Examined Life

dir. Astrid Taylor
2008, 35mm, color, 88 min

Playing 16 December - 22 December
Wed. 16: 5:00, 6:35, 8:10, 9:45
Thur. 17: 4:00
Fri. 18: 3:30, 5:10
Sat. 19: 2:45, 6:00
Sun. 20: 1:00, 2:35, 5:45
Mon. 21: 3:30, 6:45
Tue. 22: 3:30, 6:45, 9:55

Examined Life pulls philosophy out of academic journals and classrooms, and puts it back on the streets as filmmaker Astra Taylor (Zizek!) accompanies some of today’s most influential thinkers on a series of unique excursions through places and spaces that hold particular resonance for them and their ideas.

Peter Singer’s thoughts on the ethics of consumption are amplified against the backdrop of Fifth Avenue’s posh boutiques. Sifting through a London garbage dump Slavoj Zizek turns the common view of ecology upside down. Michael Hardt ponders the nature of revolution while surrounded by symbols of wealth and leisure. Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor stroll through San Francisco’s Mission District questioning our culture’s fixation and individual- ism. And while driving through Manhattan, Cornel West—perhaps America’s best-known public intellectual—compares philosophy to jazz and blues, reminding us how intense and invigorating a life of the mind can be. Offering privileged moments with great thinkers from fields ranging from moral philos- ophy to cultural theory, Examined Life reveals philosophy’s power to trans- form the way we see the world around us and imagine our place in it.

Featuring Cornel West, Avital Ronell, Peter Singer, Kwarne Anthony Appiah, Martha Nussbaum, Michael Hardt, Slavoj Zizek, Judith Butler and Sunaura Taylor

http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/examinedlife