Spectacle, Deception, Confession

I'm keeping a journal that records observations of the human body and connects those images/observations to "body criticism". This week we are focusing on Foucault's _Crime and Punish_. I have just recently seen the movie _Man on a  Ledge_, and the film contains some of the elements Foucault discusses. Below is the official UK movie poster, chosen because I liked the tag line on the British poster better.

The poster shows a man on the ledge of the 25th floor, looking down at the street where he has threatened to jump in order to kill himself. Below on the street level are a crowd of spectators, the media, police rescue officers, and (because the jumper is believed to be dangerous) SWAT team police present in order to shoot or apprehend the man on the ledge.

Foucault notes that in classical systems of justice torture and execution were necessarily made public spectacles in order to reassert the power of the reigning monarch in the face of an offending criminal, make "the guilty man the herald of his own condemnation," and give the condemned an opportunity to publicly confess or bring to light new revelations relating to the crime. In the case of suicides, many are done in private without the public spectacle of a jumper who draws spectators and puts a mangled body in their midst. Choosing this form of public suicide may one last gasp of a hopeless person who has failed to assert the necessary control over life to make it worth living. Choosing to make a spectacle of the suicide not only shows a person trying to (for a moment at least) reassert control in reaction against himself-as-failure, but also satisfies Foucault's notion that for justice to take place the guilty must take part in their own condemnation. In suicide, especially in the case of a jumper, this happens all too willingly. In some cases, suicides may occur due to the revelation of shameful or illegal behavior. If a person cannot face a trial or live with the public ignominy, his suicide becomes a self punishment

What makes this apparent suicide attempt interesting is that the man on the ledge is an already-convicted felon who has recently escaped prison. He was sentenced to prison for 25 years but escaped. Instead of running to his freedom in another country, the convict shows himself to authorities and to the world through a very public form of attempted suicide--he makes a spectacle of himself. The police show up and must convince the jumper to forego his own self-inflicted punishment before the state can impose its own justice. In the movie we learn that the jumper is a former cop who was unjustly imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. His suicide is a sham, a purposeful spectacle designed to prove his own innocence. In essence, he puts on his own show in order to  re-try himself and put to right a corrupt segment of the justice system. Ironically, the crowd he draws to watch his suicide attempt is a noise cover for a small explosion that his friends cause to break into a vault in a neighboring building, yet another crime necessary to shed light on the original injustice.