The Remarkable Insight of Adam Curtis

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Author

Ed Rigg
June 20, 2025

Now then. Back when I was a lad, studying International Relations at the University of Leeds, there was a documentary maker on the scene whose crisp assertive narration of socio-political events, over archive foreign affairs footage, compelled all us students into his world.

Shifty starts with Thatcher.

Watching his documentaries we didn’t feel like we were pretending to work (the alternative being studying actual books in the Eddy B, aka Edward Boyle Library). The Power of Nightmares was his terrific standout mini-series of 2005 that taught us all we needed to know about government control and warmongering, we would often cite his research in our papers.

Then came a series of films from Curtis that firmly put him in the auteur category. The Trap & All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace & HyperNormalisation & Can’t Get You Out of My Head & on. I doubt there’s a documentary director out there whose work has so consistently scored more than 8 on IMDb (just FYI - the RecDek rating is bespoke to you alone, made by us for you, based on your community, check it out in your RecDek app).

Back in Leeds, it was the infamous War on Terror, with George Bush and his neo-cons roaming into Afghanistan, then Iraq. Today, whilst Mr Trump weighs up whether US involvement in the Middle East could create long term peace, Mr Curtis is back with a new documentary, though not this time on US Exceptionalism (though if you wanna read my 14,000 word dissertation on the matter I could probably dig it up). Nor indeed Russia, for that checkout his work: Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone.

This time he’s focused on the shores of his home, the UK, and it’s our rec of the week.

Shifty 

Another hypnotic fever dream about how we got here. This kaleidoscopic journey through late 20th-century Britain connects everything from sex-changing bulldogs to Stephen Hawking via Margaret Thatcher's monetarism policies. Curtis paints the country as "textured, eccentric, slightly confused" - and all too violent. The star might be Bruno the bulldog whose male bits were vanishing while female ones sprouted, there's also Francis Beveridge, a civil servant so controlled by his wife he couldn't even go to the cinema alone: "We live in different worlds. But it can't be helped," he sighs, surrounded by fussy china ornaments while waiting for "the old box."

Curtis jumps from chip production lines to National Front meetings, from Joy Division to Maggie Thatcher - creating an immersive patchwork of our news focused national consciousness. There may be some generously selective editing to fit a narrative, but as television it works brilliantly.

The series ends with a wink - Curtis admits his method might just be "another feedback loop of nostalgia" controlling us through recycled sounds and images. Like a fevered dream about Britain after eating too much cheese.

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In other news today: this IndieWire article rounding up the some of the top films of the last 5 years really caught my eye.

In other news again: if you’re interested in current affairs without heavy political sway, checkout our friends over at 1440, who are doing some great stuff, particularly partnering with us for today’s rather current-affairsy edition of the RecDek Friday email!

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Happy RecDek’ing.

Catch you next week.

Ed