The Pervert's Guide to Cinema

It is Vancouver International Film Festival again. Let the marathon begin.

It seems that Slavoj Žižek is becoming not just a philosopher who talks about films but also a philosopher who talks about philosophy on films. It makes sense since his philosophy owes Hitchcock as much as Kant and Hegel. One may think film is perhaps the least suitable medium for even the simplest philosophical discourse, much less one as complicated as Žižek’s. After years of studying and using his theories in my own works, I can say that film is no less a suitable medium than the written words. Žižek’s writings suffer from radical jumps. While I would argue that this stylist “fault” is not only an expression of a restless mind but an embodiment of his philosophy itself, it nonetheless make it difficult for one who is used to more linear logical arguments. The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema may very well be the beginning of a new of philosophical discourse. Last year’s Slavoj Zizek: The Reality of the Virtual did not work quite as well because it was in by and large a lecture-like format. Why make a film if it is nothing more than a lecture? This time, with Sophie Fiennes at the helm, the result is more of a film than a recorded lecture. Žižek is filmed at the locations or the sets of the scenes he is talking about. The footage is then cut with the actual scenes to create an essay like format. The use of this technique is not at all sophisticated so it becomes funny at times. Oddly enough, it makes better immediate sense then the reading of his books. Films seem to be more tolerant of Žižek’s intellectual jumps. When the montages match up with Žižek jumps, what he is saying starts to make sense in a way it does not so easily on paper. What he needs is to work on the film techniques, the montages can certain use some more imaginations in its subject matters as well as cutting techniques. It is good to see ‘the Giant of Lubljana’ is still going strong.