The Trap - What Happened to Our Dreams of Freedom - BBC2

Posted by: acad tsunami on 11 March 2007

How nice to see another excellent documentary by Adam Curtis on the box again. Essential viewing .

This from radiotimes.com

'DocumentaryHighlight
The Trap - What Happened to Our Dreams of Freedom
9:00pm - 10:00pm
BBC2
VIDEO Plus+: 8237
Subtitles, widescreen

1/3 - F**k You Buddy

If most factual TV is bangers and mash, this is thick-cut, rare steak. Adam Curtis's previous, visionary series The Power of Nightmares analysed radical Islam and the fear of terrorism. Here, he takes on an even bigger idea: freedom. The gist of his argument is that we have escaped historic limits on our liberty, only to submit to a bleak new idea of freedom - one that rules us by numbers and has no place for altruism. As important as the content of the programme is its woozy style. Curtis's cocktail of archive clips, sound effects and music achieves a kind of visual poetry, unsettling and nightmarish. The Trap is not for the faint-hearted: at times, it feels like you're sitting in an intellectual wind tunnel being battered by huge theories. But it's an energising blast, and quite brilliant TV. '
Posted on: 12 March 2007 by Chris Kelly
Kudos to the BBC for putting out a heavyweight program like that at peak viewing times on a Sunday evening. In the era of dumbing down that was an amazing program.
Posted on: 12 March 2007 by Tim Jones
I agree and like his work - a lot. The Century of the Self was one of the most intellectually amazing things I've seen on televison for a long time.

The problem is that his narrative tends to present events and intentions in such a way that the protagonists would have a difficult job recognising. And the same narrative has a tendency to weave events around a certain thread which is convenient and serves the needs of the format above other considerations.

Would Laing really have accepted that his idea of 'freedom' (although he'd probably have balked at the word) is anything like those of the Rand Corp or Hayek, for example?

If you want to develop this theme of ideas of freedom 'of the rational individual' being on a slippery slope to the kind of alienation that the first programme presented, then you might end up having to take on heavier figures than these - some of the heaviest in the liberal tradition in fact; Hobbes, Locke, Mill. More profoundly, you will also need to have an alternative which is a lesser evil.
Posted on: 12 March 2007 by JeremyD
quote:
Originally posted by Tim Jones:
The problem is that his narrative tends to present events and intentions in such a way that the protagonists would have a difficult job recognising. And the same narrative has a tendency to weave events around a certain thread which is convenient and serves the needs of the format above other considerations.
You might find this amusing: A sneak preview of the next award-winning Adam Curtis documentary series - 'The History of Darkness'.

[Just passing through - apologies if I don't return to answer anything said to me].
Posted on: 13 March 2007 by acad tsunami
quote:
Originally posted by Chris Kelly:
Kudos to the BBC for putting out a heavyweight program like that at peak viewing times on a Sunday evening. In the era of dumbing down that was an amazing program.


Talking of 'dumbing down' did anyone see the documentary about Prince Charles last night on channel 4 - one of the most shoddy, manipulative and deceitful documentaries I have ever seen.