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Persistence of Nightmares

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The three strongest impressions I have about Morgan Spurlock's Where In The World is Osama Bin Laden? (Weinstein Co., 4.18) are, in this order, trivial, critical and philosophical. I'm not afraid of admitting to trivial concerns, in part because I also know a worthy belief (or hope current) when I hear it.

Impression #1 is that since the Super-Size Me days, Spurlock has become super follically challenged and needs to talk to the Hair Club for Men. Impression #2 is that the tone of most of the film is way too flip and dumbed-down -- it seems aimed at the dumbasses who wouldn't want to watch a film about the east-west cultural divide and the nature of Islamic anti-U.S. fervor unless the filmmaker uses a chuckling whimsical tone and tosses in a few jokes. Impression #3 is that the final few minutes of Spurlock's film say "the right thing," which is that we need to try to find our common humanity and build whatever bridges we can, and to do that we need recognize the purist crazies in our respective cultures and isolate them.

This gives me a chance to talk again about Adam Curtis's The Power of Nightmares, which articulates the third point in a much more profound and penetrating way than Spurlock's film does. Anyone who hasn't seen it, whether they go to Spurlock's film or not, needs to do so. It's easily downloadable right here.

I wrote about it three years ago. "This new three-hour doc weaves together all sorts of disparate historical strands to relate two fascinating spiritual and political case histories, that of the American neo-conservatives and the Islamic fundamentalists," I said. "The payoff is an explanation of why they're fighting each other now with such ferocity (beyond the obvious provocation of 9/11), and why the end of their respective holy war, waged for their own separate but like-minded motives, is nowhere in sight.

"That's right -- the Islamics vs. the neo-cons. You might think the United States of America is engaged in a fierce conflict with Middle-Eastern terrorists in order to prevent another domestic attack, but what's really going on is more in the nature of a war between clans. Like the one between Burl Ives vs. Charles Bickford in The Big Country, say, or the Hatfields vs. the McCoys.

"It's not that Curtis's doc is saying anything radically new here, certainly not to those in the hard-core news junkie, academic or think-tank loop, but it makes its case in a remarkably well-ordered and comprehensive way, which...you know...helps moderately aware dilettantes like myself make sense of it all.

"The film contends that the anti-western terrorists and the neo-con hardliners in the George W. Bush White House are two peas in a fundamentalist pod, and that they seem to be almost made for each other in an odd way, and they need each other's hatred to fuel their respective power bases but are, in fact, almost identical in their purist fervor, and are pretty much cut from the same philosophical cloth.

"It says, in other words, that Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz have a lot in common with Osama bin Laden. It also says that the mythology of 'Al-Qeada' was whipped up by the Bushies, that the term wasn't even used by bin Laden until the Americans more or less coined it, and that the idea of bin Laden running a disciplined and coordinated terrorist network is a myth.

"Nightmares doesn't trash the Bushies in order to portray the terrorists in some kind of vaguely admiring light. It says -- okay, implies -- that both factions are too in love with purity and consequently half out of their minds.

The three chapters are titled Baby, It's Cold Outside (about the growth of both camps from the `50s through the `80s), The Phantom Victory" (about the Reagan years and how the Neo-Cons and the Islamics got together in battling the Russians during the Afghanistan War) and Shadows in the Cave (about how things have gone from 9.11 until the present).

"This conclusion leaves us with a feeling that we ought to stand up and act like good reasonable Gregory Peck-styled liberals and separate ourselves from these guys and their nutbag holy war, and maybe send the Islamics and the neo-cons off to a desert island and let them fight it out alone with clubs and knives." This is almost precisely what Spurlock says at the finale of Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?. minus the desert-island idea.

"The neo-cons and the Islamists 'believe that the main problem with modern society is that individuals question everything,' Curtis told a reporter for London Time Out last October, '[and] by doing that the questioners have already torn down God, that eventually they will tear down everything else and therefore they have to be opposed.'

"In other words," I wrote, "these camps are both enemies of liberal thought and the pursuit of personal fulfillment in the anti-traditionalist, hastened-gratification sense of that term. They believe that liberal freedoms have eroded the spiritual fabric that has held their respective societies together in the past. Curtis's doc shows how these two movements have pushed their hardcore agendas over the last four or five decades to save their cultures from what they see as encroaching moral rot.

"I genuinely feel that Curtis's film is more wide-ranging and sees right into the heart of these warring ideological beasts in a much sharper and more revelatory fashion than Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.

You will probably never see this doc on American broadcast television and perhaps not even on any U.S. cable channels, but there's something about Curtis's pointed, relentless and irreverent British perspective that seems to cut right through the cobweb of our perceptions and draw a bead on what's really happening."

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on April 19, 2008 at 9:05 AM

comment #1

David Ehrlich says ...

and just when i thought you were going to get bogged down in hair again... a very interesting post ensues. wish i had more to contribute but should definitely see Nightmares before I do, so... thanks for the homework and the impetus to finally check that doc out.

on a somewhat related note, anyone else feel that spurlock is the dave barry of the american doc community?

Posted by David Ehrlich at April 19, 2008 10:20 AM

comment #2

Redmond says ...

