The Pervert's Guide to Ideology

I haven't seen "The Pervert's Guide to Cinema"; now I wonder if I want to. Sophie Fiennes is credited as the director of "The Pervert's Guide to Ideology" but this is Slavoj Zizek's movie; he is never off the screen either in person or just his very annoying voice in broken English, (worse even than Mark Cousins' as he narrates his "The Story of Film"), as he explores the concept of 'ideology' through film, newsreel or music as used in film and since the examples he uses are far from what we might expect in such a highly intellectualized essay as this we are left in something of a void. I mean, is this man, Slavoj Zizek, for real or is Feinnes pulling the wool over our eyes by putting him at the centre of her film?

Of course, things would be a lot different if our guide were someone else; someone speaking fluent English or if Zizek were allowed to speak in his own language but then his torrent of words could never be adequately represented by subtitles. So we must take this film purely on face value. An 'ideological' version of this film wouldn't perhaps be what's up on the screen but perhaps that's the point. Film-buffs will, of course, love the clips even if Zizek's voice-over doesn't always make it easy for us to understand what is being said, (or what point he may actually be making), but there is a certain tongue-in-cheek fun to be had from seeing Zizek place himself 'into' the films or at least into the settings of the films, ("Taxi Driver" one minute, "Triumph of the Will" the next and sitting on the toilet from "Full Metal Jacket" at one point).

I'm sure intellectuals will positively wet themselves in paroxysms of ecstasy at having depth and meaning bestowed on such commercial 'classics' as "Jaws" and "The Sound of Music" and may even have them racing back to view them in a totally different light. Others may run screaming from the cinema and may never want to watch "West Side Story" again. For now I'm sitting on the fence with a foot in both camps, torn by the validity of Zizek's arguments (or the lack of), and the catch- penny, if undeniably entertaining, style in which they are presented.

For those of you who saw: "The Perverts Guide to Cinema", the first answer you'll want is no, Slavoj Zizek's near-impenetrable accent and lisp has not improved. Occasionally, the film will throw sub- titles on the screen to assist in understanding Zizek's musings on the devotion humans have to various "isms" and how they related to very early (Hitler's "Triumph of the Will") and very recent (Nolan's equally unrealistic "The Dark Knight). Presumably one can turn on the closed captioning feature on their laptop and it would be a great help.

Once you get past this communication hurdle you'll hear Zizek cover a fair amount of obvious ground - "The Triumph of the Will", "The Last Temptation of Christ" and "Full Metal Jacket" have clear and unambiguous agendas which their audiences came to see. More Trojan Horse offerings make for more interesting discussions. Kudos to Zizek for leading with and praising the wildly underrated "They Live" John Carpenter's condemnation of modern consumer society. In other cases, say "Titanic" his argument that it contains a coherent agenda seems stretched and in others - particularly Taxi Driver (which is a study of the decent into madness in an insane environment) - his contention of it being an ideological argument seems to miss the mark.

In short, not as interesting as his review of the psychoanalytic elements of, particularly Hitchock, movies from the original "Perverts Guide" but of interest to the cinephile.

A superb documentary which takes a sample of Zizek's capitalism critique and delivers it in bite-sized chunks complete with film illustrations and a dash of wit.

While less focused than his Pervert's Guide to Cinema, here we see him take the ideas from film and open them out to our social and ideological (obviously) reality. He questions the very nature of ideology (often coming close to utilising the process of deconstruction, something he has rejected previously) and how it filters out reality. The film, one could say, is an attempt to make us aware of our ideological constraints. At times it's hard to know if his point is throwaway witticism or central point, but that is the nature of his writing too.

Zizek does look to the future in a positive way, commenting on how OWS and the Arab Spring are examples of society finally looking beyond neo-capitalism (whose ideology is that there is no other ideology), though it would be good to delve further into these examples. But Zizek is aware that solutions are not easy to come by, and finishes more on a question than an answer.

This is a strong documentary that occasionally lags but for the most part is engaging and provocative.

The pervert's guide to ideology is a thought provoking documentary, but at the same time enjoyable and full of wit.

Ideology is so ingrained in society that it has affected our dreams. If we want to change our reality we need to change our dreams first. That seems to be the main theme of the film. Applying psychoanalytic theory to film interpretation, Slavoj Zizek attempts to uncover the hidden meaning of many Hollywood films.

The first film commented by Zizek is 'They Live' which is about a man who finds a special pair of sunglasses that allows him to see the real, scary and subliminal message behind posters and adverts in magazines, but also the real monstrous face of some of those living around him. This sets the tone for the film. For the next two hours Zizek attempts to uncover the hidden, subliminal and controlling messages of a number of films produced over the last 50 years. His argument is that Hollywood dictates our fantasies, dreams and desires through ideology. Taking this further, Zizek comments that the ultimate engineered fantasy is not 'to take what we want but to want to be desired'.

Desire, is not just a desire for something, but also a 'desire for desire itself'. This is the main way that capitalism works. There is an urge to consume: 'people nowadays are made to feel guilty because they don't enjoy themselves enough', he claims.

For Zizek, there is no 'big other', no guaranteed, inherent meaning. We are alone and we have to live with that. All ideology is constructed for manipulation and control. The Titanic for instance, demonstrates that 'it is OK for the high classes when they are in low vitality to mix temporarily and sexually exploit the lower classes'. Vampires and the undead are also a demonstration of the class struggle, with the blood sucking vampires representing the high classes.

Similarly, the shark in Jaws represents all fears of American people; Americans may fear natural disasters, aliens, immigrants or other, and the shark unifies all those fears. This ideology was adopted by the Nazis who unified the enemy in the face of the Jews, according to Zizek.

Are Zizek's psychoanalytic explanations to films 'real'? This is up to you to decide; however, they sound plausible and are worthwhile for consideration. Regardless of whether you agree with him or not, Zizek will change the way you watch films and Hollywood will never be the same again.

The hyperactive Slovenian philosopher Zizek uses extracts from movies to show to us how the things we believe in (our ideology) are created by the external society. He goes in the sublime message of several scene's of famous movies. Once again the sound of music is his favorite. The only question that must be raised is the chicken and egg problem. Do these messages make society or do the desires of society make these messages. With advertisements it is of course clear that the message brings the ideology of the maker has to be pushed to us, but with movies we can have more doubt. This is not addressed in this movie. Furthermore I question if movie is the right medium to bring the message of Zizik. I thought in many moments that the images of the movies distracted from the story he was telling, my mind went into the movie, not into Zizek's story. For personal use I recorded the sound and listening to that I was much more able to think about the messages of Zizek.

But all in all a worthwhile evening