Enemy of the State

French theorist Michel Foucault in his writing Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison looks at the development and structure of the penal system and how, through power and surveillance, the actions of the masses can be altered.[1] Foucault’s theories can be applied in an attempt to better understand several aspects of the film, from the film’s original inspiration to its success or failure at the box office. For example the 1998 Will Smith movie Enemy of the State is a perfect case to compare and contrast with the writing in Discipline and Punish.[2] In particular, the use of surveillance in the film in comparison to Foucault’s opinion that surveillance is increasingly rationalised as it extends into more areas of society, helps to define the new generation of technologically innovative individuals and the growing fear surrounding technology.

The opening credits of Enemy of the State are littered with CCTV footage and aerial surveillance clips, creating the immediate impression of intrusion and being watched from all angles at all times. The action starts when an old friend of lawyer Will Smith secretly gives him a video implicating an NSA official of killing a freedom-loving congressman. Soon Smith finds his house bugged, his bank accounts frozen, and his life upended. Meanwhile, he’s covered in GPS tracking devices (not just the obvious places like his phone and his car but also his watch, his pen and even his shoes are compromised), which allow the NSA’s hackers (played by, among others, Seth Green and Jack Black, who provide comedic relief in an otherwise serious film) to follow him via satellite imagery, helicopter pursuit, wire frames of the buildings he enters, and the occasional camera hidden in a jacket button. He finally finds a friend in Gene Hackman, playing a rogue surveillance expert — a character modelled after his earlier role in The Conversation. And throughout, the viewer is given small amounts of information about a ‘privacy bill’ that is being passed in the film (a bill that is in fact looking to decrease privacy in an attempt to ‘protect’) which is not unlike several bills and legislations that have been brought before the government in recent years. 

The film explores several of society’s biggest fears: highly efficient and organised crime orchestrated by the government, GPS tracking individuals, hackers and phone tapping. ‘While some people may have read social science or philosophical work on surveillance, a much larger audience will have seen a surveillance movie.’[3] These films are a way of audiences to see their potential future. And it seems, in this particular film, that the only solution to the afore-mentioned problems is to be a witty, street smart lawyer with an abundance of luck. But in order to analyse the film, it is important to first understand Foucault and his theories within Discipline and Punish.

Foucault deliberates surveillance in relation to Bentham’s Panopticon which details how individuals begin to monitor themselves when they believe they are being watched. The Panopticon is an architectural model comprised of a large central tower in the middle of a prison. Although, prisoners cannot see in, and therefore cannot confirm they are being watched, they assume they are and behave as if they were. Hence, much of the power of this model lies in the fact that prisoners do not know when they are being watched and thus ‘must regulate themselves.’[4] Foucault sees this individually sustained and produced mode of surveillance ‘resonating across various modern institutions.’[5] 

Power is key to Foucault’s work in Discipline and Punish, especially its relationship with people and how that can be changed and affected by people’s actions. Foucault believed that power was unlike the forces that affect the human body, instead it involves the control and adjustment of someone’s will. This in itself, is far more dangerous than the control of the body through violence or punishment as it makes the individual conform by their own (reshaped) will. Foucault suggests that power, as it is present throughout society in each and every relationship, is unstable and unpredictable. And because of this, the state does not have ultimate authority, although there is an element of control when we look at our institutions, like schools, hospitals and prisons.

Educators and doctors are among the professions that have an unchartered amount of control over society without the associated threat that the government has. After government infiltration of these institutions, society can easily find itself under the power of the state. Society begins to feel watched and monitored by these organisations and as a result ‘we watch ourselves because we know that we are being watched by these regulating presences.’[6] This, the introduction of ‘judges of normality’, is the biggest way of state claiming power in today’s society other than the penal system.[7]

In Enemy of the State, the control of the government officials is exaggerated to best exploit social fears of dictatorship. Smith’s character’s life is overturned and destroyed by a government agency in an attempt to cover the crime at the beginning of the film. The entire story surrounds the idea of government involvement in everyday life and how it can be used as a destructive force. One of the most effective moments in the film is at the very beginning where the viewer is shown a montage of CCTV footage. In relation to Foucault, whose work is best known for its analysis of discourse, this is an entirely visual display of the same principles in an entirely new and unexpected way. ‘As cinema is principally a visual medium, it is perhaps understandable that his work is not, at first glance, the most likely toolkit with which to analyse representations on screen.’[8]

During the film, the dominant power force shifts between the good guys and the bad guys but, as per the Hollywood formula, the good trumps evil. Foucault would debate the transfer and allocation of power and how it has become a currency in society. Used and traded in an attempt to gain more. Foucault’s theories help to emphasise one of the film’s subplots. The underlying story of the ‘privacy bill’ set to change the society. No longer would privacy be accepted as a basic human right, instead the government would be allowed to undertake projects (which it turns out they already do) openly spying and eavesdropping on the lives of its constituents. In terms of surveillance specifically, Foucault’s work concentrates on the dynamics of disciplinary power. And it seems that Foucault’s interest lay in the ‘disciplinary power of administration, through which activity is reorganised in order to make it more viable and more amenable to observation.’[9] Foucault adds fodder to this argument as he wrote about a monopoly of power with the state having primary control.

