In the 1960s European films Peeping Tom (Powell, 1960) and 8 ½ (Fellini, 1963), the viewer is asked to sympathize with characters that are fundamentally sociopathic (a personality lacking moral responsibility or social conscience¹), yet the evocation of this sympathy by the viewer is expressed in different stages of the films’ narratives.

Peeping Tom immediately introduces the viewer to a character that is questionable and asocial. The opening scene of the film displays the main character Mark filming his trickery and murder of a prostitute. An audience in 1960 England would without a doubt react to this with a feeling of hatred and scorn. However, throughout the movie, Mark is re-humanized by unveiling his psychology and motives. Towards the end of the film, Mark discusses Scopophilia with a psychiatrist, which is the pleasure of looking and objectifying. Tangentially, it is slowly revealed through his friendship with the character Helen that his father, who used fear to study his psychology, emotionally abused him from a young age. Perhaps this abuse induced the need to both repress his desires to visualize fear in becoming anti-social, as well as to project his fear onto others through inducing and filming their fear. Mark is therefore humanized through the use of familiar psychology, which requires the viewer to feel sympathy for this man who is characterized by the most psycho- and sociopathic behavior, and causes varying degrees of discomfort.

A similar discomfort comes in the viewer’s decision to sympathize or not in the Italian film 8 ½. Although the viewer’s perspective on Guido (8 ½’s main character) is very different than on Mark of Peeping Tom, Guido’s sociopathic behavior of narcissism makes him difficult to sympathize with. However, the difference between the films comes in the fact that the viewer is not initially as starkly judgmental of Guido and is introduced to his psychological situation from the start of the film (by starting with his dream of being trapped and suffocated). The viewer feels sympathy during his various flashbacks and dreams that employ the theories of the symbolic, where the child learns to repress desire from symbology, such as the by the church in 8 ½. Similarly, Guido attempts to balance his Id and Superego, psychoanalytical idioms for subconscious desires and the internalization of moral codes, respectively. Guido seems to increasingly lack a strong ego, which mediates the two above, in his allowance of the id to dominate over the superego. Throughout the film, his sociopathic view towards, treatment of, and relationships with others make it increasingly hard to sympathize with his character.

Both films were on the forefront of introducing film viewers to the psychology of characters, rather than just their entertainment value, which was a valuable introduction to the art of film in the mid twentieth century. The two films, Peeping Tom and 8 ½, create a sense of discomfort in the viewers because of the poignant ability the respective films have to evoke sympathy in the dark-minded, sociopathic leading men.

1. sociopathy. Dictionary.com. Collins English Dictionary – Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition. HarperCollins Publishers. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sociopathy (accessed: May 09, 2014).