Peeping Tom (1960) is the film that derailed the career of its director Michael Powell. Before this, Powell was one of the most loved British directors, known for his sumptuous, Technicolor dramas, such as Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes and A Matter of Life and Death (all made with his film partner Emeric Pressburger). Peeping Tom, directed solely by Powell, was a radical departure from this kind of cinema. This notorious film, about a serial killer who films his dying victims' expressions of terror, created outrage when it was shown in cinemas. The response was swift and caustic. It was pilloried in the press and described by most critics as ''gutter trash''. It was swiftly pulled from cinemas and relegated to obscurity until its rediscovery decades later when it was belatedly recognized as a classic of psychological suspense. Today it is hailed as one of the greatest films of its kind, decades ahead of its competitors. But it shattered Michael Powell, who had to take a hiatus from film making for some time.
Peeping Tom stars Carl Boehm as Mark Lewis, who works as a focus puller at a film studio in London. He has no friends and lives alone at a top-floor flat. He is the landlord of his small establishment which also houses a young woman who lives on the floor below with her blind mother. Anna Massey (in her film debut) plays Helen Stephens, the young girl, who begins to take a romantic interest in Mark. But the relationship is blighted from the start. Though Helen's mother, Mrs Stephens, feels a vague sense of foreboding about the furtive Mark, there is little she can do. Mark, who was the subject of pain-control experiments by his father, a renowned psychologist, is a very sick person. He finds his grip on sanity slipping little by little. His only friend is the movie camera he carries with him at all times to photograph his doomed victims, most of them nubile young women. He then watches the grisly videos in his developing room, adjacent to his living quarters.
The beginning of the end looms near when he murders a young actress named Vivian (Moira Shearer) who works at the film studio where he is employed. Later, Helen accidently plays one of his videos when he is away. But Mark unexpectedly returns and catches her in the act. He then shows her the other videos he has recorded to Helen's growing horror. Meanwhile the police have narrowed down on Mark and hurry to his lodgings. Hearing the approaching sirens Mark prepares his piece de resistance. He apologises to Helen and begins filming his own death. He impales himself with the spike he has hidden in one of the legs of his camera's tripod, the same murder weapon he uses to dispatch his young victims.
This was the first film which took us right inside the mind of a psychopathic killer. Of course there had been films about multiple killers before but they were mostly tame and offered no shock value. Hitchcock's 'Psycho' was released a few months before Peeping Tom and had scored big at the American box office. Michael Powell's disturbing film would forever change the way movies delved into the minds of psychopaths. The film should be judged from the mood of its time. People were just not prepared for it. It was like a punch in the gut for filmgoers. Peeping Tom would have been largely forgotten but for the efforts of Martin Scorsese, who championed its revival in the late 1970s. Thanks to his untiring efforts one of cinema's greatest treasures found its belated recognition for a whole new generation of cinephiles.
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