Sophie Fiennes with Anne-Katrin Titze on Slavoj Žižek: “I absolutely love working with him. Just being immersed in those ideas.”
From her short, Lars From 1 - 10, with Lars von Trier on Dogma 95, to Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami with Grace Jones; The Pervert's Guide To Ideology and The Pervert's Guide To Cinema with Slavoj Žižek; Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow with Anselm Kiefer; a short in Hopper Stories (commissioned by Arte France and produced by Didier Jacob), inspired by the Edward Hopper painting First Row Orchestra, and now the remarkable documentary T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets, starring Ralph Fiennes - Sophie Fiennes is one of the most discerning and astute filmmakers on the subjects she chooses to document.
Slavoj Žižek Cantor Film Center at NYU on October 14, 2015 Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Slavoj Žižek's musings on our enjoyment of ideology, and the fact that stepping out of it hurts, were...
From her short, Lars From 1 - 10, with Lars von Trier on Dogma 95, to Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami with Grace Jones; The Pervert's Guide To Ideology and The Pervert's Guide To Cinema with Slavoj Žižek; Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow with Anselm Kiefer; a short in Hopper Stories (commissioned by Arte France and produced by Didier Jacob), inspired by the Edward Hopper painting First Row Orchestra, and now the remarkable documentary T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets, starring Ralph Fiennes - Sophie Fiennes is one of the most discerning and astute filmmakers on the subjects she chooses to document.
Slavoj Žižek Cantor Film Center at NYU on October 14, 2015 Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Slavoj Žižek's musings on our enjoyment of ideology, and the fact that stepping out of it hurts, were...
- 4/22/2023
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Exclusive: Oscar nominee and BAFTA winner Ralph Fiennes’ hit London stage production Four Quartets is getting a screen version directed by his sister Sophie Fiennes (The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema).
WestEnd Films is launching international sales on the project at the upcoming Cannes market.
Early in the pandemic, No Time to Die, Harry Potter and Schindler’s List star Fiennes set himself the challenge of committing T.S. Eliot’s classic poem Four Quartets to memory. The result was an acclaimed stage version which ran to packed houses across England and at the Harold Pinter Theater in London.
Written by Eliot in the shadow of the Second World War, the ever-relevant poem is a searching examination of who – and what – we are.
The idea for the film, which is currently in post, was developed alongside the rehearsals for the stage production. Martin Rosenbaum (The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology), Shani Hinton (Grace...
WestEnd Films is launching international sales on the project at the upcoming Cannes market.
Early in the pandemic, No Time to Die, Harry Potter and Schindler’s List star Fiennes set himself the challenge of committing T.S. Eliot’s classic poem Four Quartets to memory. The result was an acclaimed stage version which ran to packed houses across England and at the Harold Pinter Theater in London.
Written by Eliot in the shadow of the Second World War, the ever-relevant poem is a searching examination of who – and what – we are.
The idea for the film, which is currently in post, was developed alongside the rehearsals for the stage production. Martin Rosenbaum (The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology), Shani Hinton (Grace...
- 5/6/2022
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Line-up also includes the new project from two-time Oscar nominee Lucy Walker.
Danish documentary festival Cph:dox has revealed the 35 projects set to be presented at Cph:forum, its financing and co-production event that will take place online-only from April 26-30.
Scroll down for full list of titles
The selection includes new projects from two-time Oscar nominee Lucy Walker (Waste Land), Sundance winners Mads Brügger (Cold Case Hammarskjöld) and Eugene Jarecki (The House I Live In), Berlin Crystal Bear winner Geneviève Dulude-De Celle (A Colony) and Venice Horizons winner Lech Kowalski (East Of Paradise).
Further notable filmmakers include Radu Ciorniciuc, whose Acasa,...
Danish documentary festival Cph:dox has revealed the 35 projects set to be presented at Cph:forum, its financing and co-production event that will take place online-only from April 26-30.
Scroll down for full list of titles
The selection includes new projects from two-time Oscar nominee Lucy Walker (Waste Land), Sundance winners Mads Brügger (Cold Case Hammarskjöld) and Eugene Jarecki (The House I Live In), Berlin Crystal Bear winner Geneviève Dulude-De Celle (A Colony) and Venice Horizons winner Lech Kowalski (East Of Paradise).
Further notable filmmakers include Radu Ciorniciuc, whose Acasa,...
- 3/3/2021
- by Michael Rosser
- ScreenDaily
From toilet-based scares to nasty encounters in the shower, here's a selection of 17 memorable moments of terror in the bathroom...
Nb: the following contains potential spoilers and scenes which may be considered Nsfw.
