Wednesday 9 May 2007

The Trap: What Happened to Our Dreams of Freedom?

Thought I'd just post on Adam Curtis' fascinating thee-part documentary, which aired on BBC2 a few months ago, 'The Trap: What Happened to Our Dreams of Freedom?' Curtis has stated that he's had trouble getting his documentaries released on DVDs due to their extensive use of archive footage and music...which is probably the thing that most gives them their characteristic flavour, but can also be irritating and a bit gimmicky, and almost gets in the way of his argument more than making it - in addition, it feels manipulative. Anyway, despite that, these 3 episdoes are actually thought-provoking and challenge assumptions in thought, which makes a change from a lot of TV output these days. Maybe the exaggerated style is in place to compensate for this, to 'jazz it up' so that it doesn't feel so much that he's delivering a lecture/academic polemic. Anyway, the whole thing's available on Google Video - here are the links.
EPISODE ONE
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=8372545413887273321&q=the+trap
EPISDOE TWO
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-7849982478877371384&q=the+trap
EPISODE THREE (broken up into 3 seperate videos)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-121006630030775636
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1343199130780182696
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3291992041130722257&hl

2 comments:

david_grundy said...

Unrelated, but this is definitely worth signing. As far as I can make out, the case is this: a load of money is potentially being allocated for a huge sports event (you know what I'm talking about)which is supposed to re-ingest some sort of national pride/euphria/sense of achievement and togetherness recalling the early days of New Labour, 'Cool Brittania' etc. All this at the expense of where money's really needed - care workers, arts projects, culture...God! Better get your e-signatures down quick.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/lotteryolympics/

J-Bombay said...

Hi,

Thanks for posting the links to these videos. I got a chance to watch a little bit of it last night, and what I saw was very interesting and thought-provoking. I can't wait to see the rest of it. I definitely appreciate the recommendation!

J