From a screenplay by
Leo Marks,
Michael Powell's
"Peeping Tom" (1960) is a cornerstone in film history. There
are many great movies, but only a few ("Citizen Kane", "The
Godfather", "Pulp Fiction") have served as a turning point,
a marker that changed everything that followed.
"Peeping Tom" was the first movie to turn cinema back in
upon itself and play with the theme of voyeurism. Alfred Hitchcock first
suggested the idea with "Rear Window" (1954) in which a character
spends 2 hours sitting in the dark watching things happen to other people,
but that was only a suggestion. That character, played by Jimmy Stewart,
uses a still camera to see his subjects, and finally becomes directly involved
in the action. Later (1963) Jean-Luc Godard and Federico Fellini would
use cinema as a subject in "Contempt" and "8 1/2" respectively.
In "Peeping Tom"
Carl
Boehm stars as Mark Lewis, a shy photographer who works as a "focus
puller" on a movie set by day and takes "girlie" shots by
night. The movie opens with us, the audience, looking at a call girl through
a camera lens. She talks directly to us, and we follow her up a flight
of stairs into her room. She begins to undress, stoic and workmanlike,
until she finally looks back up at us. Her face changes to horror as we
advance toward her. Then she dies.
The next scene has Mark watching the footage of the dead call girl,
so we know right away that he's the killer. This is not a whodunit. We're
interested in Mark the way he's interested in photographing a model with
a half-mangled lower lip. He's a living experiment that we are secretly
watching.
When a neighbor in Mark's building, Helen (Anna
Massey) becomes interested in him, she invites herself over to his
apartment, which includes a darkroom/screening room. It's Helen's birthday,
and she asks to see something. Mark shows her a film of himself as a child
with his father performing experiments on him, such as flashing a light
in the sleeping child's eyes and tossing a reptile in his bed. The father
in this film footage is played by director Michael Powell.
Mark and Helen become increasingly interested in each other. Helen
is working on a children's book about a magic camera. Mark is fascinated
by the idea and wants to take the pictures for the book. They go on a date,
and Helen makes Mark leave his camera behind. He becomes almost impotent
without it. They pass by a kissing couple, and Mark instinctively reaches
for his camera, finds that it's not there, and realizes what it was he
was doing. He becomes horrified, but also unsatisfied.
Later Mark meets Helen's blind mother (Maxine
Audley). He is shocked by her blindness, her not being able to see
into others' lives the way he can. But he also feels a connection to her.
One night she hides in his darkroom, and he finds himself telling her everything.
In the meantime, Mark continues his killing spree. He stays late one
night in the film studio with a bit player under the pretense of doing
some screen tests. This actress is played by
Moira
Shearer, Powell's dancing star from "The Red Shoes" (1948),
and "Tales of Hoffmann" (1951). Shearer dances a little for us,
warming up for her big part. It's not a lavish production this time, like
the earlier movies... it's just us and her, a small tape player and Mark.
He then kills her, pulling a sheath off a leg of his tripod, revealing
a sharp spike. He drives it into her throat, filming her expression as
he does. But there's more. His camera setup includes a mirror in which
the victim can watch herself dying.
"Peeping Tom" was made and released the same year as "Psycho",
but while audiences delighted to "Psycho", they were repulsed
by "Peeping Tom". The movie was pulled, butchered by more than
20 minutes, and relegated to late night television. Director Michael Powell
was all but banished from filmmaking. This is the man who, with his partner
Emeric Pressburger, had been a part of England's greatest filmmaking team
with a string of wonderful and successful movies in the 40's; "The
Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" (1943), "I Know Where I'm Going!"
(1945), "A Matter of Life and Death" a.k.a. "Stairway to
Heaven" (1946), and "Black Narcissus" (1947). The few movies
he made after "Peeping Tom" hardly opened, and still cannot be
seen today. But thanks to director Martin Scorsese (a good friend of Powell's
in his later years) "Peeping Tom" was restored and re-released
in the early 80's and finally earned the critical acclaim it deserved.
This new release, playing at the Castro this week and the UC Theater next
week, is yet another new print, also supervised by Scorsese.
Even if some of its plot devices and symbolism will seem obvious to
today's savvy audiences, "Peeping Tom" is still a terrific movie
today. It's a stylish movie, and it contains the most lurid use of Technicolor
ever. It's a horror movie, but not a playful horror movie like "Scream".
It gets us close to the killer's mind. Other movies like "Taxi Driver"
(1976), "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" (1990), "Clean,
Shaven" (1995), and the upcoming "I Stand Alone" try the
same tactic, but none of them is as daringly poetic "Peeping Tom".
The others try to shock us with their actions, but this one shocks us with
its reactions. We're a part of this setup. Without the audience, there
is no "Peeping Tom".
RATING: 8 1/2 Fellinis
Jeffrey M. Anderson
© 1999 Combustible Celluloid
