The Movie: Peeping Tom (1960)
What Is It?: The
tale of a serial killer who
photographs his victims at the moment of their deaths using a dagger concealed
in his camera’s tripod. By emphasizing the link between sex and violence,
director Michael Powell took his content several ticks beyond even Hammer’s
controversial pictures. The film was ravaged by U.K. critics and butchered in
the U.S. where it was dumped in the grind houses. That’s rough treatment for
perhaps the first film to examine the filmmaker’s responsibility in presenting
violent material to audiences, as well as the audience’s own dicey desire to
look at the sick and the horrible.
Why Today?: On
this day in 1891, Thomas Edison
patents the movie camera.
