Undoing bodies, intensifying memory: The relationship between Michel Foucault and cinema

The philosopher Michel Foucault's relationship with cinema was brief but intense: there are just a dozen short texts where he provides his impressions and reflects on a handful of films. In these texts, produced between 1974 and 1982, compiled in Dits et ecrits, we can find an interesting controversy surrounding historical memory and the eroticization of power that certain films of the time exhibited in relation to Nazism. This essay aims to explore Foucault's relationship with cinema through two axes: the task of intensifying regions of our historical memory and the possibility of undoing and disorganizing bodies that the image offers. These axes will also be related to Foucault's conception of history and politics. In this way, we intend to appreciate the importance of the thinker's encounter with cinema.