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Thank you Adam!

Amazing film. Thanks!

The Ö÷²¥´óÐã really needs to set up a subscription platform for users outside the UK. Firstly, they'd make a killing, secondly - I could watch the video. Until then I guess us outsiders will have to live in the dark.

Very intriguing nonetheless, will have to watch all the videos Mr. Curtis has posted next time I'm in-country.

Feels like Don Draper after his divorce and the failure of the new agency leaves him depressed and hard-up... Timeline is about right, after all!

Good stuff though - and a joy to see in an era when factual programmes on the TV are generally mindless edits and endless repetition of basic facts seen earlier in the show...

Four minutes? This can't be the whole film.

Welcome back Mr Curtis. Now time to read the article.

This is absolutely amazing. I'm stunned by the insight the people in the film have, despite their confusion. I wonder if families in America and here speak like this now? They seem engaged in a way that I don't think we are today. It might be that the filmmaker is having an influence on the conversations, but it doesn't feel like that.

I love the contrast between the father's response to the different political candidates. I think the points AC makes about the negative idea of 'elitism' are in play (although I thought the Screenwipe piece about it was slightly unfair). Obviously it's a Kennedy and they are northern democrats and the whole Camelot thing; he mentions the motorcade and economic differences. It's an inverted classist opinion in effect. I wonder if this reveals something about the 'anti-elite' idea and it's foundations.

I also love the young girl talking about 'fear', and what the filmmaker does with it, the way it breaks into the assassination report. It's that disruptive break, aurally and visually, that wakes you up and it's great because watching TV now is quite a passive experience, and the stylistic vocabulary is very limited these days in filmmaking I think.

Anyway, there's so much in it that's interesting.

Excellent film! I'm amazed at how much Mossman got them to share and at how beautifully the whole film fits together.

A query for Adam: you use a lot of the footage in Mossman's documentary for your "It Felt Like A Kiss" film. However, there is a certain part of that footage which I haven't been able to find in the version of "America: Democracy on Trial" you link to here. It shows the family having a day out on some kind of beach, with the children playing in the sand while the mother looks on, smoking a cigarette and with a mysterious look on her face. I kept expectating for that bit to show up but it never did. Has anyoone else noticed this or am I going mad here?

Mr Curtis, I'm 22 and have watched most of your work. I think you should begin to give lectures or screenings in NY, at copper union, and more screenings with talk backs at US colleges. I believe that making yourself a more physical figure would really help spread your ideas, and help period.


Catherine Dupois, NYC

Information is a strange force that provides the potential for knowledge. The development of that potential is dependent upon the openness of the receiver as well as their ability to discern what they require and to leave the rest.

The beauty of the viewpoint of the purveyor is that their perspective allows for the encircling of the issue when opposing positions are presented. Total vision comes from the surrounding effect of the knowledge that is derived from the potential that the information carries.

Adam does us a great service by presenting as he does. We can return the favour by making use of the offering to better our understanding of the knowledge that that information engenders.

This video, and Mr. Curtis' perceptions and prefacing of it, have helped me achieve a greater sense of human story-telling and the underlying historical moments. History beyond history. An ever-present, radiant passion and expose of the world-at-large can always be expected from Mr. Curtis' work. Inspired by this blog post, I created the following Facebook Page. If you enjoyed Mr. Curtis' post here you should find or post a video about James Mossman as a tribute to Mr. Mossman on this page:

This is a brilliant video. It shows how supposedly detached video without authorial intervention can still carry a point of view, but what's striking is how much respect the filmmaker gives to the people. The tire salesman could be as comical as Hank Hill in King of the Hill - or a lot worse, but both he and his wife's hopes and dreams are given total respect respect. It's impossible to find anyone today who pays attention to the desires of ordinary working families. But maybe working families don't have any dreams.

Thanks! I find your work absolutely fascinating.

I enjoyed hearing you talk at the Ö÷²¥´óÐã's TV Drama Writers Festival yesterday. You talked about the use of images in documentaries which reminded me of a recent Estonian documentary which uses archive footage in a creative and playful way to tell a story on a serious subject. The documentary is called 'Disco and Atomic War' and it's about the effect of watching Finnish TV on Estonian mentality during the Soviet occupation (that's how we learned about The Prague Spring and Chernobyl that the local media pretended never happened, but also Knight Rider. Men made demands for freedom of speech by day and watched mouth-watering supermarket adverts (thanks, Edward Bernays!) by night). The Soviets had been trying to get rid of the Finnish TV signal reaching Northern Estonia since 1950s (for 4 decades!), and they were sure CIA was behind the whole thing. Sorry about going slightly off topic here but I thought it's something that might interest you.

All the best,
Margit Keerdo

Dear Mr. Curtis:

I truly appreciate your amazing tribute to the late, great James Mossman.
PLEASE post his legendary encounter with Prime Minister Harold Wilson on Panorama,
which was broadcast in September of 1967. If it is not possible to post the entire
interview on your blog, would you consider posting it on YouTube?

Thank you

This fascinating film is clear evidence that society has truly become dumbed down by years of hypnosis from the mainstream media. The sad reality is that most people don't care about these sorts of issues anymore. This is a truly enlightening film which despite its apparent innocence, reveals some startling and deeply sad truths about modern society.

Yes we live on stories. Religion gave us some of those stories, and the things we believe in in our age are similar over-simplified stories - as much a religion. People with good intentions love causes and myths, and with our skeptical, analytical bent we've become very good at debunking them.

Though not that good. We still live by plenty of myths :)

The strange truth is that we probably need myths - as Ted Hughes thought - to give us something to live for. Analysis doesn't give us that

@Juan

Yes I was waiting for this same footage. Adam how did you pull extra footage from this program? Do you have access to the raw footage of the project? Thanks for sharing so many lost gems.

So much truth in this film. The real struggle within people trying to understand themselves and the roles they are playing. The interconnectedness the balance of which seems to expect people to accept war. Which for a mother ultimately means coming to terms with the possibility of having to sacrifice her children for something she doesn't understand and nobody can explain to her.
I love the part in the cemetery when the father states, "Sometimes you have to give up your freedom to protect the whole country..." the mother answers with exasperation, "But not by war, not by war, there has to be another way, there HAS to be another way!" If only politicians had to first offer up their own children I'm sure there would be a lot less war.

Adam,
Thanks for this, plain-speaking with a very interesting film. I'm a trainee journalist at Sheffield University, I've got a blog on music, culture, politics etc. My latest piece also looks at aspects of American democracy; like you say, what we know and what "they" don't want us to know; as well as the disparity between what we know and our response to it. It'd be great if you could take a look
Forgive the hustle, thanks.
Tom