Day 58: Peeping Tom (1960)
In 1959, while Alfred Hitchcock was filming Norman Bates obeying his mother in Hollywood, Michael Powell, co-director of “The Red Shoes,” was telling the tale of another quiet madman in Britain. With “Peeping Tom,” Powell gave the world Mark Lewis, a shy and slow to speak camera man, whose soul obsession is capturing the looks of fear found on people’s face as he forces them to watch their own deaths. The footage he takes is not for sexual pleasure, nor does he seem to gain any momentary joy out of it. He is more a scientist than an artist, like his biologist father before him, and these captured images of terror are simply examples of mankind’s pure reaction to the end of life.
During the day, Mark works as camera focus puller for a large British film company and, at night, he makes some extra money taking pictures of scantily clad woman for a newspaper shop, dealing in pornography under the counter. Though he fills his time with work, he doesn’t really do it for the money, as he lives on the top floor of the house he grew up in and rents out the rest to tenants.
He looks through a lens because holding a camera, whether for motion pictures or photography, is his upmost passion, especially since he primarily gets to focus them on beautiful woman- several of whom he may, one day, stab with the sharpened end of his tripod and film as they slip into death’s grip.
Where does this compulsion come from? Is it due to his father’s constant filming of his own childhood and the intentional infliction of pain to capture the results for science or is he just a kinky voyeur with a taste for blood? What makes Mark Lewis tick? This is something that the unsuspecting Helen, a young woman, who rents a room from Mark, would like to know and, by doing so, will soon either reveal Mark for who he truly is or become the next victim he films.
Though now considered a cult film classic, garnering both fan and industry praise, at the time of its release “Peeping Tom” was ravaged by British critics and considered immensely controversial, in part to having some of the first scenes of nudity ever in a British film production. One called it, “The sickest and filthiest film I remember seeing,” while another famously quipped, “The only really satisfactory way to dispose of “Peeping Tom” would be to shovel it up and flush it swiftly down the nearest sewer. Even then the stench would remain.” Needless to say, Michael Powell’s story of a disturbed killer did not take to the majority as Hitchcock’s “Psycho” did the very same year and, in fact, cost him his career for twenty years.
But, thankfully, “Peeping Tom” was revived for a whole new generation in part to the dedication of one of cinema’s greatest directors- Martin Scorsese. In 1970, a whole decade after the film’s initial release and condemnation, ”Peeping Tom” had become a fascination for up-and-coming filmmakers and a friend of Scorsese’s showed him a 35mm color uncut print of the film, wowing the young director. After gathering influence from the film and becoming famous for his own “Taxi Driver,” where De Niro’s Travis Bickle certainly has a bit of Mark Lewis in him, Scorsese was approached by Corinth Films, a New York distributor, and asked for a sum of $5000 to give “Peeping Tom” a wider re-release. Without hesitation, Scorsese gladly payed and one of his favorite films finally reached a wider audience and great acclaim. Upon its resurgence into popular culture, director Michael Powell wrote in his autobiography, ”I make a film that nobody wants to see and then, thirty years later, everybody has either seen it or wants to see it.”
One of the reasons the film has gained so much acclaim, besides being a stable of the psychological thriller genre, is how it, in many way, puts a mirror up to its viewing audience and questions if, by watching a man lose himself to voyeurism, we are any better. How can we watch violence, even when simulated, a sit unmoved and desensitized? What becomes of a generation that grows up like this-finding it all a game?
Also, Mark represents the a darker side of film making, were we manipulate situations to gain the best result of terror. In one scene, Mark kills an extra for the motion picture he’s camera assistant on and places her body in a truck, which he knows the lead actress will have to open in the next scene filmed. When the scene comes and the trunk is opened, Mark films the true terror on the actress’s face, getting the very result he was hoping for.
In the book, “Scorsese on Scorsese,” the famous director mentions that people can learn everything they need to know about directing from the films “8 1/2″ by Federico Fellini and Powell’s “Peeping Tom. He says, “I have always felt that “Peeping Tom” and “8½” say everything that can be said about film-making, about the process of dealing with film, the objectivity and subjectivity of it and the confusion between the two. “8½” captures the glamour and enjoyment of film-making, while “Peeping Tom” shows the aggression of it, how the camera violates… From studying them you can discover everything about people who make films, or at least people who express themselves through films.”
A tense and untamed thriller, once marred for being ahead of its time, “Peeping Tom” has come to be considered one of the greatest character portrayals of madness we have in cinema and rightly so. As fresh and chilling as when it was first made, it will make you look at filmmaking like you never have before and that influence will never again be forgotten.
To learn more about “Peeping Tom,” check out it’s Criterion page here.
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