Deconstructing Derrida

The film, Derrida, records Jacques Derrida as he resists the process of creating a documentary and providing truth.  Derrida, in poststructuralism, rejects the notion of a concrete and stable identity; therefore, the search for his true self in the film is unattainable, and moments that seem to get close to answering questions quickly begin to deconstruct.  The filmmakers, well aware of the artificiality that Derrida recognizes, emphasize that they are making a film, frequently showing cameras and footage of Derrida watching the film.  The film demonstrates that, as the narrator explains, “deconstruction is always already at work in the work.”  Attempts to create a coherent documentary continue to fail, an effect which the filmmakers embrace.  The film is continually aware of its structure as a film, and this awareness causes its frequent deconstruction.  The film in itself is exemplifies Derrida’s work, showing that whenever there seems to be an answer, it needs to be questioned, allowing for deconstruction to repeatedly occur.

                Early in the film the documentary shows footage of Derrida discussing biographies.  He explains that traditionally a biography becomes representative of truth, creating a fixed and stable image of a person.  Derrida’s skepticism of the biography indicates the poststructuralist ideas that stable identity and truth do not exist.  In poststructuralism, there is no unified meaning, for meaning is fluid, unstable, and constantly shifting.  Deconstruction destabilizes the fixed image that a biography creates about a person, rejecting the stability.  The film, however, interrupts Derrida’s discussion with footage of Derrida walking along the street.  The narrator narrates aspects of his life that essentially play the role of a biography.  The film, which as a documentary is supposed to tell the story of Derrida’s life and work, knows that it cannot capture the essence of Derrida; according to Derrida’s theories, he has no essence.  Therefore, the film’s choice to insert biographical information about Derrida while he disputes the validity of a biography shows how the film chooses to embrace the presence of deconstruction in the structure.  The film even acknowledges that a biography of a philosopher encompasses the philospher’s work and life, i.e. the system and the subject of the system.  It recognizes that there is a blurred or invisible line between the two, meaning that the relationship between the philosopher and his work is unstable.  Poststructuralism breaks down binaries and finds all meaning to be unstable. 

                Derrida’s recognition of the artificiality of the situation consumes the structure of the work.  Derrida refuses to naturalize what is not natural, as he resists the interview process and constantly draws attention to the cameras and the necessity for him to perform rather than behave naturally.  He even notes that when he normally spends time alone in his home he stays in his robe, but the presence of the camera caused him to alter his behavior.  He says, “I’m not really like this,” to show that it is impossible to capture his essence in a film, or perhaps impossible to define someone’s essence at all without imposing some sort of authority and autobiography in the portrayal.  We see that Derrida himself offers very little stable interpretation, including when he is asked about the beginning of his relationship with his wife.  First, Derrida notes the artificiality of the situation when the camera workers need to pause to fix the lighting, immediately making him more unlikely to feel comfortable in front of the camera.  Not only does he say very little––only facts about how they first met-- he later comments on how important it was that both he and his wife responded that way. He said "I'm not going to tell you everything. I'm just going to tell you superficial things."  Derrida is hesitant to disclose information in front of the camera, arguing that it is difficult for him to tell a story and suggesting that telling in itself is not sufficient.  His comment on narration indicates that narration implies some sort of authority and telling of truth, but the truth is unstable and therefore impossible to tell.  Moreover, throughout the film there are images of Derrida watching footage of footage of footage of this particular scene, further deconstructing the structure of the film and its authority.  We are left uncertain as the film actively deconstructs itself, showing that deconstruction is always present in the structure and constantly destabilizing meaning.

                The film also emphasizes instability during the scene on love.  Derrida brings to question the distinction between the who and the what, meaning the unique singularity of someone versus qualities of someone.  As he discusses the struggle of knowing whether to attribute love to the who or the what, he demonstrates the instability of the binary and that love is actually in the blurred line in between the two.  Derrida hence questions the existence of an absolute essence of someone, suggesting that there is no center and that play is always there from the beginning.  The I, in existing between reality and fiction, indicates the deconstruction of the binaries and the center of the self as the source of knowledge.  Identity is therefore not inherent but created and written. 

                The film’s emphasis on the instability of the center also manifests itself in the discussion of eyes and hands.  Throughout the film, the cameras focus on the image of Derrida’s eyes and hands, with the cameras functioning as the Other that from the outside deconstructs the cogito.  Derrida explains that the eyes and hands are, although integral parts to us, the parts that we see least easily in ourselves.  It is the Other that most easily sees them.  The eyes and the hands, therefore, are the center that exists both at the center of the structure and outside of it.  The center of a person (in this case Derrida) exists outside of him.  Derrida emphasizes this point in “Structure, Sign and Play,” when he says, “The center is at the center of the totality and yet, since the center does not belong to the totality (is not part of the totality), the totality has its center elsewhere,” (Rice and Waugh 196).  The filmmakers take on the center of Derrida as they view his eyes and hands from outside of him, destabilizing his essence while they ironically and somewhat mockingly try to tell his essence. 

                The film embraces poststructuralism as it constantly deconstructs itself throughout the process. Poststructuralism confirms play and asserts that the center never exists because it is always outside of itself.  As Derrida writes in “Stucture, Sign and Play,” “…it was necessary to begin thinking that there was no center, that the center could not be thought in the form a present-being, that the center had no natural site, that it was not a fixed locus but a function, a sort of nonlocus in which an infinite number of sign-substitutions came into play,” (Rice and Waugh 197).  Derrida doesn’t recognize the loss of the center but rather the nonexistence of it.  The film reflects Derrida’s deconstruction of the center and emphasis on instability.

                The song, “Jacques Derrida,” by Scritti Politti, embraces deconstruction with the notion that after reading Derrida’s work, the singer can understand his love for someone by deconstructing the person:

I'm in love with a Jacques Derrida
Read a page and know what I need to
Take apart my baby's heart

I’m in love

The song suggests the notion of repeatedly deconstructing someone, constantly unraveling the unstable meaning in poststructuralism and deconstructing the idea of any unified singularity of someone.  In deconstruction, there is no stability.  Derrida addresses the struggle between the who and the what in understanding love; moreover, the lyric suggests the instability of a person, existing unstably in between the who and the what.  The lyric deconstructs the notion of a center and assumes play.