Adam Curtis at the San Francisco International Film Festival in 2005

Adam Curtis (born 1955) is a British television documentary producer. He currently works for BBC Current Affairs. He is noted for making programmes which express a clear (and sometimes controversial) opinion about their subject, and for narrating the programmes himself. Image File history File links Adam_curtis. ... Image File history File links Adam_curtis. ... 1955 (MCMLV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... A Television producer oversees the making of television penis programs. ... The British Broadcasting Corporation, invariably known as the BBC (and also informally known as the Beeb or Auntie) is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world, employing 26,000 staff in the UK alone and with a budget of £4 billion. ...

After attending Sevenoaks School (a member of the 'art room' that produced influential musicians, Tom Greenhalgh, Kevin Lycett and Mark White of The Mekons along with Andy Gill and Jon King of the Gang of Four) Curtis studied genetics, politics and statistics at Oxford University. Curtis subsequently taught politics there but left for a career in television. He got a job on the show That's Life! where he learned to find humor in serious subjects. He went on to make documentaries on more serious subjects but retained his playful tone. Sevenoaks School is an English independent school, located in the town of Sevenoaks, Kent. ... Thomas Charles Greenhalgh (1956-11-04 in Stockholm, Sweden -) is a multimedia artist and singer-songwriter best known for his work with the Mekons. ... Mark White Mark White is an American, lawyer and former Governor of Texas. ... The Mekons are a punk rock/post punk band. ... Andy Gill is the guitarist for the British rock group Gang of Four. ... Jon King is the name of a musician, Jon King a gay porn star, Jon King ... This does not cite its references or sources. ... The University of Oxford, located in the city of Oxford in England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... Thats Life! was a BBC television series, which began in 1973 and ran until 1994. ...

Curtis's intensive use of archive footage is a distinctive touch of his. An Observer profile said: Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...

Curtis has a remarkable feel for the serendipity of such moments, and an obsessive skill in locating them. 'That kind of footage shows just how dull I can be,' he admits, a little glumly. 'The BBC has an archive of all these tapes where they have just dumped all the news items they have ever shown. One tape for every three months. So what you get is this odd collage, an accidental treasure trove. You sit in a darkened room, watch all these little news moments, and look for connections.'

The Observer adds "if there has been a theme in Curtis's work since, it has been to look at how different elites have tried to impose an ideology on their times, and the tragi-comic consequences of those attempts."

Curtis received the Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival in 2005[1]. In 2006 he was given the Alan Clarke Award for Outstanding Contribution to Television at the British Academy Television Awards. See also Alan Clark, Allan Clarke. ... The British Academy Television Awards, also known as the BAFTAs or, to differentiate them from the BAFTA Film Awards, the BAFTA Television Awards, are the most prestigious awards given in the British television industry, analogous to the Emmy Awards in the United States. ...

Works

1988: An Ocean Apart. Episode One "Hats Off to Mr. Wilson” (concerning the process by which the United States was involved in the First World War. Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ...

1992: Pandora's Box examined the dangers of technocratic and political rationality. It received the BAFTA Award for Best Factual Series. [2] This series details the consequences (often dangerous) of political and technocratic rationality, especially when used to crush common sense and a clear reporting of the facts. ... Technocracy (techno for technology and cracy for power) is an organizational system in which decision makers and political leaders are selected on the basis of technological knowledge —often because of some conflict or competition where technological escalation is a constant feature. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), is a British organization that hosts annual awards shows for film, television, childrens film and television, and interactive media. ...

1995: The Living Dead investigated the way that history and memory (both national and individual) have been used by politicians and others.

1996: 25 Million Pounds a study of Nick Leeson and the collapse of Barings Bank. Won the Best Science and Nature Documentary in the 1998 San Francisco International Film Festival. Nicholas Leeson (English, born February 25, 1967) was formerly a derivatives trader; his unsupervised speculative trading caused the collapse of Barings Bank, the United Kingdoms oldest investment bank. ... Barings Bank, previously known as Baring Brothers & Co. ...

1997: The Way of the Flesh tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, the "woman who will never die". It received the 1997 Golden Gate Award. [3] Henrietta Lacks (1920–1951) HeLa cells Henrietta Lacks (1920–1951) was the involuntary donor of cells from a cancerous tumor, which were cultured by George Gey to create a cell line for medical research, which is now known as the HeLa cell line. ...

