Foucault Against Himself
Top Films of 2022
•
53m
Directed by Francois Caillat • Documentary • With Michel Foucault • 2014 • 52 minutes
From the history of madness, to sexuality and pleasure in classical antiquity, to the law and penal institutions, the breadth of Michel Foucault's thought was astonishing.
One of the leading intellectuals of the 20th century, Foucault bridged the roles of intellectual and activist, attaining the highest honours of the French academy while using his position to attack the very institutional power that gave him a platform.
Divided into four chapters, FOUCAULT AGAINST HIMSELF focuses on Foucault's critique of psychiatry, his work on the history of sexuality, the growth of his radicalism arising from his research into the French penal system, the nature of knowledge and underlying structures of human behavior, and his immersion in American counter-cultural movements - in particular the resistance to current social structures that he found among sexual minority communities in San Francisco.
FOUCAULT AGAINST HIMSELF captures the energy and fierce intellect of the man, introducing us to some of the key elements of his work, while also acknowledging - and even celebrating - its many contradictions.
Up Next in Top Films of 2022
-
Ruth Stone's Vast Library of the Fema...
Directed by Nora Jacobson • Documentary • 2022 • 77 minutes
After tragedy strikes, acclaimed poet Ruth Stone retreated to the margins of the literary world, working tirelessly to provide for her children, and transforming her intense grief into poetry, using simple, startling language.
Using a ...
-
David Holzman's Diary
Directed by Jim McBride • Drama • With Eileen Dietz, Kit Carson • 1967 • 73 minutes
David Holzman's Diary is one of the most influential films of the 1960s, an "ingenious puzzle movie" (Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader) that charts the self-destruction of a media-saturated youth. As news from the Viet...
-
The Lover
Directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud • Drama • With Tony Leung, Jane March, Melvil Poulpaud, Jeanne Moreau • 1992 • 112 minutes
Set in 1920s colonial Indochina, a pretty, virginal French teenager (Jane March) meets a handsome Chinese playboy (Tony Leung Ka Fai) from a respectable family. Going agains...
