In the 1950s and 1960s, "self-reflection" and "voyeurism" became two important motifs in modern cinema. In the 1950s, Al Hitchcock's "Rear Window" expressed the theme of "voyeurism". In the 1960s, self-reflection included Jean-Luc Godard's "Contempt" and Federico Fellini's "Eight and a Half". The combination of the two in "Voyeur" shows director Michael Powell's foresight. Powell's choice of challenging themes and avant-garde image forms also confirmed the film's important position in the history of world cinema. The famous American film scholar Jonathan Rosenboom praised: "Voyeur" is the only "New Wave" film in the UK.
In 1960, there was a coincidence in film history: two British directors each directed a film with similar characters, one was Hitchcock's "Psycho" and the other was Powell's "Voyeur." Both films aroused disgust and even anger among British audiences. The latter, in particular, has aroused strong opposition and boycotts from audiences and film critics. Some critics said that the only satisfactory way to deal with "Voyeur" is to cut off the film and rush into the gutter as soon as possible, and that's it, its stench is still pungent. Others believe that Voyeur is the worst British film since The Bombay Stranger. Due to pressure from public opinion and resistance from the film industry, Powell had to leave Australia. It was not until later that world-renowned directors such as Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola supported "Voyeur", which was able to reverse the film. At the same time, due to the wide application of feminism and psychoanalytic theories in film academia, "Voyeur" has become a classic case that scholars are eager to analyze.
The film begins with an open eye. Then the camera shot back to a man whistling softly to Dora, the dusty girl on the side of the road. The man hid a 16mm camera under his coat and moved on. At this point, the camera viewpoint of the film is replaced by this hidden 16mm camera. At the same time, it also becomes the viewpoint of the audience. Dora, who is being watched, and the man's viewpoints are aligned to form the entire image space. But there is no mutual attraction between men and women. Instead, it is the camera and the prey it tracks that guide the viewer's interest. The opening eyes of the film, accompanied by the rushing music, give a sense of foreboding. The panorama that follows resolves this ominous feeling, but so far there are no shots that reflect his subject's emotions. And the action of the man hiding the camera once again pulled back the ominous feeling. The hidden camera approaches Dora like a weapon. At this point, the man's peeping point of view, the point of view of the 16mm camera, and the point of view of the audience coincide. Then, the image returns to the panorama again, and the mood of the film also eases. The voyeuristic mood transitions to the mood of "new realism": the fire extinguisher on the side of the road, Dora's nylon coat, the cold street, Dora's humble cottage. When the two come to Dora's living room, the voyeur transitions to "abuse" again, a scene that ends with Dora's terrified eyes. In the opening two scenes, the film's gist is conveyed with refined and accurate mise-en-scene and rhythm.
As Andre Bazin called it "The Mummy Complex," when a scene is recorded by a camera, it can be played and repeated over and over again. When Mark watches a film about Dora, the image that previously filled the screen now becomes a "screen within a screen," and the viewer's point of view is reduced to that of the voyeur. Mark watching Dora's film mirrors the audience watching Voyeur. The "gazing" on the screen always reminds the audience outside the frame, and the audience unwittingly becomes Mark's accomplice and becomes a "voyeur".
The next day, it was Mark's camera that connected the story. The roadside sheriff's questioning turns the film's camera on Mark. Mark's image is beyond the audience's expectations. He differs from Norman Bates' sullenness and insanity in The Psycho. Mark is handsome, somewhat shy, and gentle. This contradicts the audience's general impression of psychosis, and raises the question of why such a seemingly normal youth could be a voyeur? Mark lied when answering the sheriff's questioning, that he worked for the famous British newspaper "The Observer", which often published some complicated fantasy stories. The Dora murder scene echoes a long tradition in the British subculture. Sexual murder, violence, and scandal have been the keys to creating sensational public conversations since the 19th century, and have been the source of thriller themes since the Victorian era. "Voyeur" was born in the 1950s when such themes were proliferating. Some scholars have pointed out that such horror themes can also be traced back to the British Gothic tradition. The blind setting of the alcoholic Mrs Stephen gives both this spooky goth feel and fits with the prevailing binary opposition in goths (it is precisely the blind Mrs Stephen who discovers Mark’s secrets and his voyeurism). ). It is also worth mentioning Rosbourne, which was London's red light district in the 1950s. That inspired Powell's scene about the newspaper retail store. Mark's secret glances, the sneaky whispers of customers, the sanctimonious appearance of adult customers in front of little girls, these details outline the subtle atmosphere of the era, and also make the distinction between the upper and lower classes of the era.
Scheduled and edited from multiple voyeuristic sides, the film begins with a clear declaration of the sexual pleasures that the gaze in film creates in cultures and subcultures. In the scene where Mark is photographing the two models, Millie is the spectacle of the male gaze in the stylish and stylized street set. And Millie's setting is also reminiscent of Dora's murder that happened last night. At that time, Dora was also placed in such a street scene. When Mark saw Lorraine's wounded mouth, Mark's voyeuristic instinct struck again, and he held a camera to record the face.
