In March’s Cinema Sunset (March the 31st 2009) the video artist and ADA member Margo Onnes introduced the documentary series The Pervert’s Guide To Cinema, presented by the Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek. Žižek’s clear way of explaining the Lacanian discourses through classical movies, meant a great deal to Onnes’s own art practice. Between the different parts of this documentary series there were short breaks for discussion and contemplation.

The Pervert’s Guide To Cinema part I, II & III
Release: 2006

Runtime: 150 min.

Director: Sophie Fiennes

Presented by: Slavoj Žižek

Synopsis
Cinema is the ultimate pervert art, it doesn’t give you what you desire, it tells you how to desire. [S. Žižek, Pervert’s Guide to Cinema]

In his two-and-a-half-hour lecture, the Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek takes us on a journey through more than 40 iconic films. Walking through original locations or recreated sets it seems as if Žižek is addressing us from within the films he discusses. In an excitable manner Zizek talks about Freudian concepts, such as the psyche’s division between ego, superego, Id, the death drive and libido. From David Lynches’ Mulholland Drive to Hitchcock’s Psycho, Žižek shows us through a psychoanalytic lens that the cinematic illusion can tells us more about reality, than reality itself.