“How wonderful that we have met with paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.”
-- Niels Bohr
Unlike my (piss-taking) academic-essay-type-title - followed by obligatory quote - human power relationships cannot be separated out with a simple (subordinating) semi-colon. That particular task takes an artist.
So, unless you relish the rictus-restricted prose of academics you’d best get reports, of power and control, from paintings, songs, novels, or (hell) even a bunch of leotard-clad ‘modern-dancers’….. than from some thin-aired theory-meister.
Good films (or good film-scenes in otherwise bad movies) are damn-close-to ectypal of the perpetually unfixed fact(s) of human nature. Films that toy mercilessly with conventional notions of power and its’ shifty asymmetry, are (at least to me) the most life-like. And,consequently, the most immersive.
Here’s a couple of favorite scenes, that more than fit the bill……………
True Romance, 1993
with Christopher Walken & Dennis Hopper
Written by Quentin Tarention
Directed by Tony Scott
Last Tango in Paris, 1972
Written and Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
