Mubi Monday: Peeping Tom (1960)

There are a number of words that can be used to describe Peeping Tom (thrilling, disturbing, intriguing), but the most appropriate one is masterpiece. Yes, I have been a fan of this film since I first saw it and nothing has ever changed my mind about that, nor do I think it ever will. Arguably much too far ahead of its time for the cinema audiences of 1960, Peeping Tom holds up today as a fascinating study of someone affected by the constant eye of an impassive camera lens looking to catch every feeling and moment, including fear and death.

Carl Boehm (or Karlheinz Böhm to give him his proper name) plays Mark Lewis, a young man we see giving in to his deadly urges from the very start of the movie. He is compelled to film women, continue filming them while killing them, and then spending a lot of his spare time watching the movie that he has made. Things get complicated, as they tend to do, when he gets close to a young woman named Helen (Anna Massey). He doesn't want to hurt her, but can he manage to restrain himself?

Written by Leo Marks and directed by Michael Powell, celebrated during his time making movies as part of the powerhouse Powell & Pressburger duo, Peeping Tom certainly has the right people behind the camera (no pun intended) to deliver a movie that handles potentially salacious and sleazy material with just the right mix of fearlessness and finesse. The cinematography by Otto Heller and music by Brian Easdale also helps, both being wonderful additions to the film.

You do get a number of set-pieces here that start off playful and teasing, before leading to the inevitably horrific finale, but everything is underscored by the fact that we know what will be coming. We are just as voyeuristic as Mark, having chosen to watch a film which then sets out to challenge that viewing choice throughout, a wonderfully complex layer over the movie that may also have put people off back when it was first released.

Boehm is superb in the central role. He's as nervy and awkward as you'd expect, at times, especially during the moments when he tries to battle against his impulses, but always more confident, and often seeming to be on some form of auto-pilot, when he is working his camera. Massey is good in the role of Helen, perhaps a little bit too sweet and innocent (although that is exactly why she has quite an effect on Boehm's character), and Maxine Audley gives a great performance as her blind mother, her condition immediately fascinating for our main character. You also get a great little role for Moira Shearer, and Jack Watson and Nigel Davenport doing excellent work as two cops after a killer.

It's a great shame that the hostile reception to this film effectively marked the end of Michael Powell's directorial career (he has a few credits after this, with his last feature film being for the Children's Film Foundation, but nothing on the same level as this, or any of his previous pictures). There's stuff here that we've seen reworked a number of times in more recent years, with characters either attracted or repelled by the age we live in, an age in which we are constantly in front of webcams, phone cams, security cameras, and so many other lenses. Some of those films are better than others, but none of them are better than Peeping Tom.

10/10

You can buy the movie here.