HyperNormalisation
| HyperNormalisation | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Adam Curtis |
| Written by | Adam Curtis |
| Produced by | Sandra Gorel |
Running time | 166 mins (2h 46m) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | £30,000[1] |
HyperNormalisation is a 2016 BBC documentary by British filmmaker Adam Curtis. The film was released on 16 October 2016 on the BBC iPlayer.[2] In the film, Curtis argues that since the 1970s, governments, financiers, and technological utopians have given up on the complex "real world" and built a simple "fake world" that is run by corporations and kept stable by politicians.
Etymology
The term "hypernormalisation" is taken from Alexei Yurchak's 2006 book Everything was Forever, Until it was No More: The Last Soviet Generation,[3] about the paradoxes of life in the Soviet Union during the late communist period shortly before it collapsed, when everyone knew the system was failing but no one could imagine any alternative to the status quo, and politicians and citizens were resigned to maintaining a pretence of a functioning society.[4] Over time, this delusion became a self-fulfilling prophecy and the "fakeness" was accepted by everyone as real, an effect which Yurchak termed "hypernormalisation".[5]
Chapters
The film consists of 10 chapters.
1975
The fiscal crisis in New York City and the emergence of the idea that financial systems could run society; shuttle diplomacy between then-US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Middle Eastern leaders in the Arab-Israeli dispute and the subsequent retreat by Hafez al-Assad of Syria; and the onset of hypernormalisation in the Soviet Union.
The Human Bomb
How, following the United States' involvement in the 1982 Lebanon War, a vengeful al-Assad made an alliance with Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran. They planned to force the US out of the Middle East by encouraging civilians to carry out suicide bombings on American targets in the region, thereby avoiding reprisals. In February 1984, the U.S. withdrew all its troops from Lebanon because, in the words of then-US Secretary of State George P. Shultz, "we became paralysed by the complexity that we faced".
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Criticism
In the film it is claimed that it was Syria and not Libya that carried out the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing. But Stasi files identified Lybian agent Musbah Abdulghasem Eter who had worked at the Libyan embassy in East Berlin. Prosecutor Detlev Mehlis proved beyond reasonable doubt that Eter and two others had assembled the bomb and that the explosive was brought into West Berlin in a Libyan diplomatic bag. The film is lacking in some detail as it also claims that one America soldier was killed in Berlin when in fact a second US Army sergeant died of his injuries two months after the blast.
The film also paints a picture of Muammar Gaddafi as a victim during the 1980's claiming he was unfairly was blamed for atrocities which were actually carried out by Syria. However the murder of Murder of Yvonne Fletcher in London by Lybian Embassy officials is conveniently overlooked. This murder could not be blamed on Syria as it was caught on film.
See also
References
- ^ Tim Adams (9 October 2016). "Adam Curtis continues search for the hidden forces behind a century of chaos". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 October 2016.
- ^ Holly Barrett (22 September 2016). "New Adam Curtis film HyperNormalisation comes to iPlayer". Royal Television Society. Retrieved 15 October 2016.
- ^ Alexei Yurchak (2006). Everything was Forever, Until it was No More: The Last Soviet Generation. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-12117-6.
- ^ Adam Curtis (16 October 2016). "With documentary film-maker Adam Curtis" (Interview). Interviewed by Jarvis Cocker. Retrieved 17 October 2016.
{{cite interview}}: Unknown parameter|call-sign=ignored (help); Unknown parameter|city=ignored (|location=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|program=ignored (help) - ^ Neringa Klumbyte; Gulnaz Sharafutdinova (2012). Soviet Society in the Era of Late Socialism, 1964–1985. Lexington Books. p. 213. ISBN 978-0-7391-7584-2.