The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear February 17, 2007

Dennis Lim introduces
The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear
Saturday, February 17, 2:00 p.m.

2004, 180 mins., video. Directed by Adam Curtis. This momentous essay on the politics of fear parallels the rise of radical Islamists and American neoconservatives: the mirror-image antagonists who have long been allied in their hatred of Western liberalism and their eagerness to politicize religion. Curtis is a historian of ideas who can bring them to life, not least because he recognizes how they mutate, cross-pollinate, and succumb to distortion. The myth-dependent “war on terror” needs its own brash counter-narrative, and this is an invaluable start. –Dennis Lim