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Adam Curtis (born 26 May 1955) is an English documentary filmmaker.
Curtis began his career as a conventional documentary producer for the BBC throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The release of '' Pandora's Box'' (1992) marked the introduction of Curtis's distinctive presentation that uses collage to explore aspects of
"Interview: Adam Curtis."
'' Film Comment''. Archived fro
the original.
/ref> His style has been described as involving, "whiplash digressions, menacing atmospherics and arpeggiated scores, and the near-psychedelic compilation of archival footage", narrated by Curtis himself with "patrician economy and assertion". His films have been awarded with four BAFTAs.
Curtis cites the '' U.S.A. trilogy'', a series of three novels by John Dos Passos that he first read when he was thirteen, as the greatest influence on his work:
Other creative influences are Robert Rauschenberg and Émile Zola. Curtis makes extensive use of archive footage in his documentaries. He has acknowledged the influence of recordings made by Erik Durschmied and is "constantly using his stuff in my films".
Discussing his process in an interview with fellow documentary-maker Jon Ronson for '' Vice'', Curtis said his extensive work with footage acquired from the BBC Archives is often led by 'instinct and imagination', with the aim of creating 'a mood that gives power and force to the story I'm telling'.
Instead of specially composed music, which Curtis has said "creates a sort of monoculture", he uses tracks from a variety of genres, decades, and countries, as well as sound effects that he discovers on old tapes.
According to a profile of Curtis by Tim Adams, published in ''
''Adam Curtis - The Medium and the Message''
- his personal blog at
Adam Curtis versus Joshua Oppenheimer, or art times journalism
– 2015 article by Robert Greene for the BFI
Adam Curtis: "We don't read newspapers because the journalism is so boring"
– 2014 interview by Rob Pollard for ''
On Adam Curtis
– 2011 article by Brian Appleyard for '' The Sunday Times''
Adam Curtis: The TV elite has lost the plot
– 2007 interview by Andrew Orlowski for '' The Register''
Adam Curtis's Theory of Everything
– 2021 article by Will Fenstermaker for '' Dissent''
The Paranoid Style in Adam Curtis
– 2021 article by Sasha Frere-Jones for '' The New York Review of Books''
Adam Curtis Explains It All
Portrait of Adam Curtis as an Artist, in:
'' The Medium and the Message''
– his archived blog at
The Power of Auteurs and the Last Man Standing: Adam Curtis's Documentary Nightmares
– extensive commentary on his films at '' Bright Lights Film Journal''
Adam Curtis: The Desperate Edge of Now
– details of a 2012 exhibition at the e-flux gallery in New York City {{DEFAULTSORT:Curtis, Adam 1955 births 20th-century English male writers 20th-century English non-fiction writers 20th-century essayists 21st-century British non-fiction writers 21st-century English male writers 21st-century essayists Alumni of Mansfield College, Oxford BAFTA winners (people) BBC people British documentary filmmakers British film directors British male essayists British male journalists British opinion journalists British social commentators British television producers Collage filmmakers Critics of Islamism Critics of Marxism Critics of neoconservatism Critics of religions Cultural critics English bloggers English documentary filmmakers English essayists English film directors English-language film directors English male journalists English male non-fiction writers English social commentators English television producers Free speech activists Living people Mass media theorists Media critics People educated at Sevenoaks School People from Dartford Social critics Theorists on Western civilization Writers about activism and social change Writers about communism Writers about globalization Writers about religion and science
sociology
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...
, psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
, philosophy and political history.Darke, Chris (17 July 2012)"Interview: Adam Curtis."
'' Film Comment''. Archived fro
the original.
/ref> His style has been described as involving, "whiplash digressions, menacing atmospherics and arpeggiated scores, and the near-psychedelic compilation of archival footage", narrated by Curtis himself with "patrician economy and assertion". His films have been awarded with four BAFTAs.
Early life
Adam Curtis was born in Dartford inKent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
, and raised in nearby Platt __NOTOC__
Platt may refer to:
Places
* Platt, Austria
* Platt, Florida, an unincorporated community in DeSoto County, Florida, United States
* Platt, Kent, England
People
* Platt (surname)
* Platt baronets, two baronetcies of the United Kin ...
. His father was Martin Curtis (1917–2002), a cinematographer with a socialist background.
Curtis won a county scholarship and attended the Sevenoaks School. It was there that an influential art teacher introduced him to the work of Robert Rauschenberg.
Curtis completed a Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...
degree in human sciences
Human science (or human sciences in the plural), also known as humanistic social science and moral science (or moral sciences), studies the philosophical, biological, social, and cultural aspects of human life. Human science aims to expand our u ...
at Mansfield College, Oxford. He began a PhD PHD or PhD may refer to:
* Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification
Entertainment
* '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series
* ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic
* Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group
** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...
and taught in politics, but ultimately became disillusioned with academia
An academy ( Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy ...
and decided to leave the profession.
