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Zizek!

Trying to keep up with the Robin Williams of Freudian-Marxist theory

By PETER KEOUGH | February 23, 2006

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

Topics: Reviews , Robin Williams, Slavoj Zizek, Barry Nolan

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