ABSTRACT
Michael Powell's film indirectly raises questions about the long-lasting consequences of early parental influence. In the terrific opening sequence of Peeping Tom, Powell places us in a fascinatingly paradoxical situation: not only behind his own camera filming Peeping Tom, but also, collusively, behind the viewfinder of the protagonist's half-hidden Super-Eight, recording his own sadistic murders. Films about voyeurism, such as Peeping Tom, give the medium of cinema an opportunity for self-reflection, which includes acknowledgement of responsibilities towards its spectators, as well as performing the cultural function of representing conflictual aspects of our inner reality and object relationships. A central role for cinema is to be a social provider of visual and auditory messages, which, not unlike psychoanalysis itself, can confirm our Weltanschauung, or challenge it at its very roots. Mark's voyeurism sadistically destroys his victims by literally penetrating them.
