The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology

Cultural theorist superstar Slavoj Žižek reteams 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, Žižek literally goes inside some truly epochal movies—dressing up in costume and speaking from original sets—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 Surprise Eggs, verité news footage, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” and propaganda epics from Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia all inform Žižek’s stimulating, provocative, and often hilarious psychoanalytic-cinematic rant. (136 mins., DCP)