A similar topics is touched in Sam Harris' "The End of Faith." Fundamentalists nutjobs and the moderates that say we must tolerate them are pushing us towards destruction. Christianity and Islam together will be the death of us all unless we finally say, "You know what, life should no longer be dictated by a 2,000 year old books that condone killing others who don't share your beliefs. You had your fun in the sun, now sit down and let us move this world further before you blow us up trying to bring about Armageddon or reach the Promised Land with your virgins."

Posted by Redmond at April 19, 2008 10:30 AM

comment #3

Redmond says ...

*All typos in my comment are solely the fault of Jeff for writing about Morgan Spurlocks receding hairline.

Posted by Redmond at April 19, 2008 10:32 AM

comment #4

Edward says ...

The trailer for "Where in the World" does make the film look a bit flip, but it looks interesting too. When I get some time, I'll definately check out "Nightmares."

However; what's with the hangup about guys with thinning hair, why does Spurlock need Hairclub? I usually keep quite when you go off on some of these tangents. It's probably one of the reasons I keep visiting the site. Not all follically challenged men have the need to cover their thinning domes. I started going bald at 18 and was bald by 25. I've been comfortable with my baldness for 35 years. Plenty of men are. If Rogaine had been available to me, I might have used it, but it wasn't and I'm fine. It's in my genes, I can't help that. Now if Spurlock has a comb-over then--perhaps--you have a vallid gripe.

Posted by Edward at April 19, 2008 10:35 AM

comment #5

SpinDozer says ...

'Nightmares' is great as is 'Century of the Self', not sure that it's all that appropriate to comp to F-911, which is also great, anymore than to pronounce 'What Barry Says' as being superior to either since its message is delivered with greater economy and beauty. Spurlock's schtick makes me tired, would've much rather had a competant director film a 'Fast Food Nation' doc.

Posted by SpinDozer at April 19, 2008 10:56 AM

comment #6

nemo says ...

Spurlock does come on like Dave Barry, but his approach also resembles another Florida humorist, Carl Hiassen.

I'm not clear on why humor is necessarily at odds with a morally serious subject. Carl Hiassen's novels are funny and satirical, but also serious about the subjects of corruption, greed, and environmental destruction in Florida. Mark Twain's stories and novels are both hilarious and deadly serious.

Spurlock, Michael Moore, and Carl Hiassen, like Mark Twain before them, all reach a much wider audience with humor than they would by being sober and serious. What's the problem with that?

Any popularized treatment of a complex subject is going to be simplified. Without the humor, the popularization, and the simplification, the size of the audience is going to be tiny. You can simplify, popularize, and make jokes while still being true to your subject.

And maybe Wells would be happier if Spurlock went the shaved head route of follicularly challenged stars such as Bruce Willis.

Posted by nemo at April 19, 2008 10:57 AM

comment #7

Walter Sobchak says ...

I hate bald people, too!

Posted by Walter Sobchak at April 19, 2008 1:44 PM

comment #8

BurmaShave says ...

Great points on the serious subject matter, as to the shallow I'd like to convey that as long as Spurlock is going to be rocking such douchey facial hair a little baldness will make him look a lot more distinguished.

Posted by BurmaShave at April 19, 2008 5:35 PM

comment #9

BurmaShave says ...

Posted by BurmaShave at April 19, 2008 5:35 PM

comment #10

BurmaShave says ...

Sorry for the double.

Posted by BurmaShave at April 19, 2008 5:36 PM

comment #11

berg says ...

there is a lot of music in NIGHTMARES for which the rights were not cleared for theatrical (?); my favorite is the repeated use of the John Carpenter written theme music from Prince of Darkness ...

Posted by berg at April 19, 2008 10:19 PM

comment #12

lazespud says ...

Don't both with the 10 week torrent download: watch the Power of Nightmares right now on Google Video:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2307254173978670436&q=power+of+nightmares&ei=g90KSLf6EpX84AKFm7C4BA

I don't know what it is with Google video, but it ALWAYS has incredible docs on it. I don't know if they are up legally, but in the last few months I've seen Helvetica, Taxi to the Darkside, SuperSize Me, lots of BBC docs, even the out of circulation Cocksucker Blues and Titicut Follies. It's awesome.

Posted by lazespud at April 19, 2008 11:10 PM

comment #13

JD says ...

Newsflash: The Power of Nightmares IS available on DVD in region 1. Just buy Wholphin issues 2-4. Each issue contains a bonus disc with 1 of the film's 3 parts:

http://www.wholphindvd.com/issues/index.php

Posted by JD at April 20, 2008 7:46 AM

comment #14

MilkMan says ...

Great recommendation, Jeff.

Posted by MilkMan at April 20, 2008 8:14 AM

comment #15

Bob Violence says ...

lazespud: You can rest assured that virtually none of the "name" films on Google Video are there legally, unless of course they're in the public domain. (You really think the Rolling Stones would get a court order to block Cocksucker Blues and then allow it to go up on Google Video?) Curtis did put Nightmares on archive.org (supposedly after HBO and all the other potential U.S. outlets rejected it), but legally that wasn't his call to make. Apparently the Wholphin DVD release was the same way (i.e., "semi-official"). Anyway it doesn't look like the BBC gives a shit.

berg: Actually, a special theatrical version was prepared for Cannes in '05 and I think Sony even picked up the U.S. rights. I have no idea what happened there; maybe they were worried about overlap with Why We Fight -- silly, since Nightmares is far more interesting and ambitious.

Posted by Bob Violence at April 20, 2008 10:35 PM

comment #16