Cultural theorist superstar Slavoj Zizek re-teams with director Sophie Fiennes (The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema) for another wildly entertaining romp through the crossroads of cinema and philosophy. With infectious zeal and a voracious appetite for popular culture, Zizek literally goes inside some truly epochal movies, all the better to explore and expose how they reinforce prevailing ideologies. As the ideology that undergirds our cinematic fantasies is revealed, striking associations emerge: What hidden Catholic teachings lurk at the heart of The Sound of Music? What are the fascist political dimensions of Jaws?
Taxi Driver, Zabriskie Point, The Searchers, The Dark Knight, John Carpenter’s They Live (“one of the forgotten masterpieces of the Hollywood Left”), Titanic, Kinder Eggs, verité news footage, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” and propaganda epics from Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia all inform Zizek’s stimulating, provocative and often hilarious psychoanalytic-cinematic rant.
Intellectual rock star Slavoj Zizek dishes out another action-packed lesson in film history and Marxist dialectics with The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology, a riveting and often hilarious demonstration of the Slovenian philosopher’s uncanny ability to turn movies inside out and accepted notions on their head.
Jordan Mintzer, Hollywood Reporter
Playful and stimulating…. This is film criticism as stand-up comedy or performance art: Zizek plays up to the camera but that doesn’t diminish his wit or his insights.
Geoffrey Macnab, The Independent
Sophie Fiennes
Slavoj Zizek
UK
2013
English
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Credits
Executive Producer
Katherine Butler, Tabitha Jackson, Shani Hinton, Michael Sackler, Julia Godzinskaya
Producer
James Wilson, Katie Holly, Martin Rosenbaum, Sophie Fiennes
Cinematography
Remko Schnorr
Editor
Ethel Shepherd
Original Music
Magnus Fiennes
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