Smith’s partner in crime, literally, is revealed to be a former operative who went rogue after realising the corruption within the company. This shows how dangerous the government officials can be. Well trained enough to trick and entrap the ones who trained him, Hackman’s character becomes the ultimate authority in the film. It becomes apparent that knowledge is power within the film, another comparison that can be traced back to Foucault’s writing. He believed that knowledge and its relationship to truth results in a connection between knowledge and power as power is obtained through truth. In short, facts are truth, knowledge and power in one. Hackman seems to be the all-knowing source of power in the film as he has experience with both sides of the argument. And has information that benefits the hero and endangers the villain.

Finally, Foucault’s idea behind discipline as a controlling force. Foucault believed that discipline was used as a means of controlling the lower classes and coercing the body to conform. It does this by regulating movement and dividing up space and time for such movement, much like a timetable. The use of the rank system in the military is another example of this, along with the exercises that they carry out. When we introduce disciplined methods, control becomes infinitely easier. But as time went on, Foucault notes the change in this concept. He mentions a change after the 18th Century when discipline was being used to control whole populations rather than just select groups of co-operating individuals. The government relies heavily on mass control in order to function.

Foucault discusses Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon and surveillance as a disciplinary mechanism. Bentham’s concept of the panopticon is used to present surveillance as an instrument through which people conduct their actions while aware of their own constant visibility. Following Foucault’s significant model of conception and surveillance in Discipline and Punish, where he describes how the Panopticon prison replaced physical discipline with a system of observation, it is ‘frequently claimed that contemporary culture operates similar scopic regimes.’[10] This can also be seen in several crime and surveillance based films, however often at an exaggerated or extreme level.

Enemy of the State has a central theme of surveillance and invasion of privacy. From the outset we see the government trespassing on the lives of its public, all under the guise of catching criminals. In this particular case, the viewer interprets surveillance as an intrusive force rather than a beneficial tool like the one detail in Bentham’s Panopticon. Smith’s character discovers through this two hour movie the extents that the government is going to in order to ‘protect’ their citizens and how little the public know about it. The film’s hackers, Jack Black and Seth Green, are able to hack into hundreds of different angles and software to trap our hero. This brings into question how valuable surveillance is outside of prison walls. Of course, the cameras are detriment to the hackers but in terms of protecting and serving the public, the CCTV cameras and hidden microphones only seem to hinder the innocent.

In conclusion, although not considered an ideal tool for comparison with film, Foucault’s theories displayed in Discipline and Punish can be used in the examining of modern surveillance and crime films, in particular the 1998 Enemy of the State. The film and Foucault’s writing aim to show how some groups, which were previously exempt from routine surveillance, are now increasingly being monitored by both state and non-state institutions. Another interesting conclusion to draw is the idea that ‘the abilities of surveillance technologies have [today] surpassed Orwell’s dystopic vision.’[11] With the advanced technological era that we are in, it is no surprise that the public are fearing a world like the one portrayed in Enemy of the State. The film also works to create the image of an exaggerated version of current society, which has the viewer question how important government involvement is in everyday life outside of the basic services like the police.


Bibliography

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[1] Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Prison (New York: Vintage Books, 1995)

[2] Enemy of the State, dir. By Tony Scott (Buena Vista Pictures, 1998)

[3] Sebastien Lefait, Surveillance on Screen: Monitoring Contemporary Films and Television Programs (Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2013), p. 5

[4] Greg Dimitriadis and Cameron McCarthy, ‘Creating a New Panopticon: Columbine, Cultural Studies and the Uses of Foucault’, in Foucault, Cultural Studies, and Governmentality, ed. by Jack Bratich, Jeremy Packer, Cameron McCarthy (New York: State University of New York, 2003), p. 278

[5] Greg Dimitriadis and Cameron McCarthy, ‘Creating a New Panopticon: Columbine, Cultural Studies and the Uses of Foucault’, in Foucault, Cultural Studies, and Governmentality, ed. by Jack Bratich, Jeremy Packer, Cameron McCarthy (New York: State University of New York, 2003), p. 278

