I have a friend who isn't a leftist that really likes all of his documentaries. I watched a few videos and the thing that stuck out to me is how much Curtis focuses on the individual thoughts and actions of specific people throughout history, with almost no focus on the systems that motivate their behavior.
For example, in "The Century of the Self" he discusses how Edward Bernays made it rich using his physchology background to become a marketing consultatant for some of the major corporations during the time period. These corporations were looking for a way to use psychology to manipulate the working class (what Curtis refers to as "the masses" for some reason) into buying their products.
From a materialist perspective Bernays isn't really important at all. He happened to be the person who began using psychology to market to people, but if it wasn't him there would have been someone else who did it.
Maybe this content works as a primer for a more materialist understanding of society and history, but to me it almost seems like he is hiding the ball. "It's not capitalism, it just a collection of individual decisions."
He's a social constructivist and a libertarian (apparently? I always got anarchist vibes from him, he laments the lack of large radical political movements in the west), and tends to view the world through that lens. He also focuses on constructing stories, which rely often on tragic heroes and villains (some of which are people, sometimes ideas), as well as plot structure. While this makes his documentaries more accessible, it makes a lot of sacrifices for it and tends to overstate the importance of minor projects.
He's has some interesting points to make, and I think he's on the money when it comes to reflecting on how power overwhelms noble ideas (though I think he is not critical of people's stated goals; it's pretty obvious economic think tanks lie constantly about poor people being better off). This can be twisted into a materialist analysis after a few drunk evenings watching his documentaries and discussing it with friends, but Curtis himself doesn't quite get there.
He was a pretty important part of my own political evolution. My favourite is All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace, by way of it being about my industry and techno-utopians I meet online.
I like his stuff but he tends to be a bit liberal on stuff. TrueAnon did a good episode on him althoug my opinio of him doesn' rest solel on wha they say. He's a good jumping off point for your own research. I like the style of editing and all.
His stuff is cool and should be looked at as more of a historically inspired artwork rather than any sort of documentary. That's something that I think I got wrong for a bit and then came back around and took another look at him.
the only thing i know of his is "all watched over by machines of loving grace" and i actually really like that doc but like you say he doesn't do a good job criticizing systems and you kinda have to fill in the blanks yourself. it's a quite interesting documentary but from what i've heard he sounds like an establishment lib.
I think he openly identifies as a libertarian :kombucha-disgust:
but his movies are still neat
As with anything that remains in the realm of the individual rather than the systemic, if it’s good it’s good only on the vibes level. That frame point obfuscates the system, but it’s also a great point of view to capture great art/vibes from and Curtis’s work always does that well imo
IMO: Liberal idealist that is able to recognize various problems of society but fails to connect them to each other or provide a framework for understanding why they happen. If he was capable of explaining through a universal materialist framework why these phenomena came to be and how they might be overcome then he would not be permitted the platform to share his content publically.