The scariest moments in horror are often the most intimate - this is why knives are a far nastier, button-pushing instrument of death than the gun. As the Joker famously put it in The Dark Knight, “You can savour all those little emotions...”
Intimacy may be the key to understanding why, in horror films, so many dreadful things tend to happen in bathrooms. The bathroom is often where we go to be by ourselves - either to answer the call of nature, brush our teeth, or simply relax in the bath after a hectic day at work. Equally, the water closet also sees us at our most vulnerable: naked, or at least with our trousers down, and...
Nb: the following contains potential spoilers and scenes which may be considered Nsfw.
The scariest moments in horror are often the most intimate - this is why knives are a far nastier, button-pushing instrument of death than the gun. As the Joker famously put it in The Dark Knight, “You can savour all those little emotions...”
Intimacy may be the key to understanding why, in horror films, so many dreadful things tend to happen in bathrooms. The bathroom is often where we go to be by ourselves - either to answer the call of nature, brush our teeth, or simply relax in the bath after a hectic day at work. Equally, the water closet also sees us at our most vulnerable: naked, or at least with our trousers down, and...
- 2/5/2015
- by ryanlambie
- Den of Geek
Bringing his own unique brand of philosophy to the cinema, Slavoj Žižek has been the force behind "The Pervert's Guide to Cinema" and "The Pervert's Guide to Ideology," which deconstruct the movies you love in ways you never expected. And even in a brief visit to the offices of The Criterion Collection, he provides quick dissections on a handful of efforts. Calling himself a "corrupted theorist," Žižek rifles through a bunch of movies including Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm" (which he has a personal connection to), Ernst Lubitsch's "Trouble In Paradise" (apparently a great critique of capitalism), Lars von Trier's "Antichrist" (because he has a duty to the filmmaker) and more. It's damn entertaining, and Žižek closes things out by explaining why he likes Criterion and the special features (because sometimes they are better than the actual movie). Check it all out below.
- 9/26/2014
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
Why is it easier for us to visualize the end of the human race, than the end of the free-market capitalism? This is the driving question behind the latest collaboration between Slavoj Žižek, the superstar philosopher/psychoanalyst/cultural critic of our time and director Sophie Fienne's in their new documentary, The Pervert's Guide to Ideology. It's their second film since widely successful The Pervert's Guide to Cinema in 2006. Clocking at 136 minutes, Ideology is arguably less entertaining than its predecessor despite the charming presence of the famed philosopher in several iconic movie backdrops, gesticulating wildly and sounding like the Eastern European Sylvester the Cat. But this film is a denser, more serious examination of our consumerist society that asks many of the important questions of our...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 10/29/2013
- Screen Anarchy
"What is this? Is that what I think it is?" Slavoj Žižek husks while approaching a monochrome gadget in the corner of the room. He stares at the object before jumping back aghast. It's a premium lager tap system. Clearly ruffled by its presence, the Slovene philosopher launches into a sprawling and hilarious critique on capitalist theory all down to the existence of this one functioning machine. His response rate is almost infinite. If you don't interject, it seems he will never break to inhale. But, on the release of The Pervert's Guide to Ideology (2012), CineVue were able to cover how one of this generation's great thinkers feels on the series' progression, the issues with improvisation and the death of film theory.
Tom Watson: Did you find it a struggle to establish a dichotomy between film language and public speaking?
Slavoj Žižek: The origin of this technique is a modest one.
Tom Watson: Did you find it a struggle to establish a dichotomy between film language and public speaking?
Slavoj Žižek: The origin of this technique is a modest one.
- 10/8/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
★★★★☆ "I already am eating from the trash can. The name of this trash can is 'ideology." These are the opening words to psychoanalytic critic and cultural philosopher Slavoj Žižek's The Pervert's Guide to Ideology (2013), a new entry in his growing Pervert's Guide series. Escalating from the analysis of fantasy and reverie in cinematic construction, Žižek delivers a full-bodied, genuinely humorous account of ambiguity and austerity. The concept of ideology as a sociopolitical tool used to appropriate a system of ideals has been barked from every intellect's pedestal for centuries, but here is given fresh impetus by our able host.
It's Žižek's evident zeal and vigour in his filmic examples that enable his ponderous ramblings to fly beyond that of a stodgy specimen of public speaking. Using excerpts from classic Hollywood movies including The Sound of Music (1965) and John Carpenter's criminally undervalued They Live (1988), Žižek refuses to hold his audience's hand with vocal linearity.
