This is not a statement, just a quick reflection, late at night from Stockwell, South London. The guy in the flat below me is playing a very insistent trance music track and the soft but predictable bass is seeping through the floorboards like the smell of cooking. Perhaps this is his revenge for all the late nights he had to suffer at my hands, hearing the recorded voice of Slavoj Zizek (left), like a Balkan Zeus, booming away from above about "Libido!" - and unintelligible vibrations through the walls with apparently random phrases cutting off, then repeating, as if out of nowhere: "y, yu, yuu,..you are not Phallus! you merely possess Phallus!" I don't know if my neighbor knows we make films here on the top floor; everyone else in the building has a day job.
 
I am trying to trace the seeds of The Pervert's Guide To Cinema from a personal point of view. It has something to do with a combination of my lack of any formal academic education (something that I both regret and enjoy) and the utter thrill I find in Zizek's approach to thinking (here I am not alone). This is also undeniably a documentary about cinema; about reading moving images, about the art of watching films, which is probably a prerequisite to making them.

Making this film has also been one fantastic excuse to go into the psychoanalytic labyrinth, and I don¹t want to leave! It is completely altering my understanding of the world and I am still reading. (At present Lacan, The Silent Partners, a brilliant collection of essays).

I want to add that my great friend and collaborator on the Guide, the writer Katie Kitamura and I practically had double hernia¹s during the shooting, Slavoj made us laugh like proper idiots. When the UK TV commissioner watched some early footage, she first exclaimed "My God! he's SO funny!" then about 5 minutes later, "but, my God! he's REALLY serious isn't he!". I liked the ability of the material to shift beneath you. Through her response I recognized some potential for the tone of the film, aspects of Part 2 in particular are very unnerving.

One of the great pleasures in the film making process are unexpected encounters that leave their mark on how a film gets shaped. I met a woman in her 90's who was obsessed with Charlie Chaplin, just bonkers and passionate about him. So I cut the last scene of Part 3 with her in mind, as the ultimate audience for this ending. For Sylvia.

Please visit our site for The Pervert's Guide for more information.