EXAMINED LIFE (STF PASS HOLDERS SCREENING)

image from EXAMINED LIFE (STF PASS HOLDERS SCREENING)

Q&A with director Astra Taylor


A MONDAY NIGHT SPECIAL SCREENING FOR STF PASS HOLDERS ONLY

From the Toronto International Film Festival catalogue:

A consistently invigorating exploration of the driving forces behind contemporary philosophy, Astra Taylor’s Examined Life speaks to philosophers about their work and how it relates to modern existence. (The title, of course, invokes Socrates’s statement that the unexamined life is not worth living.) Taylor, whose Žižek! played the Festival in 2005, has compiled a virtual who’s who of contemporary thought. Her guest list includes Cornel West, Avital Ronell, Peter Singer, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Martha Nussbaum, Michael Hardt, Slavoj Žižek, Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor. Each is given ten minutes of screen time to enlighten us.

Eschewing the tired talking-heads technique, Taylor drops these thinkers in the midst of modern, urban settings that reflect or offer a counterpoint to their meditations. One of her principal objectives was to take philosophy out of the classroom and into the street, as per Nietzsche’s edict that the only ideas of any real value are those born during walks.

Singer, best known for his work Animal Liberation, discusses our addiction to consumption while walking along Fifth Avenue. Strolling leisurely through Tompkins Square Park, Ronell – a close associate of Jacques Derrida – rails against our need to ascribe meaning to everything (and the fact that she’s only being given ten minutes to talk), arguing that philosophy isn’t necessarily a search for meaning. In characteristic, effusive fashion, renegade writer Žižek rummages through a garbage dump, taking aim at current pieties about the environment. “Really, we should love garbage,” he explains. Bouncing around in the back of a cab, West inveighs against certainty and dogma, espousing the importance of jazz and the blues. His ideas come at you with such force and energy that it feels like the taxi, and the frame, can barely contain him.

What emerges as these thinkers expound on both the issues of the day and seminal dilemmas within the history of philosophy is a desire to take nothing at face value, to question every assumption. One of the most intellectually stimulating films of the year, Examined Life truly feeds your head.

(Steve Gravestock)

Astra Taylor
was born in Winnipeg and received a master’s degree in liberal studies from The New School in New York City. She has served as an instructor in the sociology departments at the University of Georgia and the State University of New York at New Paltz. Her writing has appeared in numerous journals, as well as in Adbusters, Salon and The Nation. Her documentaries include The Miracle Tree (01), Žižek! (05) and Examined Life (08).

Director: Astra Taylor
Running time: 87 min
Release date: 2008
Screened: FALL 2008 October 27, 2008 8:00 pm





Tell a friend about this film






Please enter the word you see in the image below:



Upcoming Screenings

Sep 20: THE HOUSE OF STEINBRENNER

image from THE HOUSE OF STEINBRENNER by Barbara Kopple
STF pre-season MONDAY SPECIAL (Season passes now on sale at early bird rate through Thurs. Sept. 16; Individual tickets go on sale Fri. Sept. 17, subject to availability) Love them or hate them, ...
Get More info or Buy Tickets »

Sep 28: MARWENCOL

image from MARWENCOL by Jeff Malmberg
STF Fall Season Opening Night (Season passes now on sale at early bird rate through Thurs. Sept. 16; Individual tickets go on sale later in Sept.) STF kicks off its fall season with MARWENCOL, ...
Get More info or Buy Tickets »

Oct 5: AMERICAN SPLENDOR

image from AMERICAN SPLENDOR by Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini
(Season passes now on sale at early bird rate through Thurs. Sept. 16; Individual tickets go on sale later in Sept.) STF pays tribute to Harvey Pekar, who recently died, with this special screening ...
Get More info or Buy Tickets »

Oct 12: ON COAL RIVER

image from ON COAL RIVER by Francine Cavanaugh & Adams Wood
ON COAL RIVER takes viewers on a gripping emotional journey into the Coal River Valley of West Virginia, where longtime local residents begin to uncover the toxic effects of America’s increased ...
Get More info or Buy Tickets »

Oct 19: THE CANAL STREET MADAM

image from THE CANAL STREET MADAM by Cameron Yates
Until an FBI bust upended her life, Jeanette Maier was a successful New Orleans madam. Her discreet clientele included a number of powerful, high-ranking politicians. The ensuing very public trial - ...
Get More info or Buy Tickets »

Oct 26: TAKING ON THE KENNEDYS

image from TAKING ON THE KENNEDYS by Joshua Seftel
“A film that would be mistaken for a Robert Altman political satire if it weren’t absolutely and horribly true.” —USA TODAY When Kevin Vigilante took on Patrick Kennedy for a seat in the U.S. House ...
Get More info or Buy Tickets »

Nov 2: WO AI NI MOMMY (I LOVE YOU MOMMY)

image from WO AI NI MOMMY (I LOVE YOU MOMMY) by Stephanie Wang-Breal
In presenting WO AI NI MOMMY with the Sterling Award for Best US Feature this past June, the jury at Silverdocs noted: “The film dives so deeply into its story that the filmmaker’s hands disappear. ...
Get More info or Buy Tickets »

Nov 9: WAR DON DON

image from WAR DON DON by Rebecca Richman Cohen
Profiled in Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces in Independent Film as an “up-and-comer poised to shape the next generation of independent film”, Rebecca Richman Cohen won Special Jury at SXSW and the ...
Get More info or Buy Tickets »

Nov 16: 12TH & DELAWARE

image from 12TH & DELAWARE by Heidi Ewing & Rachel Grady
Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, the filmmaking team behind the 2006 Oscar-nominated doc JESUS CAMP, take us on another controversial journey with 12TH & DELAWARE.  Description from Sundance 2010 ...
Get More info or Buy Tickets »

Nov 23: MARLENE

image from MARLENE by Maximilian Schell
Director Maximilian Schell got the reclusive Marlene Dietrich to agree to appear in this documentary only on the stipulation that she not be photographed as she looked today. Instead, we only hear ...
Get More info or Buy Tickets »

Nov 30: SURVIVING HITLER: A LOVE STORY

image from SURVIVING HITLER: A LOVE STORY by John-Keith Wasson
Winner of the Inspiration Award at the 2010 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival As a teenager in Nazi Germany, Jutta is shocked to discover she is Jewish. She joins the German resistance and meets ...
Get More info or Buy Tickets »