https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-uk/adam-curtis-explains-it-all Skip to main content The New Yorker * Newsletter To revisit this article, select My Account, then View saved stories . Close Alert Sign In Search * News * Books & Culture * Fiction & Poetry * Humor & Cartoons * Magazine * Crossword * Video * Podcasts * Archive * Goings On Open Navigation Menu To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert The New Yorker Letter from the U.K. Adam Curtis Explains It All [sam_knight] By Sam Knight January 28, 2021 * * * * * Save this story for later. A grid of images featuring a helicopter a man on the floor a person's hands typing and people on a bus.Curtis's film "Can't Get You Out of My Head" includes archival footage of an impounded, gleaming pistol and a body on the floor next to a desk.Source photographs courtesy BBC * * * * * Save this story for later. In February, 1967, Jim Garrison, the New Orleans district attorney, wrote a five-page memo called "Time and Propinquity: Factors in Phase I," which revealed some of the spurious connections he was making in his attempt to outline what he believed was the true nature of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Garrison believed that the best way to uncover well-hidden conspiracies was by noticing seeming coincidences--when two people happened to live a few blocks from each other or when someone ran a bar around the corner from where a cache of heroin was seized--and assembling a pattern from the resulting swamp of names, addresses, and dates. A few years ago, the British filmmaker Adam Curtis came across Garrison's memo in "The Prankster and the Conspiracy," a book by the zine writer and self-described crackpot historian Adam Gorightly. At the time, Curtis was trying to make sense of the political fracturing and rampant disinformation that accompanied the election of Donald Trump and, in his own country, the Brexit vote. "Normally, I hate conspiracy theories. I find them boring," Curtis told me recently. "Then I stumbled on 'Time and Propinquity' and I just thought, Yes. . . . Fragments. That's how people think now. They make associations, and there's no meaning. That's the world we live in." Curtis introduces Garrison toward the end of the first hour of "Can't Get You Out of My Head: An Emotional History of the Modern World," his new, six-part series of films that will be released by the BBC on February 11th. (Curtis's films tend to appear on YouTube within days of their original broadcast, uploaded by fans.) A seventy-second section of the film, spelling out the concept of time and propinquity, involves archival footage of (and this is an incomplete list) American cars going through an underpass; flaring streetlights; two men in loud suits, their faces out of the frame, smoking cigars and drinking whisky while sitting on garden furniture on the balcony of a high rise; men in dark glasses pausing briefly to make conversation outside a gas station; hands taking apart a bugged telephone; an impounded, gleaming pistol; Air Force One; a young man taking a book out of a filing cabinet; a bus lit by sunlight from the side; a view straight down a skyscraper; a helicopter flying low over people on the roof of an apartment block scorched by fire; a man in a red T-shirt in an office at night; a body on the floor next to a desk; a woman wearing dark glasses on a bus; a car pulling up outside an airport; a helicopter with a spotlight shining down in the dark; and a Mercedes-Benz approaching a toll booth. The images seethe with a sense of time and place, and yet they are also out of time and place. The only context is Curtis's voice, speaking levelly over the interplay. "This theory was going to have a very powerful effect in the future because it would lead to a profound shift in how many people understood the world," he says. "Because what it said was that, in a dark world of hidden power, you couldn't expect everything to make sense, that it was pointless to try and understand the meaning of why something happened, because that would always be concealed. What you looked for were the patterns." [sam_knight] Sam Knight is a staff writer at The New Yorker, based in London. More:DocumentariesMoviesFilmBBCConspiracy Theories The Daily Sign up for our daily newsletter and get the best of The New Yorker in your in-box. Enter your e-mail address [ ] Sign up Will be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy. Read More A collage of various documentaries being filmed including Agnas Varda Jafar Panahi and Frederick Wiseman. Sixty-two Films That Shaped the Art of Documentary Filmmaking The idea of what a documentary is has shifted according to what has--and hasn't--been possible during the past hundred years. But the artistic preoccupations of their creators have not changed radically in that time. By Richard Brody The Lancet Editor's Wild Ride Through the Coronavirus Pandemic How Richard Horton balances science and politics. By Sam Knight Video Hollywood's Buffoon Speaks Out The actor Mark Metcalf, often typecast as a white-guy-authoritarian jerk, discusses the psychology of his characters. The New Yorker Sections * News * Books & Culture * Fiction & Poetry * Humor & Cartoons * Magazine * Crossword * Video * Podcasts * Archive * Goings On More * Customer Care * Shop The New Yorker * Buy Covers and Cartoons * Conde Nast Store * Digital Access * Newsletters * Jigsaw Puzzle * RSS * Site Map * About * Careers * Contact * F.A.Q. * Media Kit * Press * Accessibility Help * Conde Nast Spotlight (c) 2021 Conde Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated as of 1/1/21) and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement (updated as of 1/1/21) and Your California Privacy Rights. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Conde Nast. Ad Choices * * * * *