The Servant
A very well-made exploration of a scenario in which a master and servant fall deeper and deeper into power games, expressed via symptoms of the conflict between upper class British forms of repression and changing sexual attitudes that were just emerging at this time.
This is, in short, a very good illustration of the ABC of “power” that Jacques Derrida will outline twenty-five years later in in the Afterword of Limited Inc (1988, 149–50), where the philosopher points out: (a) that power as such does not exist, and is only ever a question of differences of power; (b) that this difference is not just quantitative but qualitative, meaning that the one who seems to be the “strongest” can by a slight sudden twist of perception turn out to be the “weakest”; (c) that power and mastery are ruses in which one easily gets caught, and that the irreducible violence at the origin of meaning means that there is always repression, which can therefore never simply be called “bad” (just as, later on again, Bernard Stiegler will say that there can never be sublimation without an element of repression).
Probably I read this Derridean-Nietzschean account of the traps and paradoxes of power only a few years after watching this Losey-Pinter movie, and perhaps the latter already informed my understanding of the former, which always struck me as clear and convincing. Lots of clever and impressive photography is on display, along with good writing, very good performances, and so on, and it was undoubtedly aesthetically, thematically and sexually daring at the time, but, re-watching it in 2026 after several decades, I no longer think this is better than THE GO-BETWEEN, which seems a richer film. Still, it’s very good, even if the payoff isn’t quite as good as the buildup.
This is, in short, a very good illustration of the ABC of “power” that Jacques Derrida will outline twenty-five years later in in the Afterword of Limited Inc (1988, 149–50), where the philosopher points out: (a) that power as such does not exist, and is only ever a question of differences of power; (b) that this difference is not just quantitative but qualitative, meaning that the one who seems to be the “strongest” can by a slight sudden twist of perception turn out to be the “weakest”; (c) that power and mastery are ruses in which one easily gets caught, and that the irreducible violence at the origin of meaning means that there is always repression, which can therefore never simply be called “bad” (just as, later on again, Bernard Stiegler will say that there can never be sublimation without an element of repression).
Probably I read this Derridean-Nietzschean account of the traps and paradoxes of power only a few years after watching this Losey-Pinter movie, and perhaps the latter already informed my understanding of the former, which always struck me as clear and convincing. Lots of clever and impressive photography is on display, along with good writing, very good performances, and so on, and it was undoubtedly aesthetically, thematically and sexually daring at the time, but, re-watching it in 2026 after several decades, I no longer think this is better than THE GO-BETWEEN, which seems a richer film. Still, it’s very good, even if the payoff isn’t quite as good as the buildup.
Mini Review: A master and servant fall deeper and deeper into power games, expressed via symptoms of the conflict between upper class British forms of repression and changing sexual attitudes that were just emerging at this time – in short, a very good illustration of Jacques Derrida’s ABC of “power” in Limited Inc (149–50). Daring for the time, and very good in most respects, but, re-watching this after several decades, I no longer think it is better than THE GO-BETWEEN, which seems a richer film.
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