelated subject then backtracks and ties them both together. Might watch it again on iplayer today.

[8bitagent]

I downloaded the ISO of Power of Nightmares off some torrent ages ago. Otherwise I don't know where Century of Self, Kabul City or The Trap can be found as a whole file.

Hot damn this looks visionary, wouldn't be surprised if it's Curtis' best documentary to date. His work takes on this hypnotic sense of "non time"(to steal a word from another thread), and his choice of images, music and words is just too darn perfect.

I posted the OP as I was watching it and now, after some reflection, if the rest of it is as good as the first episode then I'd put it up there with the Power of Nightmares easily. Absolutely great the way he jumps from one subject to another seemingly unrelated subject then backtracks and ties them both together. Might watch it again on iplayer today.

I think the use of vintage clips works wonders here, and then juxtaposed with modern technology. I love films like Koyaanisqatsi, so this will fit right in

[Hammer of Los]

Thanks for the link man, I'll try to get round to watching it.

But you know the anti psychiatry folk still haven't forgiven Curtis for his frankly incomprehending critique of the work of R D Laing, in "The Century of the Self" (yes, I preferred "The Power of Nightmares," too).

I sure haven't.

Curtis' research skills sometimes take a back seat to his desire to drive his unitary narrative through, apparently.

Still, I shall watch his latest with interest. There aren't many (any?) documentary makers like him.

ps I don't think R D Laing was a scientologist. Of course, if he wasn't, that simply means he was a useful idiot for them, repeating their inane talking points in a misguided and dangerous attempt to critique the methods of late twentieth century psychiatry. Er, that bit should be in green.

[semper occultus]

p*ss-b*ll*cks have I missed 2 flipping episodes of this already !?

It really irritates me that the work of Adam Curtis, as well as the classic documentary "Spin," are not available in any format that is worth a shit. I would happily pay out money, cash dollars, for a proper functional high-resolution DVD actual copy of all these great works and yet all I have available is low-res google video rips and segmented youtube clips. The fact there's not more demand for this particular product, well...that really says it all. And I do mean it all.

Wombat - I think this bloke sells fairly decent pirate dvd's of Curtis's oevre - might be worth a speculative emial - i suspect he can convert formats :
http://www.revelationaudiovisual.com/

[gnosticheresy_2]

p*ss-b*ll*cks have I missed 2 flipping episodes of this already !?

Nah was the first episode last night innit

[Wombaticus Rex]

I've seen a lot of pirate DVD's of Curtis work but I want the actual renders of his source files if I'm going to pay for a DVD. I can make my own "pirate DVDs" before the hour is through with the files I've already got, you know? Just the same, I definitely appreciate the heads-up and the thought behind it -- thank you.

[kenoma]

If you don't want to torrent: I use Expat shield, which gives you a UK IP address for watching BBC iplayer. Windows only. Turn it off when doing anything else.

Must say I was underwhelmed by this first episode.

I'll try and summarize the argument, such as it is (maybe you shouldn't read this if you haven't seen it):

The target is a Randian cybernetic utopianism which came to the fore in the early eighties, and which promises to harmonize untrammeled individualism in an optimally rational hivemind. We love and believe in markets just as we love and believe in computers, because both promise this utopia. But rational individualism is an oxymoron: we're essentially frail and irrational as individuals. We can't stop doing things that are irrational, that go against our own interests and/or the cybernetic whole. So we become intensely jealous (Ayn Rand); we shag interns (Clinton); we ignore our better judgement about 'irrational exuberance' when it's unpopular (Greenspan). The virus eating away at the system of rational individualism is our very irrational faith that this system will always run smoothly, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
Into this mix is thrown firstly the East Asian crisis and subsequent IMF pillaging, and then the 2008 credit crisis and subsequent response. They both somehow manifest this irrational faith in computer algorithms as harbingers of absolute individual freedom...

I'm being generous here though, because the connection between these events and the central thesis of the documentary is pretty damn tenuous, and mostly left up to your imagination. So are other connections - I can guess, but never really know why the Lewinsky scandal is important in all this. I half-understand why Curtis has to pretend that Clinton was surprised at having to implement massive cuts on entering office; but I know it's patent bullshit. That internet personae commodify the 'individual' is true and interesting... but what this has to do with Greenspan and Rand, I'm not sure.

In short, it's all a bit of a mess. Diehard fans might say this is the point, that it's an evocative, suggestive mess. Its incoherence is fertile ground for an open-ended discussion of the themes it raises. But I wonder whether anything more than aesthetic pleasures are being satisfied here. I wonder what kind of conversations and arguments this documentary will really generate, beyond a kind of slack-jawed admiration of its ambition.

And there is a real problem here, because the documentary effectively validates two rather nasty bits of propaganda:
1) The people in charge - your Greenspans, your Clintons, your IMFs - are essentially motivated and blinkered by their sincere belief in misguided ideas. It's not that they actively seek to maximise their own material wealth at the expense of a global majority whom they regard as scum. Not at all: they really, sincerely believe Randian objectivism and cybernetic utopianism will lead to the best of all possible worlds. They just haven't been appraised of the downsides yet. (That these beliefs justify and enable massive self-enrichment is purely coincidental, and of no relevance here)
2) An irrational faith in computer algorithms amongst Wall St firms caused the current financial crisis. D'oh! Please ignore obvious evidence of foreknowledge of the crisis. Forget about the massively lucrative TBTF state bailouts which no computer could have predicted. Pay no heed to the incredible concentration of wealth which has only increased since the 2008 crisis. The quants fucked up! We didn't want it to happen this way, honest!

[Searcher08]

I just watched it on iPlayer and thought it was fabulous.
It has great interviews with people from the inner Ayn Rand circle, which showed for me enantiodromia in devastating clarity.
The other aspect was the documenting of a very deep shifting of power from Washington to Wall Street, with Robert Rubin admitting he was directly dictating aspects of American foriegn policy.
The only point I would directly contest was his assertion that fundamental Islam had as it's enemy no 1 the philosophy of 'rugged individualism'.
I loved the non-linear approach and the fact that it is not stated as a legalistic set of assertions and argumentation, but as a web of interconnecting concepts and feedback loops - that actual models it's content in its method of presentation. I imagine it could be watched several times and much new discovered each time.