Introduction

Abstract

Screening the Tortured Body: The Cinema as Scaffold is a collection of essays examining a range of cinematic texts inspired by Michel Foucault’s deliberation on state subjugation, control and punishment of the subject. In assessing the role of the sovereign on the screen, these theses consider post-structuralist notions pertaining to the ‘political technology of the body’ and ‘the spectacle of the scaffold’ as a means to analyse cinematic representations of politically motivated persecution, state bodily repression and the topographies/spaces where they are meted out. State practices of authoritarian subjugation are historically accounted for by Foucault and the study of their ‘depiction’ (on-screen) is apropos to be examined per current-day sovereign repressive measures employeed to control and punish the ‘polticised’ individual who commits ‘transgressions against the state.’