From comments made by his friends and family in the documentary Last Performance, Cammell's views on suicide appear to be rather similar to some of those aired by Michel Foucault who says: 'Let us speak in favour of suicide... It appears that life is fragile and death is certain. Why must we make of this certainty a mere chance which in its sudden and inevitable character takes on the air of a punishment?'

Michel Foucault (1996) The simplest of pleasures' in Foucault Live (Interviews, 1961-1984), New York: Semiotext(e), pp.295-6. Translation modified. French original 1979.

Erotic arts

Foucault has this to say about the practice of Ancient Chinese erotic arts comparing them with the treatment of the same preoccuptions in Ancient Greece:

'For example, the documents assembled by Van Gulik, pertaining to ancient Chinese culture, seem to show the presence of this same thematic complex: fear of the irrepressible and costly act, dread of its harmful consequences for the body and health, representation of the man-woman relationship in the form of a contest, preoccupation with obtaining descendants of good quality by means of a well regulated sexual activity. But the ancient Chinese 'bedroom' treatises responded to that anxiety in a manner completely different from what one finds in classical Greece. The dread one felt when faced with the violence of the act and the fear of losing one's semen were answered by methods of willful retention; the encounter with the other sex was perceived as a way to come into contact with the vital principle the latter held in her possession and, by absorbing it, to internalize it for one's own benefit. So that a well-managed sexual activity not only precluded any danger, it could also result in a strengthening of one's existence and it could be a means of restoring one's youthfulness. Elaboration and exercise in this case concerned the act itself, its unfolding, the play of forces that sustained it, and of course the pleasure with which it was associated; the nullification or indefinite postponement of its completion enabled one both to carry it to its highest degree in the realm of pleasure and to turn it to one's greatest advantage in life. In this 'erotic art,' which sought, with pronounced ethical concerns, to intensify insofar as possible the positive effects of a controlled, deliberate, multifarious, and prolonged sexual activity, time - a time that terminated the act, aged the body, and brought death was exorcised.'

Michel Foucault (1992) The Use of Pleasure. The History of Sexuality vol 2. Trans. Robert Hurley. Harmondsworth: Penguin, p.137. French original 1984.

Sex and Power

Foucault offers the following observations on the way sex and power are intertwined in modern Western society.

'Nineteenth-century 'bourgeois' society-and it is doubtless still with us-was a society of blatant and fragmented perversion. And this was not by way of hypocrisy, for nothing was more manifest and more prolix, or more manifestly taken over by discourses and institutions. Not because, having tried to erect too rigid or too general a barrier against sexuality, society succeeded only in giving rise to a whole perverse outbreak and a long pathology of the sexual instinct. At issue, rather, is the type of power it brought to bear on the body and on sex. In point of fact, this power had neither the form of the law, nor the effects of the taboo. On the contrary, it acted by multiplication of singular sexualities. It did not set boundaries for sexuality; it extended the various forms of sexuality, pursuing them according to lines of indefinite penetration. It did not exclude sexuality, but included -it in the body as a mode of specification of individuals. It did not seek to avoid it; it attracted its varieties by means of spirals in which pleasure and power reinforced one another. It did not set up a barrier; it provided places of maximum saturation. It produced and determined the sexual mosaic. Modern society is perverse, not in spite of its puritanism or as if from a backlash provoked by its hypocrisy; it is in actual fact, and directly, perverse.'

Michel Foucault (1990) The History of Sexuality vol 1. An introduction. Trans. Robert Hurley. Harmondsworth: Penguin, p.47. French original 1976.

Representational vs presentational acting

There appear to be a number of conflicting definitions concerning the differences between 'representational' and 'presentational' acting. To simplify matters, I have adopted some of the general definitions of representation that apply in art and philosophy. See here for comments on 'representational' vs 'presentational' acting. See also this article and this summary of terms.

Power and violence

The essential differences in the way Bruno and Tony relate to Alex can be seen even more clearly if we apply these definitions by Foucault on the differences between a relationship of power and a relationship of violence.

