The Century of the Self - BBC - 2002 - All 4 Parts

A documentary about the rise of psychoanalysis as a powerful means of persuasion for both governments and corporations.

The Century of the Self is a 2002 British television documentary series by filmmaker Adam Curtis. It focuses on the work of psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Anna Freud, and PR consultant Edward Bernays.

The legacy of famed psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud informs the lives of people throughout the world even to this day, though it's a phenomenon to which most are unaware. The Century of the Self, written and produced by Adam Curtis, is an exhaustive examination of his theories on human desire, and how they're applied to platforms such as advertising, consumerism and politics. This four-hour odyssey is divided into four distinct segments.

Part 1: Happiness Machines. The first episode concerns Edward Bernays, Freud's nephew and one of the most influential pioneers in public relations. Appealing to what his uncle believed were the aggressive and prurient forces hidden inside of all mankind, Bernays manipulated these inner desires to promote group thinking - first in drumming up the patriotic support of U.S. citizens during World War I and later in the realm of advertising.

The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires.

Bernays was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion, using every trick in the book, from celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to eroticising the motorcar.

His most notorious coup was breaking the taboo on women smoking by persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom. But Bernays was convinced that this was more than just a way of selling consumer goods. It was a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified, people could be made happy and thus docile.

It was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate today's world.

Originally broadcast on 29th April 2002.

Part 2: The Engineering of Consent. Perhaps the darkest illustration of Freud's philosophy can be found in Nazi Germany during the Second World War. The film's second segment recounts the efforts of Bernays and Freud's daughter Anna, who collaborated alongside the American government to devise methods for suppressing the barbaric potential of the human mind. It was only through these activities, the government believed, that a harmonious democracy would be possible.

This episode explores how those in power in post-war America used Freud's ideas about the unconscious mind to try and control the masses.

Politicians and planners came to believe Freud's underlying premise - that deep within all human beings were dangerous and irrational desires and fears. They were convinced that it was the unleashing of these instincts that had led to the barbarism of Nazi Germany. To stop it ever happening again they set out to find ways to control this hidden enemy within the human mind.

Sigmund Freud's daughter, Anna, and his nephew, Edward Bernays, provided the centrepiece philosophy. The US government, big business, and the CIA used their ideas to develop techniques to manage and control the minds of the American people. But this was not a cynical exercise in manipulation. Those in power believed that the only way to make democracy work and create a stable society was to repress the savage barbarism that lurked just under the surface of normal American life.

Includes copyrighted material from Zodiak Entertainment. 

Originally broadcast on 30th April 2002

Part 3: There is a Policeman Inside All of Our Heads, He Must Be Destroyed. Segment three takes place during a vastly different period of American history: the 1960s. As dissenters of Freud began to come to prominence, so too did a younger generation who were determined to fully embrace and flaunt their inner desires. Following on their lead, corporations and their advertisers morphed their message from one of conformity to a celebration of the individual. In so doing, they showed that the tenants of Freud's theories could be successfully manipulated regardless of the temperature of the times.

Part 4: Eight People Sipping Wine In Kettering. The final section takes us full throttle into the universe of politics. During the 1990s, in a desperate measure to regain the White House, the Democratic Party enlisted the assistance of Matthew Freud, a public relations expert and the great-grandson of Sigmund. With a determined reliance on focus groups, the party recalibrated their campaigns to fulfill the innermost desires of the American people. Shortly thereafter, Bill Clinton became the 42nd President of the United States.

Whether these tactics were employed for reasons of nobility or perversion is for viewers to decide. Regardless, The Century of the Self unlocks many essential human truths; chiefly, our vulnerability to influence and our need to be controlled.

ALL 4 Parts in 1 video below

Overview

Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, changed our perception of the mind and its workings. The documentary explores the various ways that governments and corporations have utilized Freud's theories. Freud and his nephew Edward Bernays, who was the first to use psychological techniques in public relations, are discussed in part one. His daughter Anna Freud, a pioneer of child psychology, is mentioned in part two. Wilhelm Reich, an opponent of Freud's theories, is discussed in part three.

To many in politics and business, the triumph of the self is the ultimate expression of democracy, where power has finally moved to the people. Certainly, the people may feel they are in charge, but are they really? The Century of the Self tells the untold and sometimes controversial story of the growth of the mass-consumer society. How was the all-consuming self created, by whom, and in whose interests?

BBC publicity.

Along these lines, The Century of the Self asks deeper questions about the roots and methods of consumerism and commodification and their implications. It also questions the modern way people see themselves, the attitudes to fashion, and superficiality.

The business and political worlds use psychological techniques to read, create and fulfil the desires of the public, and to make their products and speeches as pleasing as possible to consumers and voters. Curtis questions the intentions and origins of this relatively new approach to engaging the public.

Where once the political process was about engaging people's rational, conscious minds, as well as facilitating their needs as a group, Stuart Ewen, a historian of public relations, argues that politicians now appeal to primitive impulses that have little bearing on issues outside the narrow self-interests of a consumer society.

The words of Paul Mazur, a leading Wall Street banker working for Lehman Brothers in 1927, are cited: "We must shift America from a needs- to a desires-culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed. [...] Man's desires must overshadow his needs."

