The Pervert's Guide to Ideology

In Marx Reloaded, Zizek's previous film, this hyperactive Slovenian philosopher was forced to share the screen with some of the world's most clued-up thinkers. It was a great thought-provoking spectacle, full of provocative statements (including his definition of communism as "a world where everyone is allowed to dwell in their own stupidity"). But for me Zizek works best in the company of others. Let him loose, as does Fiennes here, with the freedom to write a script which I felt at times she was struggling to follow, and the insights dry up pretty soon. I wasn't made to think here. And frankly the title was a bit lame - why not call it "A Pervert's Guide to Cinema 2"? Since the formula is exactly the same as the previous film Fiennes directed him in. The sketches in which Zizek appears in locations from famous movies (The Sound of Music was my favorite) are relentless, and at over 2 hours needed reigning in. I mostly enjoyed it, but only as a silly romp. I took nothing away from the cinema except a belly full of popcorn.

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

Sophie Fiennes' film, 'The Pervert's Guide To Ideology', is essentially just an illustrated lecture, given by Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek. The illustrations come from the movies, but in the main, Zizek isn't interested in the ideologies of the film makers - rather, he uses selections from the films' content as illustrative of the processes of real life, and the ideology he is interested in is not Nazism, or communism, but rather the way we all frame our own lives, and the universal themes linking our need for and use of such frames. Some of this universalist framework comes from psychoanalysis, although Zizek's Freudian perspective only really manifests itself in occasional unproven assertions that the it is the analytic process that has revealed the truth. Finnes shoots this well, and Zivek is intermittently interesting, but overall, the message is both highbrow and yet strangely unrevalatory; I found it hard to understand what I was meant to take away from this film, or in other words, what the film's own ideological case actually was. It's almost better enjoyed as a simple piece of discursive criticism than a coherent (or, for want of a better word, we might say "ideological") discussion of ideology.

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.

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.