The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom

A superb documentary series. Combined with his two earlier efforts, THE CENTURY OF THE SELF and THE POWER OF NIGHTMARES, Curtis presents a remarkable account of the processes and tendencies shaping our world.

The arguments are no more intelligent than Michael Moore's, but they are far better presented.

Curtis dissects our world with a precision scalpel and says "Well, there's your problem" once again. Concepts and theories get your mind buzzing and a disparate tapestry of footage is shown, as a unifying logical strand weaves it all together. While watching it's hard to know what to feel: angry, enlightened, appalled. One thing to be certain of is a feeling of admiration for Curtis' prowess in constructing brilliant documentaries.

Curtis has yet to disappoint. Visually arresting, beautiful to listen to, and serving as a bridge between the programming of the individual/masses detailed in Century of the Self and the shortsighted, blowback-creating policy decisions in Power of Nightmares. The Trap is also a greater integrated commentary on the emptiness of modern liberal life, and may in fact be the most sweeping indictment by Curtis of the contradictory and perverted systems that we live in.

Yet another haunting and well-documented film from Adam Curtis, one that gracefully tackles some really difficult subjects: game theory during the Cold War, the latter 20th century's rationalization of individuals being entirely motivated by self-interests, the crippling of social mobility in the West, and the contemporary (and ever-changing) definitions of "democracy" and "freedom" in the world. Curtis logically strings all of these things together to explain our current state. Essential.

If anyone has to depress me regarding the state of society and the messed-up path we took to get there, leading to the inevitable conclusion of my uneventful life that includes a rubber hose and a cage of wild ferrets, let it be Adam Curtis.

Curtis is one of a handful of directors who can present a powerful opinion without being a complete twat about it, though psychopaths may have something to say about being compared to economists: "Only two groups in society behave in a rational, self-interested way in all experimental situations: one is economists themselves, the other, psychopaths."

5/9/9 - Superb. What David Attenborough is to wildlife and Herzog is to people, Curtis is to ideology. Incredibly well laid out, with a smooth and logical, yet incredibly interesting progression. Curtis makes no leaps of faith or strange arguments, letting the clips and interviewsand facts and literature speak for themselves. The visual style is, as always, incredibly impressive - nobody can match his mastery of the archives.

_The Power of Nightmares_ is good. This, despite being made for the boob tube (or, in some ways, perhaps because of that fact), is even more cerebral, and even better. It features a real all-star cast of important thinkers of the 20th century -- John Nash, R.D. Laing, James Buchanan, Isaiah Berlin, and many others. These are the people who really have shaped all our lives and the times in which we live, as opposed to those crapheads who have to bother to get elected

I would recommend this documentary for every thinking human being. Somehow it manages to unscramble and summarize what happened in the world in last ~50 years on a huge "outside the box" scale. It's depressing, because it looks that whatever we do, we are trapped in the flawed system and all previous tries to make something better were destined to fail. Also don't be afraid of "Zeitgeist" style conspiracy theories and pulp style, this is legit.

Curtis touches on a number of different subjects in this documentary. The central thesis is that our modern ideal of freedom is inextricably linked to the idea of the "free market". The Trap is sprawling, and not entirely successful at connecting all the dots. Nevertheless, I believe that the gist of the argument is correct: our modern idea of freedom is frequently defined as the freedom from taxation, regulation and outside control, rather than freedom from inequality and injustice.

This is something that every person should see. It so perfectly highlights the flaws underlying one of the foundational assumptions people have about the way things work.

Compelling treatment of freedom from the 20th century until today. The style of the film, combining primarily found footage, instrumental music, occasional interviews, and voice-over narration, works to under gird the vast implications of Curtis' argument. While the assessment of how we got here is solid, Curtis' attempt to point the way forward falters in two ways: he doesn't show that positive liberty can be accomplished without tyranny, and he doesn't escape a rationalist concept of freedom.

Incredibly thought-provoking, however I didn't really like the way it was presented. It often felt like Curtis is readnig an article while something else was going on on the screen.

[Distant -as aired]

Possibly the Curtis series with the most narration, it's the most assured of his post 2000 work, deftly presenting and explaining the tension between various social philosophies. Appealing to a conspiratorial itch.

The ultimate diss track of Tony Blair

The psychology of control.

Eyes opening documental, and not the typical easy conspiracy movie.

I do have minor quibbles: As in the Century of the Self, when tracing the development of ideas, I feel Curtis's explanations are sometimes a bit too reductionist; I also thought that after the particularly good second segment, the third seemed to wander a bit. Nevertheless, I think Curtis is bang on, and as usual his use of stock footage is almost good enough to watch without the narration.

Good doc, but made the mistake of trying to watch it all in 1 sitting. I suggest a separate sitting for each part as it can be a bit much otherwise

I can't stop thinking about this film... It is disturbing! This is the kind of film that changes the way you see the world.