Style as Supplement - Supplement as Style: Words and Images of Derrida

The film Derrida by Amy Ziering Kofman & Kirby Dick (2003) has a memorable scene, showing Derrida watching Derrida watching Derrida. This regression, almost ad infinitum, would seem to have the specific purpose to hammer home the point to the viewer of the film that all communication is mediated, and to aim for an almost Brechtian Verfremdung-effect, but the film also uses this device as a stylistic trait to characterize something ‘essential' about Derrida and his style. Derrida strikes the same chord by insisting on drawing attention to the artificiality of the making of the film, where questions have to be repeated and answers interrupted when the light or the sound is not just right. He furthermore deconstructs the interview process by constantly referring to the impossibility of answering questions without specific contexts, frames and grounds. This makes it easy to characterize the film as a meta-documentary, or an always-already deconstructed communication mainly dealing with the act of communicating about philosophy, rather than communicating philosophical insight as such. Philosophy is thus shown to be communication, transmission, situated and framed speech acts - supplements and deferrals. This is of course another link in the infinite Derridean chain of supplements to supplements of supplements - in his writings, his persona and the legacy of images of him left behind in the archives. How does this perpetual deferral reflect itself in Derrida's visual and verbal style, or inversely how does his style always/already produce these supplements and deferrals?