The Phoenix Network:
 
 
About  |  Advertise
 
Features  |  Reviews
Best2012Vote-1000x50

Zizek!

Trying to keep up with the Robin Williams of Freudian-Marxist theory
By PETER KEOUGH  |  February 23, 2006
3.0 3.0 Stars
COMPELLED TO CHATTER because otherwise people might realize there's nothing there?“I never thought I’d have so much fun talking about this!” exclaims Barry Nolan at the end of a broadcast of CN8’s Nightbeat. He’s just finished an interview with antic Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek about Zizek’s new The Dwarf and the Puppet, a Lacanian analysis of Christianity. The subject may seem ill-suited to a cable talk show, but the author isn’t, a talkaholic pundit who’s the Robin Williams of Freudian-Marxist theory. Filmmaker Astra Taylor keeps pace with Zizek as he bounds, bear-like, from Buenos Aires to New York to his home town of Ljubljana, regaling his fans with his provocations, ironies, and dialectical stream of consciousness. In one inspired scene Taylor inserts a musty newsreel of a psychoanalyst defining neurosis; the shrink points to a screen on which Zizek appears, explaining how he’s compelled to chatter because otherwise people might realize there’s nothing there. Viewers can decide for themselves by checking out some of Zizek’s 50-plus books.
Related: Perversion, introversion, Philm, Terror-fied, More more >
  Topics: Reviews , Robin Williams, Slavoj Zizek, Barry Nolan
| More

 Friends' Activity   Popular   Most Viewed 
[ 02/16 ]   Boston Conservatory Dance Division  @ Boston Conservatory Theater
[ 02/16 ]   Jim Gaffigan  @ Wilbur Theatre
[ 02/16 ]   "Raw Milk Debate"  @ Harvard Law School
ARTICLES BY PETER KEOUGH
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   REVIEW: SAFE HOUSE  |  February 15, 2012
    Daniel Espinosa's over-edited but engaging spy thriller delves into edgy territory untouched by any of the numerous movies it imitates: it has Brendan Gleeson do an American accent.
  •   REVIEW: THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY  |  February 15, 2012
    The most touching love story and best children's movie in a long time, Hiromasa Yonebayashi's adaptation of Mary Norton's book The Borrowers employs old-fashioned animation techniques to create a world that is familiar, uncanny, and luminous.
  •   REVIEW: RAMPART  |  February 15, 2012
    The rotten cop flick has become a mini-genre of sorts, a subset of noir, going back at least to Orson Welles's Touch of Evil .
  •   REVIEW: THE OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS 2012: DOCUMENTARY  |  February 10, 2012
    The films in this program contain some of the most powerful images to be seen on the screen this year.
  •   REVIEW: JOURNEY 2: THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND  |  February 07, 2012
    I liked the tiny elephants and the Rock bouncing berries off his pecs, but Brad Peyton's sequel is as bad as the 2008 original.

 See all articles by: PETER KEOUGH

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed