HyperNormalisation releases new clip, featuring a young Donald Trump
David Farnor | On 10, Oct 2016
A new clip from Adam Curtis’ HyperNormalisation has been released – and it features a very familiar face.
Donald Trump, who is filling our news headlines with his dubious campaign to become US President, has attracted all kinds of reactions in recent months, from apparent adulation among fans to this speech from Robert De Niro. As a growing number of people stand up to highlight just how dangerous he would be to America and the world, should he be voted into the White House, documentarian Adam Curtis has also featured him in his new film.
The movie, which will be released on BBC iPlayer on Sunday 16th October, will tell the extraordinary story of how we got to this strange time of great uncertainty and confusion – where those who are supposed to be in power are paralysed – and have no idea what to do. Looking to explain the seemingly inexplicable events of Donald Trump, Brexit and the endless migrant crisis, the film argues that what has happened is that all of us in the West – not just the politicians and the journalists and the experts, but ourselves – have retreated into a simplified, and often completely fake version of the world.
This new clip from the programme helps to demonstrate just that, as we see a young Trump try to stem the flow of money going out of his casino to a lucky customer, only to find out that his system to solve the problem is too simple.
The film will premiere at 9pm next weekend.
Adam Curtis’ HyperNormalisation to premiere on BBC iPlayer
23rd September 2016
Adam Curtis’ new film, HyperNormalisation, will premiere on BBC iPlayer this October.
The film, which has been made specifically for BBC iPlayer, follows the exclusive release of Curtis’ experimental documentary Bitter Lake on the Beeb’s VOD service.
That film attracted 1.8 million requests to the platform, paving the way for a growing number of iPlayer exclusives. Indeed, so far this year, iPlayer first titles have attracted over 75 million requests, which Victoria Jaye, Head of TV content for BBC iPlayer, notes is “a significant contribution from a select few titles”.
“We expect to see this rise as we look to premiere more and more content on the service,” she adds.
HyperNormalisation builds on Bitter Lake, telling the extraordinary story of how we got to this strange time of great uncertainty and confusion – where those who are supposed to be in power are paralysed – and have no idea what to do. And where events keep happening that seem inexplicable and out of control – from Donald Trump to Brexit, the War in Syria, the endless migrant crisis, and random bomb attacks. It explains not only why these chaotic events are happening, but also why we, and our politicians, cannot understand them.
The film argues that what has happened is that all of us in the West – not just the politicians and the journalists and the experts, but ourselves – have retreated into a simplified, and often completely fake version of the world. But because it is all around us, we accept it as normal.
The movie’s epic narrative spans 40 years, with an extraordinary cast of characters, including the Assad dynasty, Donald Trump, Henry Kissinger, Patti Smith, the early performance artists in New York, President Putin, intelligent machines, Japanese gangsters, suicide bombers – and the extraordinary untold story of the rise, fall, rise again, and finally the assassination of Colonel Gaddafi.
All these stories are woven together to show how today’s fake and hollow world was created, partly by those in power and partly by us. Curtis argues that we all went along with it because the simplicity was reassuring and that included the left and the radicals who thought they were attacking the system. The film suggests they too retreated into this make-believe world – which is why their opposition today has no effect, and nothing ever changes.
“BBC iPlayer offers an extraordinary place to experiment and to tell stories that allow you to explore and explain the strangeness of our modern world in a new way,” says Curtis. “Complex, interwoven stories that reflect the new complexity and unpredictability of our time.”
The film will premiere at 9pm on Sunday 16th October.
Update: Here’s the trailer: