Occupation Documentary filmmaker Parents Martin Curtis Years active 1983–present Education University of Oxford | Name Adam Curtis TV shows Pandora's Box, The Trap Role Filmmaker | |
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Full Name Martin Adam John Curtis Awards British Academy Television Award for Best Factual Series Movies Bitter Lake, The Century of the Self, The Power of Nightmares, The Trap: What Happene, It Felt Like a Kiss Similar People Stephen Lambert, Henrietta Lacks, Peter Horrocks, Robert Reich, Jerry Rubin | ||
The way of all flesh by adam curtis
Kevin Adam Curtis (born 26 May 1955) is a British documentary film-maker. Curtis says that his favourite theme is "power and how it works in society", and his works explore areas of sociology, psychology, philosophy and political history. Curtis describes his work as journalism that happens to be expounded via the medium of film. His films have won four BAFTAs. He has been closely associated with the BBC throughout his career.
Contents
- The way of all flesh by adam curtis
- The living dead e1 on the desperate edge of now
- Early life
- Early career
- Politics
- Documentaries
- Blog
- References
The living dead e1 on the desperate edge of now
Early life
Curtis was born in Dartford, Kent, and grew up in Platt. His father was Martin Curtis (10 August 1917 – January 2002), a cinematographer from Sevenoaks who worked with Humphrey Jennings. His family had a left wing background. Curtis attended the Sevenoaks School on a county scholarship. He completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in human sciences at Mansfield College, Oxford. He started a PhD, during which he taught in politics, but he became disillusioned with academia and decided to leave.
Early career
Curtis applied to the BBC and was hired to make a film for one of its training courses, comparing designer clothes in music videos 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 Max Weber, a liberal sociologist from Germany who 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:
He believes the Western world is haunted by the past, with no vision for the future, and that it has become pessimistic and backward-looking.
Documentaries
Curtis cites the USA 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".
Instead of specially composed music because it "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: "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 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.
Blog
Curtis administers a blog subtitled 'The Medium and the Message' hosted by the BBC. He has tentative plans to expand the project.