Peeping Tom (1961)

An interesting journey into the mind of a serial killer that also touches on themes of voyeurism, loneliness, childhood trauma, sexual repression & the art of filmmaking, Peeping Tom was torn to shreds by critics when it premiered but just like any other film that was ahead of its time, it has garnered a cult following and is now regarded as a genre classic.Set in London, the story of Peeping Tom follows a lonely young man obsessed with the effects of fear and is making a documentary on it, the content of which involves him recording the final expressions of victims as he murders them. Things are set in motion when the woman living below his apartment befriends him and later comes across his works inadvertently.Directed by Michael Powell, the film packs a number of shooting tips & tricks up its sleeve and opens with a scene that introduces the protagonist doing what he does best, all captured from his camera's viewpoint. Powell paints a tragic portrait of the killer here, keeping his human aspects in tact throughout while showing him to be a psychotic product of child abuse.Also notable is the self-reflexive use of camera as this cinematic device narrates a story of its own through its POV shots, smooth manoeuvring, sharp images, bright lighting & vivid use of colour palette. Humour is cleverly incorporated in spite of the dark tone. Editing keeps the tension palpable, even leaving few murder moments to viewers' imagination, but the pacing is a bit on the slow side.Coming to the performances, Carl Boehm plays the serial killer and does a fantastic job at capturing his human side and articulating it to the audience in a relatable way. It's a thoughtful, balanced & impressive act by all means. Anna Massey is in as the girl next door but her work is mediocre at best while her mother, played by Maxine Audley, manages to leave an impression of her own despite her limited screen time.On an overall scale, Peeping Tom is a fascinating example of psychological horror that's skilfully directed by Michael Powell and is brilliantly steered by Carl Boehm's terrific rendition of his simultaneously creepy & pitiful character but there are slow patches in the middle that make the ride a bit tedious at times plus the interaction between our protagonist & his girl friend isn't quite engaging either. Controversial at its time of release, Peeping Tom has rightfully earned its place today amongst the finest works of its genre.

