The antidote to civilisational collapse

By N.B.

“It’s ‘fuck off’ to everything,” says Adam Curtis (pictured below), describing public sentiment today. The British documentarist sees himself as an optimist amid dystopians, and as a classical journalist whose medium happens to be film. For 30 years he has produced a rich body of documentaries on politics and society for the BBC—and in the process, has emerged as a cult-hero to young thinkers trying to comprehend a chaotic world.

The films themselves are a collage of archival footage, words on screen and fast montages that create sprawling, idealistic-yet-dark narratives on the changing relationships among people, politics, philosophy, psychology, economics and power. They cut quickly between different tones and topics to resemble a train of thought or a rich conversation between friends. The mirror he holds up is disturbing: a reality that is freakish, demented, deformed.