[6] Stephen D. Brookfield and Stephen Preskill, Discussion as a Way of Teaching: Tools and Techniques for Democratic Classrooms, 2^nd Edition, (San Francisco, California: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 2005), p. 289

[7] Michel Foucault, ‘Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison’, in The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, ed. by Vincent B. Leitch, 2^nd edn. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010), p. 1498

[8] Lisa Downing, Film and Ethics: Foreclosed Encounters (Oxon: Routledge, 2010), p.120

[9] Inga Kroener and Daniel Neyland, ‘New Technologies, Security and Surveillance’, in Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies, ed. by David Lyon, Kirstie Ball, Kevin Haggerty (Oxon: Routledge, 2012), p. 144

[10] Maggie Humm, Feminism and Film (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997), p.39

[11] Serazer Pekerman, ‘The Schizoanalysis of European Surveillance Films’, in Deleuze and Film, ed. by David Martin Jones, William Brown (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012), p. 125

Suffragette

It would seem that filmmakers are not quite finished with our biopic filled year! Last year the Oscars was overloaded with biopics from every corner of the globe and it seems like British director Sarah Gavron isn't ready to move on just yet. Opening in October 2015, Suffragette boasts a strong lineup of British and Hollywood faves. Meryl Streep joins Carey Mulligan and Helena Bonham Carter to fight for womens rights in the late 19th Century. Based on true events, audiences follow Mulligan and Co. as they forge a path for the Feminist Movement and protest the governments rules restricting the activities of the female gender. 

However, as similarly stated by Sarah Jackson in her review for the Guardian, the film fails to acknowledge the many different types of women and types of action that were taken towards the same cause. Although told from the perspective of a working class woman (Mulligan), the type of woman who would have been the foundations of the Suffragette movement, the film fails to address the already existing movement at the time the film was set. At the very beginning of the film the audience is made aware of existing movements but this is limited to a single sentence. The pressure of films that cover such monumental moments in history is always to produce accurate yet entertaining interpretations of the events. Whilst my knowledge of the initial movement is shamefully sparse, I cannot help but feel like the film was missing the opportunity to display some of the different steps that were taken towards equality. As perfectly and appropriately quoted by Jackson: The Suffragettes weren't just white, middle-class women throwing stones.

As for the performances within the film, Mulligan continues to make me feel disappointed with each role that she tackles. I've never been a huge fan and this role made me yearn for more. Her face never conveys much and frankly, I thought her to be too soft for the working class character. And for one that had been through so much, I was surprised that by the end of the film, she still looked composed, healthy and with a fragile demeanour. Even when we hear her shout and scream, it felt hesitant. The only scene that I found Mulligan to be compelling was when her character was being force fed in prison. Her screams were penetrating and difficult to listen to.  

I've always been a huge fan of Meryl Streep and I'm always excited to see which roles she picks next. After the painful experience that was Ricki and the Flash, I was expecting big, big things from her. Streep's involvement in Suffragette did not shock. She has been a very vocal supporter of humans rights and the feminist movement. Therefore, it seems natural for Streep to jump at the opportunity to further publicise the struggles that women have faced in order to be viewed as equals. Her time on screen was small, mostly her character was spoken of but never seen as she was on the run from the government. Acting as the leader, Streep's appearance on screen is focused on one speech delivered from a balcony to crowds of passionate women. But despite being seen as the true leader of the cause, Helena Bonham Carter certainly ruled the roost in East London. I found her portrayal to be convincing and moving. This role, as Edith Ellyn, has only solidified my belief that Carter is one of the best actors working today.

As a woman, I was aware of the contents of the film being of significant importance to how my life could have been had there not been a change. The film was an interesting and compellingly told story of why it's important to fight for your rights (to party?). On a serious note, Suffragette shines a light on issues that I believe many women today take for granted. Hopefully, this film can educate people of all genders on why inclusivity and acceptance along with government supported rights is the only way our society will grow and develop. We need to start treating others with the respect they deserve and not like lesser beings just because of their gender. One of the most emotional parts of the film came just before the credits. As with many biopics, footage was used from the original events that inspired the film. This was then followed by the dates that women were legally allowed to vote from around the world. Unfortunately, this highlighted that women in some countries were only able to vote as of this year, and some are still waiting for that right. 

This film could easily be a strong beginning to the pre-award-season season. I'm excited to see how the film will stand against those that are released in early 2016 when the general public, once again, turn their attention to the best films that the previous year had to offer. Regardless of Suffragette's success in box office or amongst critics, I'm sure this film will be shown for years to come in high school history classes to young minds that aren't quite ready to understand where they stand in this world and why their gender is a pivotal part of that.