Derrida

Derrida is an intimate, playful portrait of the French philosopher said to have "changed not the way you think about everything but everything about the way you think."

Best known for pioneering the philosophical idea of "deconstruction," Jacques Derrida has led a radical rethinking of the precepts on which Western metaphysics are founded. Not a conventional biography nor a dry analysis of his thought, this film portrait (much in the spirit of Derrida's own writing) investigates the concept of biography itself, using interviews and footage of Derrida in private life and in the lecture hall to question the relationship between one's life and one's work.

Codirector Kirby Dick is best known for Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan; codirector Amy Ziering Kofman studied with Derrida at Yale. With music by Ryuichi Sakamoto. (85 mins.)