It's Žižek's evident zeal and vigour in his filmic examples that enable his ponderous ramblings to fly beyond that of a stodgy specimen of public speaking. Using excerpts from classic Hollywood movies including The Sound of Music (1965) and John Carpenter's criminally undervalued They Live (1988), Žižek refuses to hold his audience's hand with vocal linearity.
- 10/5/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Culture critic Slavoj Žižek tackles one of cinema's great challenges – the sequel – with mixed results
The question of that problematic cinema genre, the sequel, with all its issues of identity and narrative,, is something that psychoanalytic critic Slavoj Žižek hasn't yet examined. Here anyway is the followup to his dazzling cine-lecture The Pervert's Guide to Cinema, from 2006, again directed by Sophie Fiennes. Now his subject is notionally wider and more austere: ideology. But the examples are still largely from the movies and perhaps it should have been called The Ideologue's Guide to Cinema or The Ideologue's Guide To Ideology. This is slower and stodgier than the first film, with less fizz and fun. Žižek wants to show us that what we perceive as straightforward reality is always shaped by ideology: ideology is what makes the amorphous mass of experience readable. The movies can show how ideology goes to work – and...
The question of that problematic cinema genre, the sequel, with all its issues of identity and narrative,, is something that psychoanalytic critic Slavoj Žižek hasn't yet examined. Here anyway is the followup to his dazzling cine-lecture The Pervert's Guide to Cinema, from 2006, again directed by Sophie Fiennes. Now his subject is notionally wider and more austere: ideology. But the examples are still largely from the movies and perhaps it should have been called The Ideologue's Guide to Cinema or The Ideologue's Guide To Ideology. This is slower and stodgier than the first film, with less fizz and fun. Žižek wants to show us that what we perceive as straightforward reality is always shaped by ideology: ideology is what makes the amorphous mass of experience readable. The movies can show how ideology goes to work – and...
- 10/3/2013
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Documentary-maker Sophie Fiennes's latest philosophical quest – with Slavoj Zizek – presents another thrilling challenge for cinema-goers
Sophie Fiennes doesn't like to make things easy for herself. The acclaimed documentary-maker's latest project is a two-hour philosophical disquisition on the nature of ideology, presented by the Slovenian psychoanalytic thinker, Slavoj Žižek.
"I like to give myself a set of components or ingredients, like for cooking," Fiennes says when I ask her if she's got a screw loose. "So I don't quite know how it's going to turn out."
A typical scene from The Pervert's Guide to Ideology, Fiennes's second collaboration with Žižek, features the charismatic thinker expounding forcefully on the Lacanian notion of "the big Other", with reference to popular movies ranging from The Sound of Music to Full Metal Jacket. In a visually playful twist, Fiennes shows Žižek speaking from replica sets, as though he is speaking from within the films themselves – and,...
Sophie Fiennes doesn't like to make things easy for herself. The acclaimed documentary-maker's latest project is a two-hour philosophical disquisition on the nature of ideology, presented by the Slovenian psychoanalytic thinker, Slavoj Žižek.
"I like to give myself a set of components or ingredients, like for cooking," Fiennes says when I ask her if she's got a screw loose. "So I don't quite know how it's going to turn out."
A typical scene from The Pervert's Guide to Ideology, Fiennes's second collaboration with Žižek, features the charismatic thinker expounding forcefully on the Lacanian notion of "the big Other", with reference to popular movies ranging from The Sound of Music to Full Metal Jacket. In a visually playful twist, Fiennes shows Žižek speaking from replica sets, as though he is speaking from within the films themselves – and,...
- 9/21/2013
- by Elizabeth Day
- The Guardian - Film News
It's not often that a philosopher and cultural critic gains something resembling celebrity status, but then again, there are few philosophers and cultural critics as magnetic as Slavoj Žižek. He has certainly transcended academic borders and his infectious personality played a bit part in the success of "The Pervert's Guide to Cinema," his 2006 outing with documentary filmmaker Sophie Fiennes, that investigated the very language of cinema itself. And now they've teamed up to tackle cinema once more time from a different angle. "The Pervert's Guide To Ideology," as the title suggets, finds Zizek exploring how films reinforce prevailing ideologies, and where cinema and philosophy intersect. We've got the exclusive, eye-catching new poster for the film below, and it comes from noted designer Akiko Stehrenberger. She is a Clio Award winning artist whose memorable film artwork includes Michael Haneke’s U.S. remake of "Funny Games," the illustrated one sheet for Xan.