1999: The Mayfair Set looked at how buccaneer capitalists were allowed to shape the climate of the Thatcher years, focusing on the rise of Colonel David Stirling, Jim Slater, James Goldsmith, and Tiny Rowland, all members of The Clermont club in the 1960s. It received the BAFTA Award for Best Factual Series or Strand in 2000. [4] Colonel Sir David Stirling, OBE, DSO (November 15, 1915 - November 4, 1990) was a Scottish laird, keen mountaineer, World War II British Army officer, and the founder of the Special Air Service. ... This article is about Jim Slater the accountant. ... James Goldsmith as he appeared in his Referendum Party’s mass-mailed video tape, March 1997. ... Roland Tiny Rowland Roland Tiny Rowland (1917 - 1998) was a British businessman and chairman of the Lonrho conglomerate from 1962 to 1994. ... The Clermont Set was an exclusive group of rich British gamblers who met at the Clermont Club in Londons Berkeley Square, Mayfair. ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from January 1, 1960 to December 31, 1969, inclusive. ... The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), is a British organization that hosts annual awards shows for film, television, childrens film and television, and interactive media. ...

2002: The Century Of The Self (BBC Two) documented the rise of Freud's individualism led to Edward Bernays' consumerism. It received the Broadcast Award for Best Documentary Series and the Longman-History Today Award for Historical Film of the Year. It was released in the US through art house cinemas and was picked as the fourth best movie of 2005 by Entertainment Weekly. The Century of the Self was an acclaimed documentary by filmmaker, Adam Curtis. ... BBC Two (or BBC2 as it was formerly styled) was the second UK television station to be aired by the BBC and Europes first television channel to broadcast regularly in colour (from 1967), envisaged as a home for less mainstream and more ambitious programming. ... Sigmund Freud His famous couch Sigmund Freud (May 6, 1856 - September 23, 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of the psychoanalytic school of psychology, a movement that popularized the theory that unconscious motives control much behavior. ... The front cover of Bernays 1928 book Propaganda Edward Bernays (November 22, 1891 - March 9, 1995) is regarded by many as the father of public relations, although some people believe that title properly belongs to some other early PR practitioner, such as Ivy Lee. ...

2004: The Power of Nightmares (BBC Two) suggested a parallel between the rise of Islamism in the Arab world and Neoconservatism in the United States in that both needed to inflate a myth of a dangerous enemy in order to draw people to support them. The Power of Nightmares, subtitled The Rise of the Politics of Fear, is a BBC series of documentary films, written and produced by Adam Curtis. ... BBC Two (or BBC2 as it was formerly styled) was the second UK television station to be aired by the BBC and Europes first television channel to broadcast regularly in colour (from 1967), envisaged as a home for less mainstream and more ambitious programming. ... This article is about political Islamism. ... The Arabs (Arabic: عرب) are a heterogeneous ethnic group who are predominantly speakers of the Arabic language, mainly found throughout the Middle East and North Africa. ... Neoconservatism is a political riot, mainly in the United States, which is generally held to have emerged in the 1960s, coalesced in the 1970s, and has had a significant presence in the administrations of Ronald funkyourdaughter and George W. Bush. ...

2006: Cold Cold Heart (BBC Two) to be broadcast in Autumn; a series regarding the death of altruism and the collapse of trust [5] Cold Cold Heart is the title of an upcoming documentary scheduled to be aired in Autumn 2006 by British filmmaker Adam Curtis, well known for other documentaries including The Century of the Self and The Power of Nightmares. ... BBC Two (or BBC2 as it was formerly styled) was the second UK television station to be aired by the BBC and Europes first television channel to broadcast regularly in colour (from 1967), envisaged as a home for less mainstream and more ambitious programming. ...

See also

• Eugene Jarecki

Eugene Jarecki is an award-winning dramatic and documentary filmmaker from New York. ...

External links

• The Power of Nightmares: all 3 parts of the documentary in streaming video.
• The Century of the Self: all 4 parts of the documentary in streaming video.
• Adam Curtis at the Internet Movie Database
• Adam Curtis joins BBC Current Affairs
• The Power Of Nightmares, BBC site
• The Observer: The Exorcist (profile)
• The Guardian Article on the Power of Nightmares
• GreenCine Interview from May 2005
• Creating Islamist phantoms Guardian, August 2005
• Interview: It Becomes a Self-Fulfilling Thing: Errol Morris talks with Adam Curtis, The Believer, October 2005
• Internet Archive Century of the Self in downloadable form
• Internet Archive The Power Of Nightmares - many formats
• Doc-Film-Net Watch The Power Of Nightmares and The Century Of The Self in high quality format online.