Inspired by Michel Foucault's examination of state subjugation and control, this book considers post-structuralist notions of the 'political technology of the body' and 'the spectacle of the scaffold' as a means to analyse cinematic representations of politically-motivated persecution and bodily repression. Through a critique of sovereign power and its application of punishment 'for transgressions against the state', the collected works, herein, assess the polticised-body via a range of cinematic perspectives. Imagery, character construction and narrative devices are examined in their account of hegemonic-sanctioned torture and suppression as a means to a political outcome. Screening The Tortured Body: The Cinema as Scaffoldelicits philosophical and cultural accounts of the 'restrained' body to deliberate on a range of politicised films and filmmakers whose narratives and mise-en-scène techniques critique corporeal subjugation by authoritarian factions.

Autorentext
Mark de Valk is the Programme Leader and a Senior Lecturer in Film Production at The University of Winchester. His personal filmmaking includes working with essay film practices and experimental techniques across documentary and drama forms.

Inhalt
SECTION I STATE EVISCERATION/TORTURED FLESH.- 1. Tortured Spectators: Massacred and Mucosal Patricia MacCormack.- 2. Torture Porn: The American Sadistic Disposition in the Post 9/11 Horror Genre  Aaron Kerner.- 3. DisciplineBut Punish!: Foucault, Agamben and Torture Porn's Thanatopolitical Scaffold Xavier Aldana Reyes.- 4. The Expectational Body: The Becoming of the Tortured Vampire Horde in Daybreakers Simon Bacon.- 5. An Apology for French Torturers: L'Ennemi intime Nicole Beth Wallenbrock.- SECTION II THE SUBJUGATED BODY-POLITIC AS SPECTACLE.- 6. The Ideological Purpose of Torture: Artur London's Nightmare of Reality in L'aveu/The Confession (Costa-Gavras, 1970) Susan Hayward.- 7. Mr. Stone Goes To Washington: JFK 2.4 Mark de Valk.- 8. Giorgio Agamben Meets the Wachowskis: The State of Exception in V for Vendetta (James McTeigue, 2006) Melissa M. Jacques.- 9. Modes of Silence and Resistance: Chilean Documentary and Gender Torture Lisa DiGiovani.- SECTION III FRAMING SPECTATOR RECEPTION OF STATE RETRIBUTION.- 10. Torture Documentaries and Taxi To The Dark Side (Alex Gibney, 2007) Julia Lesage.- 11. Zero Dark Thirty: A Filmmaker's Notion Larra Anderson.- 12. Hypermediacy, Embodiment and Spectatorship in Brian De Palma's Redacted Calvin Fagan.- 13. Enemy of the State: Framing the Political Assassin Shane O'Sullivan.- 14. She's a Killer: The Image of the Women of Zero Dark Thirty.Dorothea Olkowski