In part four the main subjects are Philip Gould, a political strategist, and Matthew Freud, a PR consultant and the great-grandson of Sigmund Freud. In the 1990s, they were instrumental to bringing the Democratic Party in the US and New Labour in the United Kingdom back into power through use of the focus group, originally invented by psychoanalysts employed by US corporations to allow consumers to express their feelings and needs, just as patients do in psychotherapy.

Curtis ends by saying that, "Although we feel we are free, in reality, we—like the politicians—have become the slaves of our own desires," and compares Britain and America to 'Democracity', an exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair created by Edward Bernays.

Contributors

• Dr Alfred Pritz, President, World Council for Psychotherapy
• Countess Erzie Károlyi
• Edward Bernays (interviewed 1991)
• Pat Jackson, PR Adviser and colleague of Edward Bernays
• Peter Strauss, employee of Edward Bernays 1948–52
• Peter Solomon, investment banker, Lehman Brothers
• Stuart Ewen, historian of public relations
• Dr Ernst Federn, Viennese psychoanalyst
• Ann Bernays, daughter of Edward Bernays
• George Gallup Jnr, son of George Gallup
• Marcel Faust, resident of Vienna, 1930s
• Prof. Martin Bergmann, psychoanalyst, US Army 1943–45
• Ellen Herman, historian of American psychology
• Anton Freud, Anna Freud's nephew
• Michael Burlingham, Dorothy Burlingham's grandson
• Dr Robert Wallerstein, psychoanalyst, Menninger Clinic 1949–66
• Dr Harold Blum, psychoanalyst
• Dr Neil Smelser, political theorist and psychoanalyst
• Fritz Gehagen, psychoanalyst and employee of Ernest Dichter
• Hedy Dichter, wife of Ernest Dichter
• Bill Schlackman, psychologist and employee of Ernest Dichter
• Larry Tye, journalist, Boston Globe
• Howard Hunt, Head of CIA Operation, Guatemala, 1954
• Dr Heinz Lehmann, psychiatrist and colleague of Dr Ewen Cameron
• Laughlin Taylor, assistant to Dr Ewen Cameron 1958–60
• Linda MacDonald, patient of Dr Ewen Cameron
• Dr John Gittinger, Chief Psychologist, CIA, 1950–74
• Celeste Holm, actress and former patient of Dr Ralph Greenson
• Dr Leo Rangell, Los Angeles psychoanalyst
• Dr Alexander Lowen, experimental psychotherapist, 1950s
• Morton Herskowitz, student of Wilhelm Reich 1949–52
• Lore Reich Rubin, Wilhelm Reich's daughter
• Robert Pardun, student activist, 1960s
• Herbert Marcuse (interviewed 1978)
• Stew Albert, founding member of Youth International Party
• Michael Murphy, founder of Esalen Institute
• George Leonard, leader, Encounter Group, Esalen Institute, 1960s
• Dr William Coulson, leader, Nuns' Encounter Group
• Daniel Yankelovich, Yankelovich Partners Market Research Inc.
• Werner Erhard, founder of Erhard Seminars Training
• Jesse Kornbluth, journalist, New Times, 1970s
• Jerry Rubin, founder of Youth International Party (interviewed 1978)
• Jay Ogilvy, Director of Psychological Values Research, SRI International, 1979–88
• Amina Marie Spengler, Director, Psychological Values Research Programme, 1978–86
• Jeffrey Bell, speech-writer to Ronald Reagan, 1976–81
• Christine MacNulty, Program Manager, Values and Lifestyles Team, SRI International 1978–81
• Robert Reich, economist and member of Clinton cabinet 1993–97
• Matthew Wright, tabloid journalist 1993–2000
• Mario Cuomo, Governor, New York 1982–95 (archive)
• Philip Gould, Strategy Advisor for New Labour election campaign 1997
• Dick Morris, Strategy Advisor to President Clinton 1994–96
• Mark Penn, Market Researcher for President Clinton 1995–2000
• Douglas Schoen, Market Researcher for President Clinton 1995–2000
• James Bennet, Washington correspondent, New York Times
• Derek Draper, assistant to Peter Mandelson 1992–95

Music

• Aaron Copland: Billy the Kid (ballet)
• Arvo Pärt: Spiegel im Spiegel, Für Alina
• Dmitri Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues (Shostakovich), Prelude 1 (C major)
• Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90, beginning of the third movement (poco allegretto)
• Kano: She's a Star (from the album New York Cake)
• Louis Armstrong: What a Wonderful World
• Ralph Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
• Raymond Scott: Portofino 2 (from Manhattan Research Inc.)
• The Gold Diggers' Song (We're in the Money) (from the film Gold Diggers of 1933)
• Ennio Morricone: Quelle foto (from the film Le foto proibite di una signora per bene)
• Felix Slatkin: The Green Leaves of Summer

Awards

• Best Documentary Series, Broadcast Awards
• Historical Film Of The Year, Longman-History Today Awards

Nominated for:

• Best Documentary Series, Royal Television Society
• Best Documentary Series, Grierson Documentary Awards
• Best Documentary, Indie Awards