Orson Welles's Future Shock documentary

Here, in five parts, is Orson Welles rather obscure documentary adaptation of Alvin Toffler's Future Shock, a book that has the distinction of being available at every single yard sale in the English-speaking world. It's full of fear and hope and God help me, I can't stop of thinking about Pinky and the Brain.

In 1970, sociologist and futurist Alvin Toffler, the Ray Kurzweil of his day, wrote a book entitled Future Shock, which proposed a certain distressing psychological state , induced by change so rapid the human mind can't digest it, and introduced the notion of "information overload" for the first time. In 1972, the book, already a bestseller, was adapted into a little-known documentary of the same name, narrated by Orson Welles. Exploring the shift from industrial society to what Toffler calls "super-industrial society," the film tackles notions of consumerism and information overload -- think BBC's The Century of the Self meets Nicholas Carr's The Shallows.

Future Shock: Techno-Paranoia Narrated by Orson Welles

• [Anonymous]

  Thank you for posting this. As a member of the “gifted” class at the local elementary school, I was shown this in 5th grade. Just seeing the first minute gave me a good laugh.

• [Mark Dow]

  The cigar should be edited out. Past shock.

  • [dross1260]

    But first some wine, and then the magic.

• [dwdyer]

  I really want the MST3K treatment here.

  And gawd help me, I can’t stop thinking of frozen peas.

• [sla29970]

  They showed it at my junior high school, except they turned off the sound and lamp for the gay marriage scene.

• [Spinkter]

  The music! I love it! (No, seriously, I really do).

• [Stiv]

  “…a book that has the distinction of being available at every single yard sale in the English-speaking world.”

  Heh. It’s funny ’cause it’s true!

• [haineux]

  This docu features rare footage of W Grey Walter’s “tortoises” — the first electronic autonomous robots — which have astonishingly rich behavior generated by a “brain” of two vacuum tubes.

  They are documented on-line here and there, were recently featured in MAKE magazine, and in Grey Walter’s book, “The Living Brain.” (Note: you’ll need basic understanding of tube electronics to figure out how they work from the book.)

• [Rider]

  Referring to this as “Orson Welles’s Future Shock documentary” is a bit of a slight to the people who actually wrote, directed and produced this. Wells simply provided the voice over.

• [speleothem]

  Seeing this film makes me want to compare it with that other Welles-hosted documentary from 10 years later about Nostradamus, “The Man Who Saw Tomorrow”.

  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081109/

• [RufusTheGreat]

  Wow. That is exactly how the future looked like.

• [JeffreyMartin]

  Music. Cigar. Limousine. Pointy beard.

  Fantastic.

• [aldestrawk]

  This is a nice companion piece to “Is technology rewiring teens’ brains?”. The adaptation to avoid information overload is filter out more and rewire your brain to help you function in that setting. At a cost of course. I had never seen this Future Shock video before. I felt a slight twinge of nostalgia. Two things struck me in the video that I haven’t seen or thought about in a long time; the analog computer (@6:10) and the wrecking ball. My only experience with analog computers was research being done at UCSC in the late 1970′s with chaotic attractors (chaos theory).

• [IronEdithKidd]

  Unfortunately, my only memory of Orson Welles from the 70′s goes something like “we will sell no wine before it’s time”.

• [davidcjones]

  I remember watching this in my intermediate school. I forget which class, either English or Social Studies. The memories that stick with me were the ones of the guy plugging in his nipple (or something like that related to powering up) and the 2 guys getting married, which was a pretty foreign concept to someone who had barely thought about his own sexuality let alone the idea that same-sex pairing might be desired by some people!

  Thanks.

  David Jones

• [turn_self_off]

  i think it may have become less shock and more apathy. As one find there is no hope of digesting it all, one do not bother to even try…

• [Carrie]

  I didn’t know it was considered obscure, I saw it at school in the 1970s as part of a Science Fiction literature class. It kind of blew my mind then.

• [Anonymous]

  Thanks for this blast from my past. I last watched this in 1984 in my “Data Processing” class at good-ol’ Nitro High School, where we were actually taught how to punch IBM cards and schedule batch processes. Ah, memories of good times.

• [Anonymous]

  Did Shatner… … take speaking lessons… from Welles? Perhaps they studied under… … the same… teacher. An instructor so… vital, so versed in the… … multitudinous rhythms of life, … that he must frequently pause… and listen to the beat… … of the universe!

• [pKp]

  That is both squamous and rugose.
  [obligatory Cthuloid hand-under-chin movement]

• [Ape Lad]

  This was my first exposure to Orson Welles; I was shown this in elementary school for some reason.
  I watched F for Fake a few days ago, in which Welles says “On this planet, crowded & computerized, being yourself—whatever that may be—& keeping yourself to yourself isn’t easy.” The two films were likely being made around the same time.

• [Anonymous]

  Is this a Jared Lee Loughner production?

• [Anonymous]

  Saw this when a kid. The mouths in the first part freaked me out, have never really gotten over it.

• [invasive]

  Thanks for posting this fascinating documentary. I personally thank my friend Leslie for tracking down the VHS. – Bill

• [Anonymous]

  Orson Welles says “nucular”! Twice! Part IV, 6:32

• [John Coulthart]

  It was hack gigs like this which enabled Welles to finance his later (mostly unfinished) films when he was being cold-shouldered by Hollywood. He always ensured there a clause in the contract for narration work that said he wouldn’t have to sit and watch the completed film.

• [neWWave]

  Calling this Orson Welles’ documentary suggests he directed or produced it. He just appears in it as the narrator.

  Now if someone can find some Frozen Peas style Future Shock outtakes we’ll be in business:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ixt_t46k4Q

  • [Trent Hawkins]

    I see your peas and raise you ‘green pea-ness’

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH1PJTY9AVA