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DERRIDA
Directed by: Kirby Dick & Amy Ziering Kofman.
Produced by: Amy Ziering Kofman.
Director of Photography: Kirsten Johnson.
Edited by: Kirby Dick & Matt Clarke.
Music by: Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Released by: Zeitgeist.
Country of Origin: USA. 95 min. Not Rated.
With: Jacques Derrida.
DVD Features: Commentary by the Directors. Never-before-seen Interviews with Jacques Derrida. Deleted Scenes with Directors' Commentary. Derrida on Derrida: Q & A with Jacques Derrida and the filmmakers at the New York premiere. Optional English subtitles

Successfully, directors Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering Kofman present the written work and biographical facets of Jacques Derrida, philosopher of deconstruction (a philosophy which contends words only refer to other words and tries to illustrate how statements about any text subvert their own meaning), in cinematic form. The inevitable “falseness” of biographical representation that is a given deconstructive starting point presents the filmmakers with the paradoxical task of constructing Derrida’s biography. (For example, even watching Jacques getting dressed in the morning is not a “true” representation, Derrida explains to Kofman, since if the camera were not there, he would have stayed in his pajamas all day). The deconstruction of the truth, then, comprises the challenging framework which Dick and Kofman ably take on. Kofman’s voiceovers of Derrrida’s texts (identified on screen by their titles and years published) accompany footage of the photogenic Derrida in his home city of Paris, as well as his moving visit to Robbin Island, South Africa. Ryuichi Sakamoto’s evocative score provides the setting for Derrida’s improvised responses to Kofman’s questions about philosophy, love, and family. For students of deconstruction, this film is a welcome supplement to Derrida’s written theory. For viewers who come to the film with no prior exposure to deconstruction but who are open to receive a spark of initiation into Derrida’s infinity of textual turnings (his explication of Echo and Narcissus is particularly seductive), this film will be a worthwhile introduction. Highly recommended. Carolyn Shapiro, lecturer in Criticism and Theory, Falmouth College of Arts, U.K.
February 22, 2004