Peeping Tom

[Russ]

I would be interested in anyones view of this film, in particular Steve Crook.
I adore all of Michael Powell's work with the possible exception of this one.
It isn't as if violence puts me off as my recent Michael Reeves thread proves.
Maybe it is Miles Malleson playing the part of a "Dirty Old Man", I don't know.
I just know that I felt uncomfortable when I last watched it.
Thanks for your help

[DAVID RAYNER]

There is more to this film than perhaps met the eye of audiences in 1960. It wasn't just another horror film. In fact, the deeper meaning in the screenplay is more horrific than any Dracula or Quatermass opus. The film is really about the long term effect on adults of being abused in early childhood and how such abuse twists their minds and makes them have abnormal desires later on.

In the film, the killer's father had been very interested in his young son's reactions to fear and filmed the disturbing effect that being frightened had on his son. I haven't seen the film for some time, but from what I remember of it, all this effected the boy in such a way that when he grew up, he could only obtain sexual gratification by seeing someone quite literally being scared to death.

If it had been made today, over 43 years later, Peeping Tom might well be about a scientist who filmed himself sexually abusing his young son in order to take notes on the effect that the abuse would have on the child, who, in adult life, develops into someone who can only obtain sexual satisfaction through filming himself abusing young boys of the age he himself was when his scientist father was abusing him in front of a cine camera.

If, then, Peeing Tom has a moral, it must be that children (and children's minds) are not to be experimented on in the name of science, for all hell is liable to break loose in the years to come because of it.

[Steve Crook]

Russ: I would be interested in anyones view of this film, in particular Steve Crook. I adore all of Michael Powell's work with the possible exception of this one. It isn't as if violence puts me off as my recent Michael Reeves thread proves. Maybe it is Miles Malleson playing the part of a "Dirty Old Man", I don't know. I just know that I felt uncomfortable when I last watched it. Thanks for your help

How long do you have? :)
Long essays and theses have been written about it and I feel that most of them have only scratched the surface.

Although it is now considered a classic by many critics and film studies students I think that is for different reasons. Because it's about a person making a film and the way he extracts everything they have to give from those he films.

It is a film that makes the viewer uncomfortable - and that's just what was intended. It isn't a violent or horror film in any conventional sense. The only killing we see is that of Mark, the killer (and that isn't particularly realistic). It makes people feel uncomfortable because of the way it involves the viewer in the loop. The killer is watching the victim and forcing the victim to watch themselves as they are killed - and we're watching all of it. So where does that leave us morally?

The way that Mark is portrayed as such a gentle, even sympathetic character, also makes people feel uncomfortable when they realise what he's up to.

A lot is left unsaid in it. Is Mark obtaining sexual gratification or is there something else he gets from it (power, control, seeing the fear?)

Remember it wasn't just Powell behind it. It was written by Leo Marks, himself a very curious person. Apart from being born the son of the owner of 84 Charing Cross Road and brought up in the odd atmosphere of a second hand bookshop (which is where he first got interested in codes). His work as the head of codes and cyphers for the SOE agents during WWII led to his having some very strange experiences and having close dealings with a lot of very frightened people. Leo said in his book how he would try to study the agents when they were under most pressure and just before they left so that if they made a mistake in their coding, he might be able to guess what they'd done wrong and still decode their messages.

The whole film is full of coded messages and symbolism, most of which hasn't been decoded yet. There are also a lot of "jokes" and concealed references in there. Miles Malleson buying his "views" is just one of them. It's the blind lady who gets closest to "seeing" that there is something seriously wrong. The film-in-film is being directed by a blind director. Mark's echoing of other people's movements. Mark saying he's from "The Observer". The head of the studio being called Don Jarvis (John Davies was Rank's accountant who gave Powell a lot of grief)

The reason why Mark is so psychologically damaged is quite obvious - but why does it have that effect on him? It's not so much a single trauma but a whole life of continual trauma.

To summarise, it's not easy watching but I find it fascinating.

[DAVID RAYNER]

Of course, everone is different and certain traumatic experiences in childhood effect differant children in differant ways. For instance, a little boy chased and attacked by a savage dog would have a lifelong aversion to and fear of dogs...even if they were friendly dogs. The film is merely saying that the experience that Mark went through as a child affected him in the way it did. Maybe he was originally a sensitive, caring and romantic child and the experiences his father put him through eventually destroyed him.

And I'm sure that if Miles Malleson's character could be transported in a time machine from 1960 to 2003, he would be amazed at what is freely on view on the top shelf these days at any newsagent he cared to enter. No more discreet enquiries about "certain views."

[Nettles]

It is an uncomfortable film - for me it's because Mark knows why he does what he does and because he realises that his romantic/sexual feelings for Helen can only be expressed by killing her - his desperate struggle to save her from this is heartbreaking.