偷窥狂

剧情：马克（卡尔亨兹·伯恩KarlheinzBöhm饰）是一名摄影师，热爱摄影的他随身都携带着他父亲留给他的一台手持摄影机。一起连环杀人案件在城中引起了恐慌，被害者均为女性，死去时，她们的脸上布满了极为恐..展开

剧情：{if:"

"a presciently sympathetic take on sexual perversity that torpedoed Powell's career.

Historically, PEEPING TOM is a presciently sympathetic take on sexual perversity that totally torpedoed Michael Powell’s career, thanks to islanders’ true-blue insularity, but has earned its overdue cachet through years when it reaches a wider audience around the globe, partially because its then-controversial topic now can be liberally appreciated as an incisive meta-reflection of cinema itself.

Watching films is a de facto act of voyeurism, albeit a passive one, a prerequisite a spectator might subliminally intend to overlook when its more overtly entertaining value is in full swing,and in PEEPING TOM, Powell, drawing on Leo Marks deviant if dumbed-down script, formulates a lurid mise-en-scène of a fear-collector-turned-murderer young cinematographer Mark Lewis (Böhm, of SISSI trilogy fame), who is (sexually) obsessed with mortal fear engendered by his female victims when their last breaths begin to dawn on them, and he films their last moments and savors them in his solitary dark room. Also,he has a unique way to magnify their terror, which Powell tactfully reveals in the climax, as an answer to the film’s innovative killer’s viewfinder’s POV in its prologue.

Albeit its slasher (avant la lettre) template (suspense and horror is downplayed in favor of a manner of poised characterization), PEEPING TOM looks directly into the psychological cause of Mark’s perversity, a child guinea-pig of his senseless scientist father, grows up in a disturbed, recorded and wired environment that substantially alters his perception and psyche. Critically, by dint of Böhm’s taciturn, sensitive and inner-struggling performance, Powell pegs Mark as both a victimizer and a victim, an approach doesn’t fall in line with moral rigidity but sequentially humanizes our monster, particularly, by pairing him with a guileless if somewhat cheeky girl-next-door Helen Stephens (a feisty Massey, holds our attention in her brilliant reaction shots when the crunch demands), to whom he might have a slender chance of a normal relationship if he can suppress his morbid proclivity (at one point, she even successfully persuades him to have a date with her without his phantom limb, the 16mm movie camera), yet that faint, precious chink of warmth is inevitably diminished after his another wanton surge, he has no alternative but to exact his final act to seal his preordained seal, and simultaneously, sate his persisting fixation.

Apart from Massey’s counterpoising presence of innocuousness, other two supporting performances are also noteworthy, famed ballerina Moira Shearer (in her third and last collaboration with Powell),as a clueless stand-in Vivian,obliviously twirls around Mark as he carefully prepare for her impending quietus, makes a striking example of a beauty’s tragic end, which is sheer in contrast to Maxine Audley’s steely lucidity as Helen’s blind mother, who is luckily spared for her visual unresponsiveness, a thinly veiled metaphor of an aging/unassuming woman’s vanishing sex appeal (she is only three years older than Shearer).

Deeply steeped in its counter-genre variegated shades and musician Brian Easdale’s compelling virtuosity and cadenza, to all intents and purposes, PEEPING TOM thrives as a thought-provoking tall tale whose message might be well ahead of its time, but in terms of cinematic grandeur, it is a trailblazer that often imitated but rarely eclipsed.

referential entries: Alfred Hitchcock’s PSYCHO (1960, 9.2/10);Michael Powell andEmeric Pressburger’s BLACK NARCISSUS (1947, 8.3/10).

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"a presciently sympathetic take on sexual perversity that torpedoed Powell's career.

Historically, PEEPING TOM is a presciently sympathetic take on sexual perversity that totally torpedoed Michael Powell’s career, thanks to islanders’ true-blue insularity, but has earned its overdue cachet through years when it reaches a wider audience around the globe, partially because its then-controversial topic now can be liberally appreciated as an incisive meta-reflection of cinema itself.

