TraumaPorn from Adam Curtis
Evgenia and I talk about TraumaZone, Adam Curtis’ latest doc series. It’s about seven hours long and tries to tells the story of the twin destructions that took place in Russia: the destruction of communism and the destruction of democracy.
Despite a lot of simplifications and its annoying Anglo-Saxon misery porn fetish, Evgenia thinks it’s a valuable historical document and it could only have been made by an outsider, precisely because of how traumatic the decade was for the ex-Soviets. Few people there want to think about happened, let alone alone dig in the archives and construct a clear narrative about those times. The entire population suffers from PTSD.
—Yasha Levine
A couple of notes.
Evgenia mentions a documentary that Paweł Pawlikowski made about Vladimir Zhirinovsky. She wrote about the film a while back. Evgenia also mentions a couple of documentaries by Johnson & Johnson heir Jamie Johnson: Born Rich and the The One Percent. As Evgenia says, they stand out because documentaries are as a general rule made by the rich about the poor. But Johnson, fresh out college, made a couple of docs about his own oligarchic class — his family and friends — and that’s very unusual.
Want to know more? Check out previous episodes of The Russians.
TraumaPorn from Adam Curtis
I couldn't bring myself to read Generation P because at one point a former coworker would waltz around the office with it. Among his many faults he was a "repat", in that unlike an "expat" he apparently emigrated much like Yasha did to California, and then for reasons that escape me later returned to Moscow and thus held the absolute worst opinions of both worlds. He would use the term "sovok" frequently in conversation, both in English and Russian. It was insufferable.
Anyway excellent commentary as ever. I enjoyed TraumaZone but I think far too much of it will fly over people's heads because of the sheer densitry of everything in all the footage that I don't think even Curtis might be aware of, because every 30 seconds needs some kind of footnote. For all their faults, the BBC had some of the best stringers in the world that had an incredible sense of detail capturing the soviet/post soviet space on film.
The Ames term, “depression porn” came to mind when I saw this. I suppose I found it riveting. Having heard this story told via text and audio it was eye-opening to see footage.
The way Communist propaganda about USA kind of proved itself right in the end, actually gives me some weird nihilist hope. That change whatever direction it goes is possible.
I saw that 2006 Johnson documentary some time ago. I’m glad I never grew up obsecenly overburdened with resources. Those types have an empty hole and must constantly prove themselves.