"The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear" (2004) TV series

User Rating:

9.1/10   

Director:

Adam Curtis

Writer:

Adam Curtis (writer)

Seasons:

1

Release Date:

20 October 2004 (UK)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot:

A series of three documentaries about the use of fear for political gain.

Plot Keywords:

Gulf War | Saddam Hussein | War On Terrorism | Post WWII

Awards:

3 wins

Cast

Adam Curtis

...

Narrator (unknown episodes)

Also Known As:

"The Power of Nightmares" (UK) (short title)

Runtime:

180 min (3 parts) | 157 min (theatrical version) | Hong Kong:157 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Company:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Quotes:

[first lines]
Narrator: In the past, politicians promised to create a better world. They had different ways of achieving this, but their power and authority came from the optimistic visions they offered their people. Those dreams failed and today people have lost faith in ideologies...

Movie Connections:

Edited from Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922)

Soundtrack:

The Big Ship

But the Emperor has no Clothes!

This remarkable documentary, well written, researched, and articulate, traces the odd, parallel paths of the rise and failures of the Islamist movement and the movement of the American neoconservatives. What makes this documentary so outstanding is not just that it clearly exposes many of the myths of the so-called "War on Terror," but the fact that it places the power of these myths in a larger and very important context.

This film's position is clearly that it is the failure of belief and of ideology in Western societies that has allowed neoconservative extremists to fill the gap with nightmares in order to assert power and influence.

Fear works well when people do not believe in anything, since that lack of faith makes them quite vulnerable. For the Islamists, fear attempts to fill the gap in societies that have lost their Islamic faith and roots.

The dirty little secret underlying all this is that both groups, the Islamists and the Neoconservatives, are, at the core, nihilists, in spite of their ideological rants and pretensions. One can only hope that a discerning public will eventually be exposed to the hollow, vain, and arrogant "men behind the curtain" in both societies, so that all can realize that these wizards of terror are just empty charlatans.

The sooner that happens, the sooner we can all click our ruby slippers together and return to Kansas, and, hopefully, to some measure of sanity, and, perhaps to a genuine faith.