And that's the essence of cinema...Basically, Michael Powell's "Peeping Tom" is about a voyeur, but it doesn't just portray voyeurism as the mental illness of the main protagonist Mark Lewis, played by Carl Boehm, it also provides disturbing glimpses of his childhood where he was the object before becoming the subject. The film ventures in the realms of Freudian psychology and ends up being an extraordinary character study where the understanding of his Peeping Tom habits converge with the understanding of the essence of cinema. Film-making is all about the size of the scope, and whether you take the big or the small one, "Peeping Tom" never ceases to amaze.Now, a camera is a window to a person, it provides us an access we all long for in reality whether from the keyhole or behind sunglasses. Once there 's something that is hidden from our eyes, the challenge is to catch it, and when hidden rhymes with forbidden, there's twice more excitement. To give you an example, I'm a foot fetishist, and when a beautiful woman is sitting in front of me, she takes my eyes down as a form of discretion, while I'm just adjusting my sight to the right spot. I don't feel guilty inasmuch as I believe that everyone's got a fetish or a reason to be peeping.And cinema is simply about providing the perfect medium for a voyeurism that goes to the common denominator. Watching people in their intimate interactions puts us on a form of pedestal where for once, we forget about our reality, the one that enslaves us, to become the master eye, the Big Brother who watches. We can't change the story, that's the limit of our power, but we're powerful in the sense that we know nothing will ever happen to us, that's the edge we have, and that's the edge Mark Lewis has. That he's an aspiring filmmaker is no surprise, the filmmaker is also named the director, he's a God-like figure who catches his victim at the very instant of their death. But there's more.Mark, named after the screenwriter Leo Marks, never gets rid of his camera, which not only reinforces its status as a weapon but as something of a phallic value, like the source of a predator's power, aroused by his prey's powerlessness. The film opens with a murder seen in POV but in the next scene, we understand the roots of Mark's fantasies. There's no exhibition because the exhibitor is flattered over being a fantasy, but the excitement of Mark is to do what he does against his subject's will. This is why, of all the crimes, the most disturbing is the one that starts with a shooting and gradually turns into murder.This moment, starring an unforgettable Moira Shearer, is not only shocking but pivotal because it asserts the other form of perversity induced by the camera, it might show things we'd love to see, but it can also show the total opposite, murder, crime, violence. In reality we can close our eyes, turn our head, but that's the catch with cinema, it catches your eyes, but sometimes it makes your eye catch disturbing realities. "Peeping Tom" is a film of great artistic excellence but then it reaches heights of intelligence by submitting to our eyes the little voyeuristic games we love to play with ourselves and the trashy, sordid part of us. Never had another film toyed so masterfully with my emotions since "Man Bites Dog".And "Peeping Tom" has often been compared with its counterpart of the same year "Psycho", and "Psycho" made me think of what Hitchcock said to Truffaut about his preference for blonde uptight Nordic girls; they were volcanoes inside, Hitch loved to play with paradoxes, with people being well-spoken and educated only to hide mountains of sexual contradictions. "Peeping Tom" does highlight this tendency of British society and this might be the reason the film was trashed by the critics, and trashed is an understatement... maybe it confronted uptight pompousness to its trashy subconscious. Hitch wouldn't screen "Psycho" to the press to avoid similar backlash and the rest is history.And not the happiest one, Powell could never make movies again and if it wasn't for the film's revival driven by the New Hollywood generation, Martin Scorsese and Bertrand Tavernier, "Peeping Tom" wouldn't have lived a renaissance, and we might have missed its subversive intelligence and the pinnacle of Michael Powell's artistry. Artistry isn't just a word, you couldn't direct a more difficult film, one that shows crimes from the killer's perspective, then from the way they're shot by the camera and finally, from our perspective. It's a three-dimensionality of perceptions, one layer more disturbing than another.Mark was named after the screenwriter, and Powell played Mark's father in the footage, responsible for some of the most shocking conduct against a kid to be ever shown on a movie, that Powell's son played the son eliminates any doubt about the film's being a symbolization of the most pervert yet subversively brilliant aspect of film-making.And with the help of two great performances from Carl Boehm, soft-spoken, shy, handsome and crazy, the delightful Anna Massey who embodies our curiosity and her mother, Maxine Audley our suspicion, the film swings back and forth between the delights of watching and the horrors, the joy and the shock, the fascinating character study and introspection into the roots of voyeurism and the heart-pounding pioneer of slasher films, driven by an unforgettable jazzy tempo.Michael Powell's "Peeping Tom" accomplishes something that has probably no equivalent in the history of cinema: it captures all in one film the two diametrically opposed applications of cinema or to be more technical, the eye of a camera. Indeed, it captures the soul of voyeurism by showing us that a camera can work as a double-edged sword... almost literally.

This wonderfully creepy 1960 horror film predates Psycho by about 3 months and predates the "slasher" film by about 16 years and, in braving new ground which deviated from the Gothic Horror film movement spawned by Hammer Films in 1957, helped move horror from the Gothic castles to the house next door. Michael Powell's film presents us with a young man who is so fascinated by the subject of fear, that he stalks young women and kills them while filming their deaths with his movie camera. In to the young man's world, comes a young woman who only wants to understand him and love him, but will she find out his horrible secret before its too late? However, on a cerebral level, Peeping Tom retains its capacity to disturb. Rarely has a film depicted the process of a killer being created so chillingly, nor the manner in which such individuals are capable of conflicted, dualistic personalities. Consider how many serial killers have been described to be charming and kind by others who knew them (Dennis Nilsen or Ted Bundy for example).The scenes showing this transition from shy man-child to confident killer are masterful, with Carl Boehm overcoming other more obvious limitations in his casting (the accent mainly) to portray this aspect unerringly. Peeping Tom has been an incredibly influential film for today's filmmakers, as its influences can be seen in films from Road to Perdition to Red Dragon. I highly recommend it to any fan of film and film history.Overall rating: 8 out of 10.

Well, I have found out about "Peeping Tom" in 2011's "Scream 4", and I'm not ashamed in confessing that. As the movie began, I got to think there would be one of those suspenseful whodunit thrillers-- I'm so naive--, but fortunately, it wasn't the case. From the get go we know who is the killer... we just don't know why or how he does that. There aren't lots of remarkable moments; actually, the only scene that really caught my attention was the one in which the old woman almost ASKED to be murdered, saying a lot of irritating things to Lewis. That scene felt good because the actress was professional, otherwise there wouldn't be such nice atmosphere anyways. In my opinion, "Peeping Tom" has a good premise that could have walked in a much better way; the script is just too raw to develop something interesting. Anyways, I'm giving it six starts due to the originality of it, but I can't even say that it's a movie that I enjoyed watching.