The Living Dead
Episodes 1 & 2 BBC2 1995
Adam Curtis trawls the archives with his inquiring mind to deliver three films that examine the ways that history and memory, both national and individual, have been used and manipulated by politicians and others.
“The Living Dead: On The Desperate Edge of Now” Prog 1 BBC2 1995
Prog 1 - With the emerging threat of Soviet Russia after WW2, the propaganda of rewriting history began. The burying and manipulation of soldier’s memories was needed to promote the Cold War effort as the portrayal of WW2 needed to be seen as “the crusade of pure good against pure evil”.
“The Living Dead: You Have Used Me as a Fish Long Enough” Prog 2 BBC2 1995
Prog 2 - The early history of the CIA’s brainwashing and mind control is examined in this paranoid episode where it concludes that control over the past is more effectively exercised by the manipulation of history.