The difference between this film and many psychoanalytic films is that the video vocabulary of the film has a lot of coding and pun meaning. Therefore, understanding the film requires decoding these questions and their hidden meanings. The screenwriter Leo Marx worked on code-breaking during World War II. The original inspiration for the film was that Marx wanted to make a film about Freud, but American director John Huston preempted a "Floyd's Hidden Passion", which forced Powell and Marx to change their minds. Marx also proposed the idea of shooting "a man with a camera always kills the women he shoots". Therefore, Mark always carries a camera with him throughout the film. But Powell used the visual code to make Mark's psychotic symptoms clear. While in the studio, Mark reminded Millie that "Lookatthesea" (look at the sea) "sea" sounds like "see" (see). Subsequently, the film is edited in two actions of pouring tea and pouring wine, and the scene immediately switches from this modern version of the Gothic scene to the birthday party at Helen's house. Mrs. Stephen's alcoholism and blindness constantly give the audience a hint of psychological gothic mood. When the camera cuts to Mark, he is peeking out of the window, which reminds viewers of the film's theme.
Moira Sheila plays a stuntwoman who dies under Mark's camera. Sheila was known internationally for Powell's "Red Lingyan". Although she played Vivian in a supporting role. But Vivian is the first female character in the film to leave Mark's point of view. When Mark tells Vivian that "he's looking for perfection," he's less of a kinky killer than a romantic artist. Killing seems to be a necessary step in his search for the perfect image. There is a Freudian metaphor for symmetry between the empty box Vivian dances into and Mark's masculine tripod.
On the third day, at the scene of Vivian's murder. Everything is as calm as ever. The director is still making the comedy he has in mind. But he didn't realize that upon opening the box, Vivian's body would instantly turn his comedy into a black comedy. He also didn't know that all his actions became the material in Mark's documentary. "Voyeur" has a suspenseful atmosphere here. As Hitchcock pointed out, suspense is built on a mixture of mystery, doubt, and wonder. The audience already knew that Mark was the murderer and that he was a psychopath. But the intervention of the police has undoubtedly returned all this to a state that no one knows about. The cop's novel, romantic approach to the set contrasts markedly with that of Mark's record. This is reminiscent of the anti-romantic "free film" movement that arose in the late 1950s. But Mark has apparently lost the ability to distinguish reality from art, leading to death.
The precision of the film is also reflected in the symmetry of the structure. Mrs Stephen's sudden and eerie appearance in Mark's darkroom balances the scene of their first meeting. When we first met, Mrs. Stephen clenched Mark's hand, as if she had seen through his psychology. In that silent conflict, Mrs. Stephen was in a strong position. But in Mark's darkroom, Mrs. Stephen and Mark's postures reversed. Also, by the time Mark returns to the studio in the retail store again, the studio atmosphere has changed. The lighting is different from the previous scene, the windows are open and the hue changes. It can be seen here that Powell was heavily influenced by German Expressionism, and when Mark's figure looms over Millie, a mise-en-scene similar to Fritz Lang's "M" can be seen. Voyeur is reminiscent of Hitchcock's The Tenant (1925). "The Tenant" is also about a girl who falls in love with the tenant upstairs, but the girl's mother has reservations about it and often listens to the footsteps of the man upstairs. Both films were clearly influenced by German Expressionism. The Tenant is a more direct take on German Expressionism. This is because Hitchcock was just in time for the heyday of Expressionism, and moreover, Hitchcock had made films in Germany. And the photographer of "Voyeur" Otto Heller is Czech. He has worked as a photographer for numerous Expressionist style films.
Helen goes to Mark's room for the second time, and Mark's performance shows his efforts to break free from his father's influence. His relationship with Helen in the real world seemed more satisfying to him. The gift he gave Helen again was more normal than the previous video gift. But the brooch Mark gave Helen still evokes a self-conscious connection to the lizards in his childhood videos. Helen's appearance changed the atmosphere of Mark's life. Helen said she was a children's book author and invited Mark to take pictures of her. This brings Mark closer to the traditions of children's fantasy art from Andersen, Green, Louis Carlyle, etc., than to the gothic fantasy art of Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Lewis Stevenson, which he has always lived in. In the latter, the unconscious and the step-by-step routine of everyday life always produces huge rifts. When the alarm clock in the darkroom goes off, Mark returns to that world again.
Helen's image setting can reflect Powell's consistent exploration of fairy tale relationships between men and women. In 1964, Powell remade Bella Bartok's opera "Bluebeard's Castle" into a neo-expressionist film. This continues the character setting of "Voyeur" to some extent. Mark's darkroom kept images of the women he killed. It's like the mysterious room where Bluebeard stored the body of his ex-wife. As Mrs. Stephen said, "This is the locked room I was expecting." But Helen's curiosity led her to discover more, like Bluebeard's last wife, discovering that the person she loved was a psychopath patients and murderers. But Helen's curiosity transcended fear, and she longed to see the ultimate purpose behind it.
As a self-reflection author's film, the film also reflects director Powell's thinking about himself. Powell didn't just make a cameo appearance as Mark's traumatized father in the film. At the same time, Mark also reflected part of the director's own shadow, especially his persistent pursuit of art. In the murder scene of Vivian, Mark said, "the effect has to be so perfect that it can't be added". This echoes Powell's exploration of film art to some extent. This can be seen from the bold exploration of "Voyeur". As Powell himself said: "Voyeur is a very good, almost romantic film. I feel very close to the protagonist, a director who is self-isolating, close to life like a director. He is aware of life. , and was willing to endure it. He was a flesh-and-blood technophile, and I was an ecstasy for technology. Walking on the street, I often edited in my head what was happening in front of me. So I can understand his pain. The film was ranked 78th in the British Film Institute's Top 100 British Films of the 20th Century.
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