Farrah Fawcett in denial as she films cancer battle

Ryan O'Neal turns to Farrah Fawcett, lying emaciated on her death bed, and says, "We did very well last night." She says, "What were the numbers?" They are not talking about a re-make of Love Story, this is Farrah's Story, the 90-minute documentary aired on NBC last week of Fawcett's fight against cancer - a fight she is losing rapidly. Fawcett's showbiz joke about ratings has a double edge in this case as it is undoubtedly her final performance. And the on-again off-again love affair between O'Neal and Fawcett has never been stronger.

Fawcett, now aged 62, discovered she had cancer of the bowel in 2006 and has been fighting ever since. After chemotherapy failed, she was told by her doctors that she would have to undergo major surgery and that she would be required to wear a permanent colostomy bag. Instead of following her doctors' advice, Fawcett turned to two German specialists who offered her a "less drastic" treatment called chemoembolisation - chemicals injected directly into the affected organs - at a cost of £3,500. a session. After a cocktail of further vitamins and chemical treatment, Fawcett was assured she was cured and the doctors claimed it was "a miracle". The truth was painfully revealed a few weeks later when Fawcett's scan showed that the cancer had spread to her liver.

The difficulty about denial is that it robs everyone of being able to say goodbye

The documentary, filmed and narrated by Fawcett's best friend, Alana Stewart, Rod Stewart's ex-wife, was intended to show Fawcett's victory over the disease and to be an inspiration to others. Tragically, as the story unfolds, we hear Fawcett sobbing, "I thought I would be cured." Although this would seem like an admission of failure, Fawcett, Stewart, and O'Neal nevertheless continue to hope for a miracle even when the odds are clearly against it.

Fawcett's indomitable fight against cancer is not only a desire to overcome the odds and to strive to live, it also stems from a fear of dying that is so overwhelming that reality itself needs to be constantly kept at bay. Fawcett's fear certainly fuelled her search for a cure but also made her particularly susceptible to exploitation and false promises. The documentary portrays the tremendous pressure among all those involved to collude with Fawcett in denying the inevitable. This pressure is all too familiar to those who are close to someone suffering from a terminal illness and poses enormous conflicts both ethically and emotionally.

The difficulty about denial in these circumstances, and the pressure to sustain it, is that it robs everyone of being able to say goodbye properly and to accept this final separation. David Rieff, in writing about his mother, Susan Sontag's fight against cancer, points out that "it was impossible even to tell her - in a deep way, I mean - that I loved her because to have done so would have been to say: 'You're dying'." When reality is denied in this way, feelings are also inevitably suppressed and the impending loss cannot be thought about, experienced or shared. Rather than easing the fear of death and loss, paradoxically, it intensifies it for everyone.

The added twist to Fawcett's denial is her attempt to transform her death through making it into a documentary in which she can observe herself playing the role of someone who is dying. In this case, that someone happens to be herself. Life can be fictionalised and the real trauma contained within a filmic narrative that, like in Woody Allen's Purple Rose of Cairo, the subject can step in and out of at will. The actual making of the documentary may have been Fawcett's way of dealing with what was unthinkable and unspeakable. Playing to the camera also ensures that there is always an audience to witness the pain and suffering and perhaps, most importantly, that one is not left alone - for it is the aloneness of death that is most unbearable.

The act of filming death confers a power over life that does not exist in reality

Nine million viewers tuned in to watch Farrah's Story. Critics described it as "exploitative", "awful", "unbearable" and "fascinating". The overwhelming attraction to this form of reality television is that it allows us all to have the illusion that we are entering into the most private area of someone else's life - especially someone who, because of the their public status, represents a powerful figure. We become children who are peeking into our parents' bedroom to find out what really goes on.

But the voyeurism surrounding death has a further attraction, much like our fascination - and horror - with watching violence. Because the violence is at a distance and usually depicts someone who is a stranger to us, we can in our fantasy transcend the trauma and reality of what is happening. The act of filming death means that it already confers the filmmaker and viewer a power over life that does not exist in reality.

It is no surprise that delinquent gangs regularly film the violence they commit and circulate it to their peers. They are not only demonstrating how powerful they are but they are attempting to transform something that is traumatic and destructive into something that is pleasurable and exciting. The real feelings are anaesthetised and this is the whole point. Denial is not only located in Fawcett's failure to accept that she has lost her battle against cancer, it infects all of us as viewers who want to believe that this could never happen to us. ·