Bitter Lake

[Pepperman]

Not watched this yet but Adam Curtis documentaries generally have a lot of interesting things to say (if sometimes being a little much for my taste):

Politicians used to have the confidence to tell us stories that made sense of the chaos of world events. But now there are no big stories and politicians react randomly to every new crisis - leaving us bewildered and disorientated.

Bitter Lake is a new, adventurous and epic film by Adam Curtis that explains why the big stories that politicians tell us have become so simplified that we can’t really see the world any longer.

The narrative goes all over the world, America, Britain, Russia and Saudi Arabia - but the country at the heart of it is Afghanistan. Because Afghanistan is the place that has confronted our politicians with the terrible truth - that they cannot understand what is going on any longer.

The film reveals the forces that over the past thirty years rose up and undermined the confidence of politics to understand the world. And it shows the strange, dark role that Saudi Arabia has played in this.

But Bitter Lake is also experimental. Curtis has taken the unedited rushes of everything that the BBC has ever shot in Afghanistan - and used them in new and radical ways.

He has tried to build a different and more emotional way of depicting what really happened in Afghanistan. A counterpoint to the thin, narrow and increasingly destructive stories told by those in power today.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0 ... itter-lake

After a four-year absence from our screens Curtis is about to return with a new film, a two-and-a-half-hour BBC iPlayer-only epic called Bitter Lake. It takes as its premise a meeting in February 1945 between the then US president Franklin D Roosevelt and King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia. Sitting on a yacht on the Great Bitter Lake of the Suez Canal, the pair struck a deal: the US would support this newly formed state and, in return, the Saudis would ensure a continuing stream of oil to the west. From that one point, argues Curtis, came the spread of Wahhabi Islam, the rise of personality politics and the Afghani version of The Thick Of It.

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio ... itter-lake

[Pepperman]

Check out the Screenwipe clip in the Guardian article for an overview.

[biffvernon]

Why is it only on iPlayer and not broadcast? Is over two hours of serious political analysis just too much for a mass audience?

[oobers]

Why is it only on iPlayer and not broadcast? Is over two hours of serious political analysis just too much for a mass audience?

From the Guardian interview:

Curtis is only making this film for iPlayer because they won’t have him on TV any more, right? “Not at all. Quite the opposite,” he says flatly. “I have deliberately done this because iPlayer gives me the chance to experiment. I wanted to create something you wouldn’t put on television. It’s a deal I have with the BBC: you can experiment, but don’t cost any money. Bitter Lake was made for £12k, I think – that’s it. And I know that in five years’ time, everyone’s going to watch everything on iPlayer, so let’s get in there before the bureaucrats do.”

[biffvernon]

That's probably a fair answer. If it gets a lot hits they could always broadcast it later. It's a pity though.

[kenneal - lagger]

If it's had a lot of hits why bother broadcasting it to everyone who's altready seen it?

[Pepperman]

Non-UK based PSers can check it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg4UEO-xxfo

It might not be around for long though.

[raspberry-blower]

See also: http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/vie ... hp?t=25338

Having seen the whole thing now, I was underwhelmed by it all. A lot of style, very little substance. It's 2 hours 15 minutes of my life I won't get back.

WRT Saudi Arabia - the origins of Wahabi was very sketchy as was the Western training of mercenaries in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. I could go on about that but it was the banking side that was even worse.

The Big Bang of 1986 that brought in automated trading floors ( 2 years behind schedule and massively over budget - some things never change, do they?) the 1987 Stock Market Crash, the dot com bubble, not touched upon or skipped over.

Then there narration did not fit with the screen imagery. The narrator is talking about interest rates plummeting to near zero rates as the screen shows the Twin Towers attack. This is just downright wrong - it is also misleading as there were financial irregularities surrounding this attack. (Why was there institutional dumping of insurance and airline stocks in the run up to this attack? Never mentioned in the film).


The underlying narrative that the West's intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq to ostensibly bring "democracy" to these countries is, at best, highly questionable. Not to mention that these ventures are quite probably, illegal under International Law.

A wasted opportunity

[clv101]

The narrator is talking about interest rates plummeting to near zero rates as the screen shows the Twin Towers attack. This is just downright wrong...

I thought the low interest rates were specifically a response to 9/11 to mitigate the feared economic collapse?

[raspberry-blower]

The narrator is talking about interest rates plummeting to near zero rates as the screen shows the Twin Towers attack. This is just downright wrong...

I thought the low interest rates were specifically a response to 9/11 to mitigate the feared economic collapse?

There was an interest rate cut in the aftermath of 9/11 - but not to the >1% rates we have today. They were gradually raised to around 5 - 6% until the 2008 financial crash.

The narrative should have been a lot clearer than it is

[biffvernon]

From a twitter conversation about Bitter Lake

When we pay our monthly slice of the National debt who do we pay it to? Who is big enough to bear all of the nations debts?

This is from last summer but is pertinent:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... nationalim

@marcuschown "A stunning finding of the report is that no one actually knows who holds the French debt." This is what I mean..who owns debt?

[emordnilap]

If it's had a lot of hits why bother broadcasting it to everyone who's altready seen it?

For people outside the UK, maybe. Not everyone can set up a proxy. Or for those who don't use the internet for programmes. Or for those without internet/broadband.

[emordnilap]

Non-UK based PSers can check it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg4UEO-xxfo

It might not be around for long though.

It's gone.

[Pepperman]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1DkiyLH1dc

[emordnilap]

Ta, P.