In HBO\u2019s four-part series The Man Will Burn, the psychedelic, uber-expensive festival is granted a deep dive<\/p>\n
In 1986, a group of starving artists seeking release amid a devastating economic downturn built an oversized wooden stick figure, hauled it on to a San Francisco beach and set it ablaze as police officers and passersby looked on in disbelief. Forty years later, Burning Man is the festival to end all festivals \u2013 a sprawling spectacle of music, art and self-expression that draws tens of thousands to the Nevada desert every summer for community, catharsis and spiritual connection. It is a pilgrimage for Bohemians and billionaires, a byword for a particular strain of woo-woo hipsterism, a countercultural institution wrestling with the contradictions between its libertine ideals, corporate reality and the regular presence of lightning-rod figures such as Grover Norquist, the conservative strategist, and Elon Musk\u2019s brother.<\/p>\n
The only way to truly grasp the meaning of the place, it seems, is to take the trip \u2013figuratively at first, then literally once fully immersed in Black Rock City\u2019s psychedelic, anything-goes culture. \u201cIt\u2019s such an immersive experience that it seems that it would be impossible to capture on film or convey what it feels like to be inside a city that exists for a week, that\u2019s imagined, built and sustained entirely by the people inside,\u201d says Jehane Noujaim, co-director of The Man Will Burn, a new docuseries that premiered on HBO this month on the festival.<\/p>\n
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