I guess there’s really not much connection between Collateral (Michael Mann 2004) and Derrida (Kirby Dick & Amy Ziering Kofman 2002) except that I saw them both today. They’re not even both films exactly since the latter appears to have been shot mostly if not completely on video.
But as a point I wouldn’t have even considered if they had been seen a few days apart is the revelation or not of personal lives. In Collateral people dig at others’ backgrounds and which then gets trotted out; in Derrida, Mr. Jackie (as his family seems to refer to him) point-blank refuses to discuss some details about meeting his wife. Since he does actually tell what happened (or at least allows his wife to do so) it’s unclear exactly what he’s withholding. Emotional details? Some meet-cute at odds with his philosopher image? It would be easy to make this an American vs. European distinction but of course the sample rate is far far too low for that. (And obviously in Collateral much of this is simple narrative expediency but still I’ve known dozens of people--ranging from some of my grandparents to my store’s former shipping manager--who would have done exactly this. It’s still unclear how much of what Cruise’s character says is true.)
Another pointless connection: Race is an issue in Derrida but is pretty much just decoration in Collateral.
Separately:
Collateral yes: the sense of a real city that you usually don’t get in Hollywood films (I was reminded more of bits of Ghost Dog and super-low-budget films that had to be filmed on the streets or not at all), the nearly abstract cars and lights (back from Thief?), a noir that’s not locked in by being a “noir”, the dialogue and plot structure (glad to see that writer Stuart Beattie is working on the adaptation of 30 Days of Night), the nightclub shootout, top-notch music selections, the acting.
Still, too bad the ending didn’t have the punch of the rest (& I’m so glad they didn’t tack on a “surprise” extra ending like, say, Die Hard).
I’m not sure why I originally even bothered with Derrida. It’s been almost 20 years since I’ve read any of his work (other than bits and pieces on books, most notably in Acts of Literature) and a movie seems hardly appropriate to explore his writing. As it turns out, Derrida is not really an introduction to him but a smart and sharp look both at the nature of documentary and at the process of thinking. Yeah, that sounds way too abstract but the film gets into the concrete details and generally avoids the pretentious (deliberately, as evidenced by the weaker, more manipulative deleted scenes on the DVD). The result is a documentary that doesn’t feel exhausted by one viewing.