The Difficulties of Speech

The documentary Derrida's attempt to engage Derrida in an interview is ironic and entertaining to say the least. The philosopher has written many books and essays explaining deconstruction, and he makes it very obvious that he disagrees with the entire interview process. Why?

Thinking back to Saussure and his theory, he states in Course in General Linguistics that linguistics exist in two forms: speech and writing, and the latter’s only purpose is to assist the first. Saussure’s structuralist idea troubles Derrida. In Of Grammatology, he argues that the written word is of equal, if not more importance to language.

So, during the interview process, is it possible that Derrida is bothered by explaining his thoughts out loud, as if it will reach an audience more effectively than if he wrote them down?

He states in the documentary Derrida multiple times that the documentary and interview process is not natural, and even goes so far to mention that if the film crew was not there he would not have changed out of his pajamas all day. He has trouble answering personal questions, perhaps because he would rather his work be taken in without the idea of the individual “Derrida” interfering. Derrida makes it clear that he would rather speak about his ideas concerning death, loss, mourning, etc. instead of focusing on his personal life as a philosopher. Whatever Jacques Derrida decided to answer in the documentary, the very notion of Derrida opposing the interview process will assist me and many others in following readings concerning deconstructionism.