The Camera's Lens, Self-Lovin', and Taking Apart a Baby's Heart

Jacques Derrida was a post-structuralist who believed in a decentered universe. He asserted that there was no center or “norm” to how things work. The documentary Derrida allegedly captures the spirit of Derrida in his true light; however, as he points out himself, it cannot be purely authentic to his behavior in the documentary. He knows he is being filmed and alters his way of living in ways that he realizes (by wearing clothes rather than his normal pajamas and bath robe) and in ways he couldn’t even recognize.
In the beginning of the film, Derrida goes through the simple process of putting on his jacket and walking out the door. While this seemingly every day, mundane act appears normal onscreen, Derrida looks at the camera, laughs, and apologizes for not saying hello. He then says, “It’s a bit difficult…” Before exiting, Derrida stops in the doorway to explain to the directors the process in which he is about to proceed to get his hair cut. This is clearly not a matter in which he does every time he wants a haircut, further proof that the “truth” is no longer apparent the moment the cameras came into his life.
The filmmakers, not Derrida, are responsible for the “center” or “norm” which now exists for Derrida. Regardless of the fact if Derrida is meant to stop and explain his every movement or action to the camera, the directors left the footage in the film on purpose. The filmmakers are proving there is no legitimate structure or center to the way things work. The directors do not simply tell Derrida to act as though they do not exist and go about life in that manner; their known presence is intentional.
They probe Derrida with questions which they know will be difficult and of interest to Derrida and the future audience. When one director asks him about his thoughts on love, Derrida is apprehensive to respond. In an intellectual setting, which is where he sits in that moment in the film, this question appears normal. It is doubtful that this question is asked of him every day after his morning coffee. They also strive to ask him deliberate questions about matters they know will spawn interesting thoughts. Derrida and crew are standing in a museum when the director asks Derrida what he thinks of the oiled painting of himself hanging above. He responds that it makes him “very anxious.” It is unlikely (but supposedly probable) that Derrida would on any given day head over to a museum to look at pictures of himself. The filmmakers, however, are interested in this response to his own image.

The filmmakers are going into Derrida’s life to disrupt his everyday routine in order to make a good film. They unhinge his normal activities by making simple processes more complicated, and siege him with questions they know will draw interest. The directors are not necessarily looking for a Derrida living through the mundane acts of his life, but for a candid, in-the-moment perspective of an intellectual whose thoughts and beliefs may be portrayed expressively in a documentary-type film. While this tactic provides Derrida’s “true” perspective, the center is lost in his typical day-to-day moments, and the “true” Derrida does not actually exist.
The lyric “I’m in love with a Jacques Derrida/Read a page and know what I need to/Take apart my baby’s heart” corresponds to Derrida’s thoughts on love between the “I” and the “Other.” While the “I” represents the way in which a person views himself, the “Other” refers to the outsider’s perspective. Derrida believes in a highly narcissistic purpose behind love; meaning the individual loves the aspects of another person which they can attribute to themselves directly. Scritti Politti singing “I’m in love with a Jacques Derrida” may symbolize a person loving another who shares Derrida’s view on love. This person knows what they “need to take apart my baby’s heart” because they know what it is about themselves that person loves. If you take away those characteristics, or alter them in some way, it emphasizes the death of love; or highlights the difference between an individual loving a person or the individual loving something about that person. When you know something about how your partner loves, you retain a lot of power over that person.

This is also tied to Derrida’s explanation of the word “love.” He theorizes love as a philosophical concept that he cannot begin to talk about. When the film maker asks him to “say something about love,” Derrida shrugs and explains that he has nothing to say. Love is the origin of philosophy. To speak about love, is to speak about the origin of philosophy. Derrida explains how the genesis of love is consistently “caught” between the “who” and “what.” Do we love someone for WHO this person is? (Their specificity/their “oneness”) Or do we love this person for WHAT they are. (How they view you as their lover? Their mannerisms….etc.) This, according to Derrida, is problematic. To love someone for “who they are,” is to call into question two things. One is the Cartesian idea of the “self.” [Cogito, Ergo, Sum] The self is fragmented. It is not whole. And the second is to the concept of “being.” What does it mean to be? How are we possibly able to use these unstable groundings as the reason/cause for “love?” Derrida believes that love is reflexive. Reflexive love is merely the appropriation of the other as the self. This is due to the fact, that love is narcissistic. You only love someone, for how they love you. He speaks about the “movements of the heart,” which, in turn, are nothing more than the qualities of the person you “love.” This unfortunately leads to what Derrida calls the “death of love.” This is the deconstructing process surrounding the elements of said emotion. When asked to “say something about love,” Derrida simply did the very thing that he does best. He deconstructed it.