Peeping Tom

Please note the purpose of this blog is to discuss established classics that I've never seen. As such, the following is laden with spoilers.

Why So Long?
You know what, I'm going to blame this one on the title. Say what you want about Psycho but it's a fair bet that had they called it "Cross-Dressing-Shower-Pervert" it wouldn't have got half the attention it's (rightly) had. This is, thanks to the efforts of certain Mr Scorsese an established horror classic but it also has the name of some ridiculous British Sex-Comedy from the 1970s; only just less subtle than Confessions of a Window Cleaner. It's hard to pitch to someone else that you should watch a film called Peeping Tom, it's much easier just to stick Psycho on again.  

And? 

Well once again I am indebted to Martin Scorsese, without whom this title would likely have faded into insignificance. You can see why he championed it, this really is (and I mean this as a compliment) a truly nasty piece of work. And one can see why so many critics walked out of that initial, infamous screening, that the director of A Matter of Life and Death or Black Narcissus should bring us something this dirty and grim - I can imagine that that opening sequence, was not quite what they were expecting.

Like most horror films from that era, its content has little shock value today, which is not to takeaway from the mastery of the execution. Indeed, even its theme is a bit old-hat, essentially how the filming process itself can lead to a perverse separation from the subject and its maker. Interestingly, Powell himself provides the voice of the killer's father. A separation not shared by the subject nor the viewer. Owing to the manner in which his victims are killed, they are in a position of being able to see the terror in their own face, rendering them both the subject to and the audience of their own demise. A more modern retelling might allow people to see how their self-coverage and self-promotion through their life in the "internet-of-things" works out in the long-term. Or indeed what Michael Haneke explored with Funny Games.

And of course, the film is also, inescapably, about pornography and its duality within "respectable" society. Consumed with relish but its creation must be hidden away, even if that creation is in tandem with more respectable media like cinema and the printed press. Again, one does not need to look far to see modern day equivalents, as conservative politicians around the world are seen to like posts on Twitter on Instagram that they would normally be seen condemning. Soho has been cleaned up in the decades since this film was released (although I gather the newsagents is still open) and the idea of the "top-shelf" was something that was beginning to decline even when I was a teenager but that doesn't rob this film of its point - there remains a destructive element in the act of filming, we've just moved it online.

"All this filming isn't healthy."

I'm talking about this film as if its some kind of mood piece, Tarkovsky with a killer-camera. I can't really complete any discussion on this film without bringing up just how darkly funny it is. Any tit with a neck-beard can be edgy but it takes a certain kind of wit to excel at dark humor. Admittedly, this is a particular type of wit that a certain set of Brits do very well. It's odd that a search on wiki-quotes for this film brings up such few results - given how many great-lines there are in the dialogue. Suppose its good that they're not spoiled for you in advance eh? Again one wonders if this irreverence, or to put it more accurately - perceived irreverence was at least partially responsible for the initial reaction? Not only was Powell throwing up such awfulness onto the silver-screen, he was cackling away whilst he did it. This after all was released in 1960, rock-stars still had short hair, the summer of love was still the better part of a decade away and the Brits where (just-about admittedly) closer to VE Day than they were to Johnny Rotten.


Will You be Watching it Again?
Yes, if only to relive the exchange in the newsagents - 

"which magazines sell the most copies?....those with girls on the front covers and no front covers on the girls"



Has Any Light Been Shone on Some Heretofore Unknown Bit of Pop Culture?
No, this is an established classic but only among a certain subset, it doesn't have the cultural penetration of a Halloween or The Shining. That said it is strangely comforting to know that the inexplicable and unquestioned Germanic accent on a character who should sound considerably different predates Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

I must also look-up if anyone has bothered to write about the transition in cinema attitudes from "Isn't this where we came in?" to "See it from the beginning!". This, along with Psycho being one of the first wave of films to encourage this behaviour in the audience.