On Wednesday we were asked to compare a two of the six films we have watched in class and it made me start to think about the movies we have seen and how some of them have certain themes in common.  Most of the films we have watched are all centered on movies themselves.  Singin’ in the Rain, Peeping Tom and 8 ½ in general really focus on the struggle of making a film.  Looking deeper at this theme of movies about movies, I saw a connection especially with Peeping Tom and 8 ½ and how they both centered on this idea for perfection.

Peeping Tom is a film that is centered around Mark a filmmaker in search of perfection. Mark is looking for the perfect shot of fear, which leads him to start killing women hoping for the perfect face of fear that will cause him to stop his search.  In 8 ½ you see the main character Guido unable to make his film because he is uninspired however there are multiple scene to me that suggest that he is actually in search for the perfect women.  Both of these also center on not being able to finish a project because they are too busy trying to attain perfection.

There are many scenes in 8 ½ that show Guidos struggle to find the prefect women.  Guido is surrounded by women a large part of the movie with leads me to think that he hasn’t found the perfect woman for him making him need a different woman for each situation.  Probably one of the more recognized scene is when he is in a room with all of the women in his life and they are all serving a different function for him.  This also apparent within the film he is directing as well because he is unable to cast a female lead.  We can also see his struggle to cast a female lead when pictures of female headshots surround him.   The only perfect women that seems to exist for him with in the film is Claudia who may or may not be real, my interpretation is that she in fact doesn’t exist.  The fact she doesn’t exist helps show that perfection is unattainable for him.

In Peeping Tom, Mark is surrounded by women; much like the character Guido.  However what Mark is looking for in a woman is much different.  In this film Mark has found the perfect woman but he is trying to find the perfect image of fear.  Mark is a much different character than Guido because Mark seems to be trying harder to find perfection even taking to killing women in order to find the perfect face of fear.

While these men are searching for different types of perfection this is an interesting theme that these two very different films share.  In both films you see how the search for perfection is really the end for the main characters; it causes Guido to commit career suicide and leads to the death of Mark. These films are in two different genres but they both make you look at how the search for perfection can really consume a person’s life and cause destruction.

8 1/2 was probably my favorite films that we have watched in this class. At first I was not sure how I felt about it and was leaning toward not really liking it. It was very dense and difficult to follow. The characters were difficult to identify with and it was pretty, just, weird. But after further reflection and discussion of the film I began to really appreciate it. Particularly Guido’s character.

I love the use of light and shadows to create beautiful scenes and shots. And the dream sequences, no matter how weird, are creative and extraordinary. I also really enjoyed that two people could have completely different interpretations of the film. But I think what I most enjoyed after thinking about 8 1/2 further was the main character Guido. Guido is a director that is trying to create a film that is truthful and that means something. He is having problems with its completion though and can not seem to figure out exactly what he wants. The pressure is mounting for Guido on all sides and he is cracking beneath it.

I think I really began to appreciate Guido because of his psychological breakdown. It made him relatable and interesting. It made him more than an entitled, cheating, big shot director. Guidos breakdown made him a human going through real turmoil and feeling real stress from which he could not escape no matter how hard he tried. I really connected to this since it is somewhat how I have been feeling this term, my last term before graduating. I sympathize with Guido and understand how difficult making final decisions can be under immense pressure.

It seemed that the class consensus was that Guido was whiny, that he had all of the resources he could ever need and still was doing nothing and complaining about it. This is true, Guido was very privileged and could have done just about anything he wanted with his film. But that is just the problem, he didn’t know what he wanted. A person can have all the resources in the world but if they don’t know what they want and are falling apart internally there is very little chance to make any sort of progress.

8 1/2 gave us the story of a man trying to keep it together in a time when he was obviously crumbling and took us on the journey with him. And I really enjoyed going through Guido’s journey. I was able to feel what he was feeling and in the end, the relief of it all being over. This film restored my faith that no matter how stressful life can get, it will all be ok, everything must come to an end, and it is very possible to come out on top no matter how bleak the situation may seem. For this, I love Guido’s character. In my own time of internal stress and turmoil he delivered the message that I needed to hear. Guido is not a whiny dramatic character, he is a man working through his own problems with self-doubt, confusion, and stress and I think that is a beautiful thing to watch.

The film 8 ½ was a captivating story told from a director’s point of view about his struggle to convey his story the way he wants to tell it. The lines of reality and fantasy are blurred throughout this film while Guido is telling his story. It is difficult for the audience to distinguish whether the scene is actually happening, if it is an event that occurred in Guido’s past, or if it is a fantasy of his. One thing that really stood out in this film was the cinematography. The cinematography used in 8 ½ helped create the disillusionment depicted in the film seamlessly transitioning between reality and fantasy by using imaginative camera angles.
Throughout the film, the scenes will alternate between reality and fantasy but without warning which makes it difficult for the audience to understand what is really happening and what is imagined. One technique that is used in some of the scenes or transitions is the camera filming from Guido’s point of view by becoming his eyes. At this point, the audience is able to see the world through his eyes. For some scenes, this marked a transition from reality to fantasy or vice versa. An example of this occurred in the opening scene. The film starts out in a parked traffic jam inside of one of the vehicles. The camera is not Guido’s eyes just yet, but focuses on the back of his head so the audience can see him as well as what he is seeing. Guido slowly looks from the left to the right to notice all of the people staring at him, but while he is turning slowly the camera pans left to right to make it seem like the audience is looking with Guido. He then has a panic attack and gets out of his car to escape the traffic and the people, and at this point the camera presenting Guido rather than being Guido. He escapes watching eyes and then floats away which is when the camera becomes Guido’s eyes and the audience is looking down from his point of view in the sky. He literally falls back to reality and the camera is moves from Guido’s point of view to showing him from a medium distant shot leaving the audience questioning whether if part of what just happened was real or if what they are watching now is real. This is one example of the camera blurring the lines, yet creating the transition between reality and fantasy.
The camera may suggest the transition between Guido’s imagination and his reality, but it does not occur for all transitions and it is still difficult at points to understand what is really happening and what is not. The camera provides the audience access to the world that no one but Guido can access. The point of view angle is just one of many techniques the camera uses to provide the uniqueness to 8 ½ and to blur the lines of reality and fantasy as well as shift the audience between the two worlds.