Career
Early career
Curtis applied to the BBC and was hired to make a film for one of its training courses, comparing designer clothes inmusic videos
A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing devi ...
to the design of weapons. He was subsequently given a post on '' That's Life!'', a magazine series that juxtaposed hard-hitting investigations and light-hearted content. He was a film director on ''Out of Court'', a BBC Two legal series, from 1980 until 1982.
Politics
Curtis is inspired by the sociologistMax Weber
Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German Sociology, sociologist, historian, jurist and political economy, political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of Modernity, ...
, who, he argues, challenged the "crude, left-wing, vulgar Marxism that says that everything happens because of economic forces within society". Of his general political outlook, Curtis has also remarked:
In a later interview, Curtis has stated:
Documentaries
Curtis cites the '' U.S.A. trilogy'', a series of three novels by John Dos Passos that he first read when he was thirteen, as the greatest influence on his work:
Other creative influences are Robert Rauschenberg and Émile Zola. Curtis makes extensive use of archive footage in his documentaries. He has acknowledged the influence of recordings made by Erik Durschmied and is "constantly using his stuff in my films".
Discussing his process in an interview with fellow documentary-maker Jon Ronson for '' Vice'', Curtis said his extensive work with footage acquired from the BBC Archives is often led by 'instinct and imagination', with the aim of creating 'a mood that gives power and force to the story I'm telling'.
Instead of specially composed music, which Curtis has said "creates a sort of monoculture", he uses tracks from a variety of genres, decades, and countries, as well as sound effects that he discovers on old tapes.
According to a profile of Curtis by Tim Adams, published in ''The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper Sunday editions, published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group, Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. ...
'': "If there has been a theme in Curtis's work ... it has been to look at how different elites have tried to impose an ideology on their times, and the tragicomic consequences of those attempts".
In 2005, Curtis received the Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival. In 2006, he was given the Alan Clarke Award for Outstanding Creative Contribution to Television at the British Academy Television Awards. In 2009, the Sheffield International Documentary Festival
Sheffield DocFest (formerly styled Sheffield Doc/Fest), short for Sheffield International Documentary Festival (SIDF), is an international documentary festival and Marketplace held annually in Sheffield, England.
The Festival includes film s ...
gave Curtis the Inspiration Award for inspiring viewers and other documentary filmmakers. In 2015, he was awarded the True Vision Award by the True/False Film Fest.
Curtis's critics have accused him of exaggeration and distortion, even wilful misrepresentation.
Blog
Curtis administered a blog subtitled 'The Medium and the Message' hosted by the BBC and updated between 2009 and 2016.- his personal blog at
BBC Online
BBC Online, formerly known as BBCi, is the BBC's online service. It is a large network of websites including such high-profile sites as BBC News and Sport, the on-demand video and radio services branded BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, the childr ...
Filmography
References
Further reading
*Adam Curtis versus Joshua Oppenheimer, or art times journalism
– 2015 article by Robert Greene for the BFI
Adam Curtis: "We don't read newspapers because the journalism is so boring"
– 2014 interview by Rob Pollard for ''
New Statesman
The ''New Statesman'' is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members o ...
''On Adam Curtis
– 2011 article by Brian Appleyard for '' The Sunday Times''
Adam Curtis: The TV elite has lost the plot
– 2007 interview by Andrew Orlowski for '' The Register''
Adam Curtis's Theory of Everything
– 2021 article by Will Fenstermaker for '' Dissent''
The Paranoid Style in Adam Curtis
– 2021 article by Sasha Frere-Jones for '' The New York Review of Books''
External links
* *Sam KnightAdam Curtis Explains It All
Portrait of Adam Curtis as an Artist, in:
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issue ...
January 28, 2021
*Adam Curtis'' The Medium and the Message''
– his archived blog at
BBC Online
BBC Online, formerly known as BBCi, is the BBC's online service. It is a large network of websites including such high-profile sites as BBC News and Sport, the on-demand video and radio services branded BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, the childr ...
(2011–2016)The Power of Auteurs and the Last Man Standing: Adam Curtis's Documentary Nightmares
– extensive commentary on his films at '' Bright Lights Film Journal''
Adam Curtis: The Desperate Edge of Now
– details of a 2012 exhibition at the e-flux gallery in New York City {{DEFAULTSORT:Curtis, Adam 1955 births 20th-century English male writers 20th-century English non-fiction writers 20th-century essayists 21st-century British non-fiction writers 21st-century English male writers 21st-century essayists Alumni of Mansfield College, Oxford BAFTA winners (people) BBC people British documentary filmmakers British film directors British male essayists British male journalists British opinion journalists British social commentators British television producers Collage filmmakers Critics of Islamism Critics of Marxism Critics of neoconservatism Critics of religions Cultural critics English bloggers English documentary filmmakers English essayists English film directors English-language film directors English male journalists English male non-fiction writers English social commentators English television producers Free speech activists Living people Mass media theorists Media critics People educated at Sevenoaks School People from Dartford Social critics Theorists on Western civilization Writers about activism and social change Writers about communism Writers about globalization Writers about religion and science