I also like the fact that it was released the day of the inauguration. What follows is a copy/pasted press release from the BBC:
The highly anticipated new work from journalist and Bafta award-winning filmmaker, Adam Curtis will premiere exclusively on BBC iPlayer on 11 February 2021.
This new series of films 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.
The films trace different forces across the world that have led to now, not just in the West, but in China and Russia as well. It covers a wide range - including the strange roots of modern conspiracy theories, the history of China, opium and opiods, the history of Artificial Intelligence, melancholy over the loss of empire and, love and power. And explores whether modern culture, despite its radicalism, is really just part of the new system of power.
Adam Curtis says: “These strange days did not just happen. We - and those in power - created them together.”
Can't Get You Out Of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World is a BBC Film and BBC Three production for BBC iPlayer. Produced by Sandra Gorel, Executive Producer is Rose Garnett for BBC Film.
EH
Full synopsis We are living through strange days.
Across Britain, Europe and America societies have become split and polarised not just in politics but across the whole culture. There is anger at the inequality and the ever growing corruption - and a widespread distrust of the elites.
And into this has come the pandemic that has brutally dramatised those divisions.
But despite the chaos there is a paralysis - a sense that no one knows how to escape from this.
This new series of films by Adam Curtis tell the story of how we got to this place. And why both those in power - and we - find it so difficult to move on.
The films trace different forces across the world that have led to now, not just in the West, but in China and Russia as well.
It covers a wide range - including the strange roots of modern conspiracy theories, the history of China, opium and opiods, the history of Artificial Intelligence, melancholy over the loss of empire and, love and power. And whether modern culture, despite its radicalism, is really part of the new system of power.
And the films are told in a different way - they are an emotional history of what went on inside the heads of all kinds of people.
Because in the age of the individual - what you felt and what you wanted and what you dreamed of were going to become the driving force across the world.
What was forgotten in that age was that much of what we feel is also formed by the society around us. Above all by the power structures.
And now those structures are decaying - everywhere - their weakness and uncertainty makes us feel empty and frightened of the future.
That is what is paralysing us - and blocking us from imagining different kinds of societies and a better future
Can't Get You Out Of My Head is an epic history that shows how and why that happened. How we made this particular world. And that it was not inevitable.
Wow I didn't know that he had talked about writing a book or making a podcast, by any chance did he mention it in the Tim Heidecker interview? I can't seem to find anything about these projects. As you say its completely understandable he set aside everything else because holy shit he completed 6 films in the span of four years (If I remember correctly he had talked about this idea shortly after releasing Bitter Lake) and if we take Jon Ronson's word about it this film series seem to be his best yet . I really can't wait, the synopsis is just mouth watering. Have you read the paper Adam Curtis’s compelling logic: the tortuous corridor to the hypernormal ? I think you will find interesting, I am rereading that and also plan to read Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More in the meantime. Also, what do you think will be the release window for this? Seems extreme to me that they will drop the 6 films on day one, I sure hope so.
I will be agonizing trying to find a way to sneak in to the stupid Iplayer for free and post the results here but nevertheless I really don't care much about them releasing the film series this way, just the fact that Adam Curtis can produce this with total freedom is amazing, we will always have torrents and whatnot.
Louis Theroux talked about the history podcast, he said Adam interviewed him for it and then later said he'd been forced to abandon it because his new film needed all his attention. He talked about the book just after Hypernormalisation came out, saying he had an idea for some kind of linking media narrative that drew on McLuhan and DeBord but he didn't think it was a film, he felt it was a book and he'd been talking on publishers about it. The next time he mentioned it, he said he didn't have the time to write it with his new film.
I haven't but I will read it now. I have a lot of free time til March so anything that helps fill it is most welcome.
Thanks a lot for filling me in! I'm glad you have the time to go through the paper, its really worth it and I think that it really nails how and why Adam works his aesthetic the way he does and it also has this really concise break down of AC's "social theory", extremely well informed and put together, I forgot to link to it yesterday, here .
In the end I'm glad that Adam decided to focus on Can't Get You Outside Of My Head because both the podcast and the book project seem to me like a compromise, maybe the book not so much I take that back because I was hearing yesterday the interview with Tim Heidecker where he touches the idea of editing as a form of writing and I remember he mentioned elsewhere that he was a big fan of John Dos Passos, so that might be extremely good if and when it comes. In the end all of this seems to me as a protomontage I would rather have the real shit.