- 7/31/2013
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
Doc NYC, a New York documentary festival, is currently screening its third edition at the IFC Center and the Sva Theater. The festival, which this year has an especially impressive program, runs through November 15. Below are reviews of three of this year's selections.The Pervert's Guide To Ideology (Sophie Fiennes)Director Sophie Fiennes and superstar philosopher Slavoj Zizek re-team in this follow-up to their 2006 collaboration The Pervert's Guide to Cinema, and this new film is as riveting, funny, and profound as its predecessor. The formula is pretty much the same: Zizek, with his inimitably passionate, excitable demeanor, holds forth in an almost non-stop monologue, during which he analyzes numerous films to build his arguments. Fiennes puts it all together with a witty, stylish flair, the...
- 11/11/2012
- Screen Anarchy
This week marks the start of Manhattan's third annual documentary festival, Doc NYC, at the IFC Center in Greenwich Village and Chelsea's Sva Theatre. The eight-day presentation boasts big names like Ken Burns, Barbara Kopple and Jonathan Demme as well as a significant roster from the indie underworld: Rufus Wainwright, Antony Hegarty, and Sophie Fiennes, to name but a few.
To help you sift through the massive schedule of documentaries, we've created our own guide to the must-see films of this year. Our list is as much a grab bag as the 115-item Doc NYC list, but we've picked the ones that we know you just can't miss:
1. How to Survive a Plague (directed by David France)
A powerful overview of Act Up and its science-savvy subgroup, Tag (Treatment Action Group); its members worked tirelessly to bring awareness to the plight of AIDS victims in the mid-1980s and early 1990s.
To help you sift through the massive schedule of documentaries, we've created our own guide to the must-see films of this year. Our list is as much a grab bag as the 115-item Doc NYC list, but we've picked the ones that we know you just can't miss:
1. How to Survive a Plague (directed by David France)
A powerful overview of Act Up and its science-savvy subgroup, Tag (Treatment Action Group); its members worked tirelessly to bring awareness to the plight of AIDS victims in the mid-1980s and early 1990s.
- 11/6/2012
- by The Huffington Post
- Huffington Post
The theories of Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Zizek might not be the first subject you'd think could be easily translated into a documentary, but in her 2006 film "The Pervert's Guide to Cinema," Sophie Fiennes accomplished just that. The film inserts Zizek into footage of classic movies like "The Birds," "Blue Velvet" and "City Lights," creating the illusion that he is speaking from within each film. With this technique, ...
- 10/21/2011
- Indiewire
Bond, Batman and Titanic can explain the workings of the world, reckons Slavoj Žižek. Danny Leigh joins the superstar philosopher on the set of his latest bizarre voyage into cinema
Slavoj Žižek is in bed. He's wearing cheap pyjamas in a porridgy shade of grey. He looks exactly like the photographs I've seen of him: fag-ash beard, ghostly complexion. I loom over him, and he glowers back. His face is just inches from mine, so close I can feel his breath.
"No, you are wrong!" he hisses. "My dreams were not really mine! That's why I wanted to be reborn!"
None of this is a product of my subconscious. In fact, we're at a studio near Dublin, working on The Pervert's Guide to Ideology, a film in which the Marxist provocateur and bestselling philosopher is starring as himself, albeit in a series of loving re-creations of movie scenes. What's being...
Slavoj Žižek is in bed. He's wearing cheap pyjamas in a porridgy shade of grey. He looks exactly like the photographs I've seen of him: fag-ash beard, ghostly complexion. I loom over him, and he glowers back. His face is just inches from mine, so close I can feel his breath.
"No, you are wrong!" he hisses. "My dreams were not really mine! That's why I wanted to be reborn!"
None of this is a product of my subconscious. In fact, we're at a studio near Dublin, working on The Pervert's Guide to Ideology, a film in which the Marxist provocateur and bestselling philosopher is starring as himself, albeit in a series of loving re-creations of movie scenes. What's being...
- 10/18/2011
- by Danny Leigh
- The Guardian - Film News
"Sue Mengers died last night at her home, a short walk from the Beverly Hills Hotel, and surrounded by three of her close friends, Ali MacGraw, Joanna Poitier, and Boaty Boatwright," wrote Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter yesterday. "Sue was a Holocaust baby, arriving in upstate New York before America entered the war. Nobody in her family spoke English, and like so many immigrants, she set her sights on a career in show business. In time she became, as Fran Lebowitz says, capital 'S' Sue Mengers. By the early 70s, she was not only the most powerful female agent in Hollywood; she was the town's most powerful agent, period. At one time or another during that period, she represented Barbra Streisand, Candice Bergen, Michael Caine, Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman, Cher, Joan Collins, Burt Reynolds, and Nick Nolte — all at heights of their careers. She also had the directors they wanted to work for,...
