Film Festival 09 - Examined Life
Examined Life
Canada 2008, 88m
Director: Astra Taylor
Festivals: Toronto 2008
Persuading eight of the world's most provocative philosophers to
express themselves in ten minutes flat, director Astra Taylor's
project is designed to revive academic discourse as a force capable
of influencing the way we actually live. "Ideas beam out from Astra
Taylor's engaging new philoso-doc Examined Life; the viewer basks
in the intelligence on-screen and, occasionally, soaks up the rays.
A purveyor of intellectual vaudeville, the thirty-ish Taylor has
mobilized a group of professional philosophers. Coaxed from their
classrooms to hold forth in the midst of life are Cornel West,
Avital Ronell, Peter Singer, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Martha Nussbaum,
Michael Hardt, Judith Butler, and& Slavoj Zizek, who typically
steals the show by staging his rant - a critique of 'ecology' - in
a garbage dump." - J. Hoberman, Village Voice. "The ideas
themselves are never fusty or hermetically sealed; Taylor's
organizing principle, a refreshingly intellectual one, is that
rigorous thinking brings us closer to a global awareness." - Joshua
Rothkopf, Time Out New York
