In her second feature length documentary Examined Life, which opens today at IFC Center, Canadian born, Georgia bred documentarian Astra Taylor whips around the Tri-State area and beyond with eight of the planet’s most renown contemporary philosophers and probes their ever active brains for answers to questions large and small, elemental and abstract. Engaging a diverse and eclectic group of lauded philosophers and/or public intellectuals to step away from the Ivory Tower and into airports and lakesides, Tompkins Square Park and quaint row boats, Taylor’s subjects include Martha Nussbaum, Avital Rennel, Peter Singer, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Judith Butle ...
- 2/25/2009
- by Brandon Harris
- Spout
To say that the films of 29-year-old documentarian Astra Taylor are thought-provoking is not such a lofty compliment; it's literally the goal she has in marrying cinema with philosophy. 2005's "Žižek!" trailed Slovenian psychoanalyst, philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Žižek around the world as he expounded on ideology and made eccentric observations on love, revolution and his own self-critique. Taylor's latest feature, "Examined Life," is no less absorbing, an intelligent yet accessible anthology of ideas that sees eight highly influential thinkers of our time (including Avital Ronell, Peter Singer, Michael Hardt -- and yes, the wild and wooly Žižek) pontificating while taking walks through modern culture. Kwame Anthony Appiah talks cosmopolitanism from inside an airport, Žižek dissects ecology while digging through a garbage facility and Cornel West compares philosophy to jazz and blues while being driven around the streets of Manhattan by the director herself. When Taylor and I met up over coffee in Williamsburg,...
- 2/19/2009
- by Aaron Hillis
- ifc.com
By Aaron Hillis
To say that the films of 29-year-old documentarian Astra Taylor are thought-provoking is not such a lofty compliment; it's literally the goal she has in marrying cinema with philosophy. 2005's "Žižek!" trailed Slovenian psychoanalyst, philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Žižek around the world as he expounded on ideology and made eccentric observations on love, revolution and his own self-critique. Taylor's latest feature, "Examined Life," is no less absorbing, an intelligent yet accessible anthology of ideas that sees eight highly influential thinkers of our time (including Avital Ronell, Peter Singer, Michael Hardt -- and yes, the wild and wooly Žižek) pontificating while taking walks through modern culture. Kwame Anthony Appiah talks cosmopolitanism from inside an airport, Žižek dissects ecology while digging through a garbage facility and Cornel West compares philosophy to jazz and blues while being driven around the streets of Manhattan by the director herself. When Taylor...
To say that the films of 29-year-old documentarian Astra Taylor are thought-provoking is not such a lofty compliment; it's literally the goal she has in marrying cinema with philosophy. 2005's "Žižek!" trailed Slovenian psychoanalyst, philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Žižek around the world as he expounded on ideology and made eccentric observations on love, revolution and his own self-critique. Taylor's latest feature, "Examined Life," is no less absorbing, an intelligent yet accessible anthology of ideas that sees eight highly influential thinkers of our time (including Avital Ronell, Peter Singer, Michael Hardt -- and yes, the wild and wooly Žižek) pontificating while taking walks through modern culture. Kwame Anthony Appiah talks cosmopolitanism from inside an airport, Žižek dissects ecology while digging through a garbage facility and Cornel West compares philosophy to jazz and blues while being driven around the streets of Manhattan by the director herself. When Taylor...
- 2/18/2009
- by Aaron Hillis
- ifc.com
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