I think it would be great if he released a reading list alongside each of his documentaries - let the films serve as a compelling aesthetic work and the reading as essentially a citation. Alternatively, maybe I should try to compile some for each of his films.

I guess the take-away there is that news is not enough. You can document the human condition all you like, and then if we do nothing to evolve it away from its darkest aspects it's just depressing. Knowing that I still like that he's doing that reporting, the way he's doing it. He's making abstractions concrete for people.

It would be great with a solid text to go along his films. For now I would urge everyone who get that uncanny feeling after watching Curtis' work to read up on the subjects covered. I promise you that feeling will go away!

Curtis is the reason I got into Max Weber and Jacques Ellul. I cannot remember which of his series led me into that rabbit hole though.

Yes, that would be awesome, and would add much more weight to the arguments he makes in his documentaries.

His work is meticulously researched, fantastically edited, entertaining and I feel, especially since the mid-00s, quite problematic. He wants to be seen as revealing how our conventional narratives are constructs but then replaces them with just another construct and apparently lacks the self awareness or intellectual honesty to realise that his version is just another way to frame a bunch of things which aren’t (and have no reason to be) a neat story.

That said, I expect I’ll give the new series a shot.

I don’t see this as a problem. I think his work would be far more cumbersome if he exhaustively detailed all the different possibilities ...

I like the idea of constructing a powerful alternative narrative that I can compare and contrast with the conventional one.

I think for me at least the “danger” of Adam Curtis is somewhat mitigated because I know how to take it. I always presumed most other people that enjoy Curtis think similarly but I guess that could be a dangerous assumption...

I think they are good, but they are almost too well made, too persuasive. If they were less well made I'd come away thinking "that's an interesting idea/insight to add to how I think about the world", instead they give you the feeling of "this is how it is, and all it is". They are too definitive.

I'd put Adam Curtis in the same category as Zizek, where they're about aesthetics and moods with heavy artistic licence, rather than a literal documentary exposition.

I always thought that was on purpose. I've never come away from one of his shows and thought he has tried to persuade me to subscribe to a particular narrative. I enjoy his exposition and interesting revelations of connections that exist in the vast web of life. I think it's only dangerous if you consider it a source of truth on any particular subject.