- 10/17/2011
- MUBI
While Occupy Wall Street goes global, Martha Colburn has made two short films documenting the movement and Cinefoundation launches #OccupyCinema. One of the more popular recent Ows speakers has, of course, been Slavoj Žižek, and Anne Thompson reports that he and Sophie Fiennes have just completed shooting on their followup to The Pervert's Guide to Cinema, the timely Pervert's Guide to Ideology.
Even as This Is Not a Film runs a sort of victory lap through the festival circuit since its triumphant premiere in Cannes, an appeals court in Tehran has upheld the sentence against Jafar Panahi many of those same festivals have been protesting for practically a year now. Laurent Maillard, reporting for the Afp, turns to a government-run newspaper in Iran for confirmation: "The charges he was sentenced for are acting against national security and propaganda against the regime." Maillard: "Panahi was convicted in December last year over...
Even as This Is Not a Film runs a sort of victory lap through the festival circuit since its triumphant premiere in Cannes, an appeals court in Tehran has upheld the sentence against Jafar Panahi many of those same festivals have been protesting for practically a year now. Laurent Maillard, reporting for the Afp, turns to a government-run newspaper in Iran for confirmation: "The charges he was sentenced for are acting against national security and propaganda against the regime." Maillard: "Panahi was convicted in December last year over...
- 10/16/2011
- MUBI
"In 1993 the artist Anselm Kiefer left his native Germany and moved to a derelict silk factory on 86 acres in the southern French town of Barjac," begins Kristin Hohenadel in the New York Times. "He shored up the old industrial buildings to make them habitable. Then he brought in a crew of locals to bulldoze bare land, dig a network of underground tunnels and erect concrete structures to house his large-scale paintings and sculptures made from lead, wood, glass and other materials, transforming the landscape into a giant workshop and a monumental work of art. Mr Kiefer has since moved here, where he lives with his family and works in a warehouse outside the city. But his final days in Barjac were captured in Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow, a documentary by the British director Sophie Fiennes that runs at Film Forum in New York from Wednesday through Aug 23."
"The...
"The...
- 8/12/2011
- MUBI
Sophie Fiennes, whose new documentary has won critical acclaim, is among UK directors who struggle to get funding at home
Being chosen for the official programme of the Cannes film festival brings high-profile and glamorous exposure for a director, and Sophie Fiennes's documentary about the German artist Anselm Kiefer was widely admired on the Croisette when it premiered at the weekend.
Yet the British documentary maker could not raise a penny of her budget from the UK, and instead it was financed largely from France and the Netherlands.
Fiennes (sister of actors Ralph and Joseph and director Martha) received particular critical acclaim for her The Pervert's Guide to Cinema (2006), a collaboration with the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek. But "despite that we couldn't prise a single door open", she said.
She had approached the UK Film Council, Arts Council England and Tate Media as potential funders for And Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow.
Being chosen for the official programme of the Cannes film festival brings high-profile and glamorous exposure for a director, and Sophie Fiennes's documentary about the German artist Anselm Kiefer was widely admired on the Croisette when it premiered at the weekend.
Yet the British documentary maker could not raise a penny of her budget from the UK, and instead it was financed largely from France and the Netherlands.
Fiennes (sister of actors Ralph and Joseph and director Martha) received particular critical acclaim for her The Pervert's Guide to Cinema (2006), a collaboration with the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek. But "despite that we couldn't prise a single door open", she said.
She had approached the UK Film Council, Arts Council England and Tate Media as potential funders for And Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow.
- 5/18/2010
- by Charlotte Higgins
- The Guardian - Film News
'The Pervert's Guide to Cin ema" is a lot more thoughtful than the salacious title might indicate.
To be precise, it is a fun romp through the annals of cinema by pop Slovenian philosopher and prolific writer Slavoj Zizek, who finds deep psychological meaning in a slew of movies.
Hitchcock, Lynch, Chaplin, Kubrick, the Marx Brothers, even "The Wizard of Oz," among others, are fair game for Zizek's rambling psychoanalysis.
Director Sophie Fiennes (Ralph's sister) adds to the outrageousness by sticking Zizek in odd locations, including reconstructed sets of the movies he talks about.
To be precise, it is a fun romp through the annals of cinema by pop Slovenian philosopher and prolific writer Slavoj Zizek, who finds deep psychological meaning in a slew of movies.
Hitchcock, Lynch, Chaplin, Kubrick, the Marx Brothers, even "The Wizard of Oz," among others, are fair game for Zizek's rambling psychoanalysis.
Director Sophie Fiennes (Ralph's sister) adds to the outrageousness by sticking Zizek in odd locations, including reconstructed sets of the movies he talks about.
- 1/16/2009
- by By V.A. MUSETTO
- NYPost.com
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