Watching films is a de facto act of voyeurism, albeit a passive one, a prerequisite a spectator might subliminally intend to overlook when its more overtly entertaining value is in full swing,and in PEEPING TOM, Powell, drawing on Leo Marks deviant if dumbed-down script, formulates a lurid mise-en-scène of a fear-collector-turned-murderer young cinematographer Mark Lewis (Böhm, of SISSI trilogy fame), who is (sexually) obsessed with mortal fear engendered by his female victims when their last breaths begin to dawn on them, and he films their last moments and savors them in his solitary dark room. Also,he has a unique way to magnify their terror, which Powell tactfully reveals in the climax, as an answer to the film’s innovative killer’s viewfinder’s POV in its prologue.

Albeit its slasher (avant la lettre) template (suspense and horror is downplayed in favor of a manner of poised characterization), PEEPING TOM looks directly into the psychological cause of Mark’s perversity, a child guinea-pig of his senseless scientist father, grows up in a disturbed, recorded and wired environment that substantially alters his perception and psyche. Critically, by dint of Böhm’s taciturn, sensitive and inner-struggling performance, Powell pegs Mark as both a victimizer and a victim, an approach doesn’t fall in line with moral rigidity but sequentially humanizes our monster, particularly, by pairing him with a guileless if somewhat cheeky girl-next-door Helen Stephens (a feisty Massey, holds our attention in her brilliant reaction shots when the crunch demands), to whom he might have a slender chance of a normal relationship if he can suppress his morbid proclivity (at one point, she even successfully persuades him to have a date with her without his phantom limb, the 16mm movie camera), yet that faint, precious chink of warmth is inevitably diminished after his another wanton surge, he has no alternative but to exact his final act to seal his preordained seal, and simultaneously, sate his persisting fixation.

Apart from Massey’s counterpoising presence of innocuousness, other two supporting performances are also noteworthy, famed ballerina Moira Shearer (in her third and last collaboration with Powell),as a clueless stand-in Vivian,obliviously twirls around Mark as he carefully prepare for her impending quietus, makes a striking example of a beauty’s tragic end, which is sheer in contrast to Maxine Audley’s steely lucidity as Helen’s blind mother, who is luckily spared for her visual unresponsiveness, a thinly veiled metaphor of an aging/unassuming woman’s vanishing sex appeal (she is only three years older than Shearer).

Deeply steeped in its counter-genre variegated shades and musician Brian Easdale’s compelling virtuosity and cadenza, to all intents and purposes, PEEPING TOM thrives as a thought-provoking tall tale whose message might be well ahead of its time, but in terms of cinematic grandeur, it is a trailblazer that often imitated but rarely eclipsed.

referential entries: Alfred Hitchcock’s PSYCHO (1960, 9.2/10);Michael Powell andEmeric Pressburger’s BLACK NARCISSUS (1947, 8.3/10).

{else}马克（卡尔亨兹·伯恩KarlheinzBöhm饰）是一名摄影师，热爱摄影的他随身都携带着他父亲留给他的一台手持摄影机。一起连环杀人案件在城中引起了恐慌，被害者均为女性，死去时，她们的脸上布满了极为恐惧的表情，而人的容貌端正的马克，就是犯下这些可怕罪行的真凶。原来，马克的父亲是一位研究儿童恐惧的心理学家，作为他的实验对象，从小马克就被各种各样出乎意料地突然发生的惊吓所包围，这样长久的恐惧和压抑导致了他扭曲的性格，也变成了一切惨剧的导火索。\\r一次偶然，马克被邻居海伦（安娜·玛西AnnaMassey饰）的美貌所吸引，正当他准备对海伦下手时却犹豫了。海伦的天真美妙暂时治愈了马克的童年创伤，但时常肆虐的疯狂却又让他陷入了与天性的自我纠葛中。接连犯案的马克引起了警方的注意，而在被捕之际，绝望的马克选择了自我毁灭。{end if}收起