Product Details

• Directors: Adam Curtis
• Format: Mono
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Studio: BBC
• DVD Release Date: June 1, 2006
• Run Time: 150 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000GGS0TQ
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #78,937 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Help yourself understand governments' War on Terror, July 8, 2006

By	Andy (California, USA) - See all my reviews

This is an important documentary film that covers the time period after WWII to the present, from the United States and Britain to Egypt, Afghanistan and Iraq. The detail and evidence is astonishing, shown far more vividly than can be found in most newspapers or even analytical news magazines. In places it's even surprisingly funny! It describes the rise of aggressive neoconservatism (most particularly in the US), in parallel with increasingly militant Islam in the Middle East. It shows how those political and religious ideologies are actually dependent upon each other to generate fear in the general population, of people trying to live their daily lives under conditions where those extremists have gained control. Also revealed is the likelihood that al-Qaeda does not exist, at least not as the international terrorist organization normally described in English-language news reporting. Although not for those with a short attention span, this film is recommended for everyone of voting age; four stars out of five because as long as this film is, it neglects to mention some actions in US foreign policy, despite the great significance of those events in historical context.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the most informative documentaries in recent years about the current political situation, May 16, 2007

By	Robert Moore (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

One would be hard pressed to find a documentary that does a more admirable job of explaining the logic of the conflict between the world created by the American Neoconservative movement and the terrorist ideology running throughout much of the Middle East today. It not only explains the intellectual sources of so much of the wrong-headedness rampant in the world today, but explains the symbiotic relationship between the Neoconservatives under George Bush and the Muslim extremists who have gathered under the banner of Al Queda. The film does a magnificent job of showing how each side has done a marvelous job of distorting and exaggerating the other and done an amazing job of exploiting the fear that their distortions have created.

The documentary rightfully begins by explaining who Sayyid Qutb and Leo Strauss are. Qutb is the Egyptian thinker who articulated theories that Arab culture had to be protected from the selfish individualism that drove Western liberalism. He believed in the creation of technologically developed states that relied upon Islamic law to dictate the norms of political and moral life. His ideas influenced a number of other Arab thinkers, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, who along with his disciple Osama bin Laden is the titular head of Al Queda. The film explains how al-Zawahiri has bizarrely distorted Qutb's extreme ideas to reason that everyday citizens in Islamic countries that support secular, non-Islamacist states, are in fact not Muslims because of that support and therefore can be killed (the film does not discuss the fact that the teaching that non-Muslims can be killed is an aberration in Muslim theology and would be challenged as valid by virtually all of the world's Muslims).

The other intellectual forbearer the film discusses is Leo Strauss, a member of the University of Chicago's Political Science Department. Strauss influenced a number of thinkers with his ideas that political liberalism encouraged selfish individualism (an idea he shared with Qutb). He argued in a series of dense, poorly written volumes that to overcome this individualism a communalism should be encouraged through the promulgation of empowering national myths. He was less concerned that these myths be true as that they be effective. Though not religious himself, he believed that religion could be utilized to energize public consensus. Many of his disciples have also felt that it was legitimate to demonize and distort the threats facing the nation, though it is possible that in some cases they actually believed their distortions. The series traces the history of the Neoconservatives often bizarre distortions of Soviet military might and persistent ascription of sinister purposes that they knew (or could or should have known) simply didn't exist. It then shows how they later post-9/11 employed the same kind of distortion to terrorists, creating an image of Al Queda completely at odds with facts. While there is no doubt that terrorism is a threat and that the people involved in Al Queda are engaged in activities that can only be described as evil, there is also no doubt that there is no international terrorist organization that can be described as "Al Queda." In fact, bin Laden is not a terrorist mastermind controlling a vast network of followers like a puppet master, but merely someone who is a figurehead who has bankrolled terrorist activity. As the film shows, he had little involvement in 9/11 apart from funding it. The plan was not his and he didn't "order" or "approve" it. But the West--in particular the administrations of Bush and Blair--have dramatically distorted and exaggerated the nature of contemporary terrorism. The threat is real, but vastly less so than the Neocons have claimed. Individual terrorist acts can be horrid, as we have all so vividly seen. But a network of terrorists simply does not exist. The complete failure to find any terrorist cells in the United States has proven this.

The parallels the series draws between the terrors the Jihadists inflict on civilians and the intellectual terror that the Neocons inflict on the American people was chilling. Let one feel too comfortable with the idea that at least the Neocons do not bomb American civilians, it should be remembered that they got us involved in a war in Iraq when they knew that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and terrorism. The kind of terror that they inflicted on Bill Clinton, relentlessly attacking with on a vast array of charges that they knew were baseless and unfounded (e.g., when Paula Jones's original lawyers quit, her new team of lawyers were convinced that the sexual encounter Jones's described had never taken place [her description of the president's genatalia, for instance, were dramatically different from that made by his physician], but persisted in the lawsuit for the harm it could cause the president).

I was impressed with the overall accuracy of the events surveyed by the series. There were some points I would quibble with. For instance, if you read extensively about the struggle against communism during the Reagan administration, you will be impressed that Bill Casey was far more concerned with Central America than Afghanistan. In fact, the funding of the Mujahideen was largely in opposition to both Casey and Reagan, who wanted funds for the Contras in El Salvador. This didn't keep Reagan's apologists from claiming responsibility for the downfall of the Soviet Union due to Afghanistan. But the truth is that the funding of the Mujahideen had no effect on the downfall of the Soviet Union, whether the Afghanis were funded by the Reagan administration or by Democratic congressmen. Neither was the Soviet Union brought down, as they believe, by the Afghanis. Interestingly, almost all historians are agreed that the Soviet Union collapsed due to internal instability, except for partisans and Reagan apologists in the United States who want to credit Regan with the downfall of Communism and Afghani resistance fighters who want to credit themselves. European historians and especially Russian historians see any role that Reagan or the Afghanis played as insignificant.

The film ends on a note both hopeful and pessimistic. The fact is that both the Neocons and the Islamacists have failed abysmally in their agendas. In less than two years George Bush will be out of office and most of the Neocons will be expelled from Washington. No current presidential contenders hold to their ideological agenda and given how discredited they are at the moment it is hard to imagine them continuing to hold much ongoing influence. The Islamacists are different. There are many disillusioned Muslims throughout the Middle East. Though a vast terrorist organization does not exist, the widespread discontent persists. That proclivity towards violence will not disappear soon. But the film ends with the idea that while the politics of fear and the manipulation of the public through the use of nightmare scenarios may be coming to an end, what is there to take their place? We no longer believe in big solutions, in the possibility for building a new world. We have become practical nihilists. I personally believe in the old big ideas of the past: freedom, fairness, justice, equally, respect, and compassion. My hope is that these ideas will prove more attractive in the years to come in contrast with the emptiness of what the Neocons offered. And I hope that some similar alternative will arise in the Arab countries.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great material, terrible presentation, June 23, 2007

By	Dulf "FSU" (Florida) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This documentary is absolutely fantastic! I have looked for a good version since it came out and this is the 3rd copy I have purchased.

The content is there, but the quality is not good. Highly recommend this documentary if you can find a better version.