Cinema
Peeping Tom
Michael Powell · 1960
Synopsis
Mark Lewis, a focus puller at a London film studio, also takes glamour photographs above a newsagent's, who sells them under the counter, and constantly films with a portable camera. He lives in the house inherited from his father, most of which he rents out, and watches his reels alone. Helen, a tenant who lives below with her blind mother, takes an interest in him and wants to see his films; he shows her those his father, a scientist, shot of him as a child to study fear. The mother is wary.
Context
The screenwriter, Leo Marks, had been during the war the head of codes at a British secret service. The director himself plays the part of the character's father in the home movies, and his own son that of the child seen in them. The British press condemned the film almost with one voice: one critic wrote that the only proper way to dispose of it would be to shovel it into the nearest sewer, and that the smell would still remain; another left the screening declaring herself sickened. The distributor withdrew it after a few weeks, fearing, it is said, that the bad press might cost its chief a decoration.
Who it is for
One hour forty-one minutes, in English with subtitles; the film was restored in 4K in 2023, in London.
Prizes and reception
Withdrawn from cinemas a few weeks after its release, it returned in 1979 at the New York festival thanks to Martin Scorsese.
Sources for this page 14
The pages consulted to check this page.