Peeping Tom

Today in film class, I was finally able to see Michael Powell's infamous Peeping Tom (1960), the horror film whose then-shocking perversity effectively ended Powell's lengthy and distinguished career. As an exploration of voyeurism, cinematic and otherwise, it significantly betters Alfred Hitchcock's more conventionally respectable Rear Window by showing the nasty end-result of wide-scale objectification and fetishization of women and sex in general. It's also wickedly funny, a macabre black comedy and satire of social voyeurism, and is certainly more than just a mere horror film.

Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm) is heavily engrossed in the world photography, both as a professional focus-puller for a British film studio, a pornographic photographer for an unscrupulous newstander operator (Bartlett Mullins) - and ultimately a killer. His fetishism leads him to murder, hoping to capture the women's moment of death on film and reflect it back at them, and then watch the films again and again. Eventually, he finds himself attracted to Helen Stephens (Anna Massey), a perky young girl who shares his apartment building, who finds Mark attractive but is repulsed by his obsession. Through his love for Helen, Mark tries to shake off his obsession, but ultimately is unable to, leading to his discovery by police and a confrontation with his own obsession - fear.

Peeping Tom features the "male gaze" at its most malevolent and deadly. It is no secret, especially after decades of harping of feminist critics, that cinema and popular culture have traditionally objectified women as sex objects. The movie takes this objectivization to an extreme, its protagonist a lecherous full-time photographer who literally murders his subjects (with a phallic knife-blade hidden in his tripod). The film is full of women willing to sell themselves as commodities, from the vain movie star Diane Ashley (Shirley Anne Fields) to her ambitious stand-in Vivian (Moira Shearer) to the prostitutes and models who pose for Mark's deadly videos. This fetishization, the reduction of women into sex objects for men's vicarious pleasure, has a real consequence here; objectivization leads to their very real destruction. Only the strong women, Anna and her mother (Maxine Audley), avoid such a fate.

Indeed, the movie shows the destructive effects of voyeurism - specifically, the new breed of voyeurism created by film itself - on society in general. As disturbing as his actions are, Mark himself is a very sympathetic character. He was the unwilling subject of his psychologist father's experiments in fear and terror, all in the name of science and advancement, and was constantly photographed by him. Unable to connect with people in a meaningful way, he must hide behind the safety of a camera and film people - thus removing himself from reality and shaping it to his desires - to destroy his demons by filming them, gaining only the most vicarious pleasure out of life. Ultimately, Mark is a victim of circumstance - himself an object of intense scrutiny as a child, his only recourse is to try and take control of the situation himself, leading him to murder, and ultimately to his own spectacular finale.

The most surprising element of the film, especially given its reputation, is the large degree of satire which furthers the commentary on voyeurism. Either I am really a heartless, perverted blackguard (which is possible), or the movie is indeed a very black comedy. Complementing the voyeurism subtext is the running subplot of the movie studio where Mark works - suffering from budgetary restrictions ("If you can hear and see them, one take is plenty!"), difficult stars and actors, and the occasional troublesome murder. In a very Hitchcockian sequence, the police attempt to investigate the murder of Vivian whilst filming continues - because of course the studio can't afford to waste even a day! Most obviously here, reality is sublimated in importance to the imaginary - the film more important than actual events around them. The scene where an old man tries to buy pornography from a shop owner under the guise of picking up newspapers is also wickedly funny, and even the police pose for Mark's camera, showing no one to be immune from the allure or affects of such objectivization. Of course, only Helen's blind mother is the one to see the truth about Mark - everyone else is too busy watching or being watched to face it.

Powell's direction is simply wonderful. The film's moody, gritty direction uses Otto Heller's dazzling color photography to strong affect. There's very little blood, but the vivid use of colors (particularly the red hair of three major actresses) throughout is mixed with the right tone of darkness and mood. Brian Easdale's subtle, effective score drives home the emotion, and Noreen Ackland's editing keeps the film moving at a brisk, seamless pace.

The cast is quite fine. Carl Boehm is at first glance an odd casting choice - a German playing a very English character - but his performance is pitch-perfect - brooding, distant, repulsed and horrified by himself yet unable to do anything about his problem. Anna Massey is lovely and wonderful as Helen, going quickly from naive girl next door to, and Maxine Audley has a strong supporting role as her blind mother. Powell favorite Moira Shearer has an affective cameo appearance as the hapless Vivian (who of course performs an impromptu dance number for us), Shirley Anne Field is the hilariously ditzy, vain movie star ("The bitch fainted in the wrong scene!"), and a young Nigel Davenport can be seen as one of the police detectives.

Peeping Tom is a near-perfect piece of work. It is certainly a film worthy of the praise it has gotten, and remains one of the most pertinent - and horrific - contemplations of voyeurism and fetishiziation ever filmed.

Rating: 9/10 - Highest Recommendation