It is interesting--although in many ways not surprising--that in a documentary about Derrida, which is a form of biography of him, Derrida addresses the nature of biography both directly and indirectly in several different instances. One of the most interesting things for me was the scene in which Derrida talks about the up and down relationship he has had with the production of his own image.
Partly, as Derrida explains in the interview, his refusal to have his image published in any way was to resist buying into the cult of the author and automatically be viewed in such a way in which authors are typically represented--in such a case, various attributes could automatically be applied to him based on the stereotype of an author's photograph (at his desk writing or shown as a polished, serious head shot) which do not necessarily apply to Derrida and could take away from his scholarly work. However, Derrida also says that part of his refusal to be photographed was a certain "narcissistic horror" at the sight of his own face--partly, the feeling that there is death in one's own image.
As Derrida got older and his career advanced it seems that he realized the inevitability of living a public life (he was indeed becoming an academic celebrity and more importantly an activist, who is someone whose purpose requires publicly speaking out and being recognizable) without having one's picture taken and published. Eventually, he even allowed aspects of both his public and his private life to be filmed in the documentary with which we are all now familiar. However, in doing so, Derrida constantly made sure he called attention to the framing--the confining and manipulating of images--which necessarily occurs in the production of film or photographic images.
Derrida called attention to this framing in his resistance to answering interviewers' questions, to illustrate the framing which occurs in the interview process (he even comments on the editing process--that he can sit an talk for two hours but it will be boiled down to ten seconds for what the filmmakers want to use in the finished product. Derrida says that the film is as much autobiographical for the filmmakers as it was biographical of him). The film reinforced his point when it included shots of Derrida watching footage of himself on a monitor, and shots of Derrida watching footage of himself watching footage of himself.
The way that Derrida treats his view of the film--as being inevitably limited and as potentially saying much more about the filmmaker than himself, the subject of the film--is not necessarily negative. He sees these aspects of film as inevitable, as necessarily characteristics of the medium, yet he allows and participates in the making of the film. Derrida asserts that to ask forgiveness or demand apology makes true forgiveness impossible, but he still believes that reconciliation is a valuable thing--it is just not pure forgiveness. Here Derrida differentiates between the practical and the theoretical, and believes that both have a place and a purpose. Along similar lines, lays out the limitations of film and interviewing, but he does not stop the film making or consider film inherently bad. Instead, he points out multiple sides to each issue and makes them apparent without clear value judgment. This seems to be an important aspect of post-structuralism (and point to the influence of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil). Thinking in terms beyond/outside of strict binaries value judgments is characteristic of a theory whose purpose is to expose the illusion of overarching truths and reveal multiplicity of meaning.
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I like that you point out the Nietzschean idea of looking past strict binary differences. I think Derrida maintained a certain degree of consciousness to this fact whenever he had to consider issues that are typically resolved with a black and white distinction.
The "Very American" segment comes to mind in making this consideration. Derrida remarked that the particular manner of questioning that his interviewer employed was "very American." He also elaborated (!) on the nature of the American university and how it differs from the French mode. Basically, the French are pedantic in the extreme. Argument with a professor? Not in a million years. Here in America we want answers and we want them now. We even go so far as to demand them from each other. The interesting bit, as far as it remains germane to this conversation, is that Derrida distinguished between an "abusive" connotation and a more ambiguous manner to what he was saying. I almost feel like he recognized both the value and the deficit in both systems/methods. But, more importantly, he understands that both systems exist in a state of differance [what has an 'a' in] from each other. He almost pulls back from the issue of French pedantry vs. American brassity and sees how they are related, similar, but above all different.
I found it so interesting to think of recording in such a different way. I think that it is important to really think about this concept of recording and what that does to our meaning of an event or our meaning to of our emotions-how they are seen in the future when one is close to death (or the event is dead and cannot be relived). When thinking in way i can really see where Derrida is coming from (although not really because he is Derrida). A picture is a picture and that picture does not hold a truth or really a center.
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