In the end I went to see the film about Jacques Derrida on my own, to find that I was one of only two men in a surprisingly sizeable audience...
I had such a limp that I was grumpy until lunchtime and disinclined to seek out company, though realising I'd been very lucky not to have broken any bones during yesterday's flying lesson.
'Derrida' (2002) only appears to be available for home viewing from Amazon US and not in Europe for the moment, but I liked it very much. Amy Ziering Kofman and Kirby Dick turned long months of filming the French thinker into a coherent and entertaining hour and a half's work, marred only by occasional lapses into sycophancy.
Regrettably, you're likely to get the most out of the film only if you're fluent in English and French, since it's quite a mish-mash of the two, with both interviews and seminars switching from one to the other.
At 'Film Comment,' Rachel Rosen remarks how the movie "cunningly incorporates the through-the-looking-glass elements of Derrida's thought, turning the seams of the filmmaking process inside out," which is true, but means that if you're stuck with the subtitles, though they're excellent, they probably get in the way of the enjoyment.
Ever self-conscious with the film crew, Derrida points out the obvious: the movie is thus rendered "unnatural". However, he has considerable humanity and something essential that doesn't come across in the interview I mentioned yesterday: a sense of humour and fun.
That came as a great relief, because if you make the kind of effort I have over the past four days to get some kind of grasp of the man's thinking, you find your own thought processes being turned inside out too.
8:33:57 PM link 
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