'In effect, what defines a relationship of power is that it is a mode of action that does not act directly and immediately on others. Instead, it acts upon their actions: an action upon an action, on possible or actual future or present actions. A relationship of violence acts upon a body or upon thing; it forces, it bends, it breaks, it destroys, or it closes off all possibilities. Its opposite pole can only be passivity, and if it comes up against any resistance it has no other option but to try to break it down power relationship, on the other hand, can only be articulated the basis of two elements that are indispensable if it is really to a power relationship: that "the other" (the one over whom power is exercised) is recognized and maintained to the very end as subject who acts; and that, faced with a relationship of power, a whole field of responses, reactions, results, and possible inventions may open up.

Obviously the establishing of power relations does not exclude the use of violence any more than it does the obtaining of consent; no doubt, the exercise of power can never do without one or the other, often both at the same time. But even though consent and violence are instruments or results, they do not constitute the principle or basic nature of power. The exercise of power can produce as much acceptance as may be wished for: it can pile up the dead shelter itself behind whatever threats it can imagine. In itself, the exercise of power is not a violence that sometimes hides, or an implicitly renewed consent. It operates on the field of possibilities in which the behavior of active subjects is able to inscribe itself, It set of actions on possible actions; it incites, it induces, it seduces it makes easier or more difficult; it releases or contrives, makes more probable or less; in the extreme, it constrains or forbids absolutely, but it is always a way of acting upon one or more or subjects by virtue of their acting or being capable of action. A set of actions upon other actions.'

Michel Foucault (2000) 'The subject and power' in Power. Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1954-1984. Vol three. Edited by James Faubion. Translated by Robert Hurley et al. New York: The New Press, p. 340-1. Original article published 1982.

The Nazi aesthetic and the eroticization of power

In an interview on films that deal with the French experience of World War II, Foucault comments on the use of the Nazi aesthetic in pornography.

'So there's a fairly elementary antithesis between power and love...

Power has an erotic charge. There's an historical problem involved here. How is it that Nazism-which was represented by shabby, pathetic puritanical characters laughably Victorian old maids, or at best, smutty individuals-how has it now managed to become, in France, in Germany, in the United States, in all pornographic literature throughout the world, the ultimate symbol of eroticism? Every shoddy erotic fantasy is now attributed to Nazism. Which raises a fundamentally serious problem: how do you love power? Nobody loves power any more. This kind of affective, erotic attachment, this desire one has for power, for power that's exercised over you, doesn't exist any more. The monarchy and its rituals were created to stimulate this sort of erotic relationship towards power. The massive Stalinist apparatus, and even that of Hitler, were constructed for the same purpose. But it's all collapsed in ruins and obviously you can't be in love with Brezhnev, Pompidou or Nixon. In a pinch you might love de Gaulle, Kennedy or Churchill. But what's going on at the moment? Aren't we witnessing beginnings of a re-eroticization of power, taken to a pathetic, ridiculous extreme by the porn-shops with Nazi insignia that you can find in the United States and (a much more acceptable but just as ridiculous version) in the behavior of Giscard d'Estaing when he says, "I'm going to march down the streets in a lounge suit, shaking hands with ordinary people and kids on half-day holidays"? It's a fact that Giscard has built part of his campaign not only on his fine physical bearing but also on a certain eroticizing of his character, his stylishness.'

Michel Foucault (1996) 'Film and Popular Memory' in Foucault Live (Interviews, 1961-1984), New York: Semiotext(e), p. 127. French original 1974.

What men imagine women think of them

This says it all in relation to Bruno's treatment of Tony in front of Alex.

'Women have always been seen by [heterosexual men] as their exclusive property... Heterosexual men felt that if they practiced homosexuality with other men this would destroy what they think is their image in the eyes of their women. They think of themselves as existing in the minds of women as master. They think that the idea of their submitting to another man, of being under another man in the act of love, would destroy their image in the eyes of women. Men think that women can only experience pleasure in recognizing men as masters.'

Michel Foucault, 'Sexual choice, sexual act', in Foucault Live (Interviews, 1961-1984), New York: Semiotext(e), p. 331. French original 1982.