Le Vrai Derrida?

In the Derrida film, the directors were making an attempt to show a side of Jacques Derrida that most people didn't get the opportunity to see. Rather than simply (as if it's simple) knowing him through his philosophical writings they wanted to document his everyday life, show him as just another guy eating his breakfast or watching television. Yet, rather than simplifying Derrida through these depictions they actually help get his idea of deconstruction across to the viewer. Whether intentional or not, the directors succeed in making natural everyday events look unnatural and of course Derrida points this out.

Derrida's continually refers to the cameras, microphones and people milling around him while he is supposed to be performing everyday inconsequential actions. In most documentaries the subjects attempt to disregard these peripherals and showcase the fact that the viewer is seeing a natural normal occurrence, yet Derrida can't allow this to happen. Rather than having people see his image as one of his normal life he has to point out the unnatural aspects of what is happening around him, and also how he is acting differently because of the cameras. The directors are looking for the 'true' Derrida and he makes sure to tell viewers that that is not what they are getting.

This idea of capturing who Derrida really is also poses a problem because it assumes there is one true identity within a person, an idea which deconstruction inherently disagrees with. I think the filmmakers understand this and through their choices to leave in the scenes in which Derrida is questioning the authenticity of the experiences he is going through for the film, they are acknowledging that these are powerful examples of deconstruction.

This documentary does succeed in that it gives viewers an idea of who Derrida is as a person, but more importantly the entire film serves as an example of his work. By including excerpts of his writing throughout the movie they explicitly introduce his philosophical ideas, but by the end of the movie it becomes more clear that the entire project is an expression of deconstruction, the de-naturalizing of situations we take for granted.