Adam Curtis
Kevin Adam Curtis (born 26 May 1955) is an English documentary filmmaker. Curtis was a relatively conventional documentary producer for the BBC throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s. The release of "Pandora's Box" (1992) marked the introduction of Curtis's distinctive presentation that uses collage to explore aspects of sociology, psychology, philosophy and political history. His style has been described as involving, "whiplash digressions, menacing atmospherics and arpeggiated scores, and the near-psychedelic compilation of archival footage", narrated by Curtis himself with "patrician economy and assertion". Curtis's films have won four BAFTAs. Early life . Adam Curtis was born in Dartford in Kent, and raised in nearby Platt. His father was Martin Curtis (1917–2002), a cinematographer with a socialist background. Curtis won a county scholarship and attended the Sevenoaks School. It was there that an influential art teacher introduced him to the work of Robert Rauschenberg. Curtis completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in human sciences at Mansfield College, Oxford. He began a PhD and taught in politics, but ultimately became disillusioned with academia and decided to leave the profession. Career. Early career. Curtis applied to the BBC and was hired to make a film  for one of its training courses, comparing designer clothes in music videos to the design of weapons. He was subsequently given a post on "That's Life!", a magazine series that juxtaposed hard-hitting investigations and light-hearted content. He was a film director on "Out of Court", a BBC Two legal series, from 1980 until 1982. Politics. Curtis is inspired by the sociologist Max Weber, who, he argues, challenged the "crude, left-wing, vulgar Marxism that says that everything happens because of economic forces within society". Of his general political outlook, Curtis has also remarked: In a later interview , Curtis has stated: Documentaries. Curtis cites the "U.S.A. trilogy", a series of three novels by John Dos Passos that he first read when he was thirteen, as the greatest influence on his work: Other creative influences are Robert Rauschenberg and Émile Zola. Curtis makes extensive use of archive footage in his documentaries. He has acknowledged the influence of recordings made by Erik Durschmied and is "constantly using his stuff in my films". Instead of specially composed music because it "creates a sort of monoculture", he uses tracks from a variety of genres, decades, and countries, as well as sound effects  that he discovers on old tapes. According to a profile of Curtis by Tim Adams, published in "The Observer": "If there has been a theme in Curtis's work … it has been to look at how different elites have tried to impose an ideology on their times, and the tragicomic consequences of those attempts". In 2005, Curtis received the Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival. In 2006, he was given the Alan Clarke Award for Outstanding Creative Contribution to Television at the British Academy Television Awards. In 2009, the Sheffield International Documentary Festival  gave Curtis the Inspiration Award for inspiring viewers and other documentary filmmakers. In 2015, he was awarded the True Vision Award by the True/False Film Fest. Curtis's critics have accused him of exaggeration and distortion, even wilful misrepresentation. Blog. Curtis administered a blog subtitled 'The Medium and the Message' hosted by the BBC and updated between 2009 and 2016.