The Pervert's Guide to Cinema (2006)

Director:

Sophie Fiennes

Writer:

Slavoj Zizek (writer)

Release Date:

6 October 2006 (UK)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot:

THE PERVERT'S GUIDE TO CINEMA takes the viewer on an exhilarating ride through some of the greatest movies ever made...

Plot Keywords:

Slovenian Philosopher | Filmanalysis | Slavoj Zizek

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Slavoj Zizek

...

Himself

Runtime:

Austria:150 min | Argentina:150 min (Mar del Plata Film Festival)

Country:

UK | Austria | Netherlands

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Argentina:13

Company:

Amoeba Film

Movie Connections:

Features The Red Shoes (1948)

Famous movies on the psychoanalyst's couch

Famous movies are subject to Freudian analysis: Possessed, The Matrix, The Birds, Psycho, Vertigo, Duck Soup, Monkey Business, The Exorcist, The Testament of Dr Mabuse, Alien, Alien Resurrection, The Great Dictator, City Lights, The Tramp, Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, Dr Strangelove, The Red Shoes, Fight Club, Dead of Night, The Conversation, Blue Velvet, Solaris, Stalker, Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway, Persona, In The Cut, Eyes Wide Shut, The Piano Teacher, Three Colours: Blue, Dogville, Frankenstein, The Ten Commandments, Saboteur, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, North by Northwest, Star Wars, Dune, Kubanskie Kazaki, Ivan The Terrible, Pluto's Judgment Day (Walt Disney), Wild at Heart.

You may wonder how the Marx Brothers come into play. According To Slavoj Zizek, the host and analyst of this intellectually tickling tour de force, Groucho is the superego, Chico the ego, and Harpo the id.

Scenes from the above listed films are used to illustrate concepts: the role of fantasy in shaping reality and vice-versa, the father figure, male and female libido, death drive, etc. Here are some of Slavoj utterances (most as paraphrases): "desire is a wound on reality", "fantasy realized is a nightmare", "music is the opium of the people" (borrowing from K. Marx), "of all human emotions, anxiety is the only one that is not deceiving". The whole is bracketed by an intro that declares "you don't look for your desires in movies, instead cinema tells you what you should desire" and concludes with the cineaste view that "cinema is needed today so that we can understand our current reality" -- I say, as long as censorship doesn't derail it.

The three part subdivision is merely mechanical, possibly with TV screening in mind. For the theater goer it is irrelevant.