I am generally a fan of horror and thriller films. Peeping Tom was unlike any other horror or thriller movie I have ever seen. The plot as well as Mark’s character was quite ambiguous for some time, and I had no idea where the story was going.

After watching the entire film and reflecting on the uncovered, creepy character of Mark, I made some connections about his upbringing. I analyzed the psychological disparities experienced by Mark due the Freudian relationship he held with his father.

Mark’s father was a scientist interested in the effects of fear on the human body. He used Mark as a prime suspect for his psychoanalysis motives. His father would deliberately scare Mark and film these experiences. Due to his fascination with fear and exposing Mark to this during his developmental years, this fascination stuck with Mark in a variation of ways as well.

Mark grew up to be obsessive about film because his father constantly had a camera pointed in his face when he was a boy. His father would creepily surprise him with premises of fear. Mark also clearly adapted an obscure obsession with witnessing fear as his father did. Although Mark seems to be haunted by his father’s presence, he still lived in his old home with all of his books and films. For some reason, Mark could not let go of his father’s daunting presence and therefore he held onto the volatile obsessions and bent them into his own unnerving interest.

I want to focus on the nurture aspect of Mark’s growth and compare it to personal experiences. Clearly, Mark became psychologically inept due to frightening instances with his father’s methods of raising him. Because his father would conduct scientific experiments on Mark and film the experience, Mark grew up to document such sightings as well. However, the resentment he felt toward his father caused him to rid of these faces of fear he would witness through the lens of his camera. If his father did not manipulate Mark in such demoralizing ways, his experience of fear would most likely be entirely different.

For example, as I grew up, my parents have taught me to face my fears. Unlike Mark, I have strived to surpass my fears and overcome them. Mark was never able to overcome his fears because the central theme of fear itself was embedded in his mind as something to take interest to. This uncomforting interest he was nurtured with turned into rage and he killed those who presented fear on their faces in front of his camera.

Mark could not overcome the conflict instilled in him by his overbearing father. For me, as I have been taught to be brave, I have learned to overcome struggle. My process of nurturing was wholly different than that of Mark’s. Moreover, I try to not be scared and aim high no matter what. Aiming high and past the limitations of nurture have allowed me to successfully take on challenges and look past fearful situations. Mark’s experience shows that his type of nurture can cause psychological dysfunction. Because Mark was not taught to think for himself about fear, he bottled it up for the remainder of his life.

Perfumed nightmare was probably my favorite movie that we’ve watched so far (besides Singing in The Rain, but I’ve seen that before). It was still odd to watch because the whole time I was watching the film I was trying to figure out what was going on. It took me until about the time Kidlat got to Paris to realize a little bit about what the film is saying. In the beginning of the film we see Kidlat as the head of the Wernher Von Braun fan club in his small village. Kidlat is so consumed with the idea of progress and change. He dreams of going to America to become an astronaut, and for much of the film we see him trying to chase this dream. The film was hard to follow because it flashes back and forth to scenes from his childhood as well as scenes that don’t really involve Kidlat at all. It’s hard to tell if this movie follows a traditional narrative or not.

When Kidlat first gets to Paris he is amazed by everything he sees. One of the first things he notices is that there are a tremendous amount of “bridges” in Paris. He immediately writes home telling of what he has seen. He talks about the many bridges in town and the walkways “walking for you.” When I was watching this scene it made me think that Kidlat has a very childish view of the world. He looks at everything with wonder and amazement. It isn’t until he drives back from Germany that things come to a turning point in the film. Kidlat returns to the market where he originally befriended an old woman to find that it has been replaced with a supermarket and that the old woman was gone. This is the point where Kidlat loses his grasp on what he thought reality was. He begins to question why everything is so large in the city. He asks himself, “If small chimneys work, why the large chimneys?” This is the first part in the movie that I noticed brought up the question or criticized society.

At the end I was left with more questions than answers. Some things that I noticed were prevalent throughout the movie were bridges, cars, and horses. We see Kidlat’s obsession with bridges from the very beginning of the movie as he crosses his local bridge with different vehicles in tow. I still have no idea what this means or signifies. We see many cars throughout the movie, and perhaps these images tie into the post war economy that they are living in. They have the discarded vehicles from America that were left over from the war and I tied the toy car in with his feelings about America. Overall this movie, for me was a very confusing but entertaining film.

Looking back on watching Peeping Tom I realize that the cinematography kept the audience in great suspense throughout the entire movie, and through cinematography the movie revealed the great secret in the end. At the beginning of the movie we as the audience are looking through the eyes of Mark Lewis, the murderer. The camera does not leave the point-of-view angle through the entire scene. This view gives us only the perspective of the killer and we are watching the whole scene through the lens of his camera, in which he is filming the whole encounter. By using this view we only get limited knowledge of what is actually taking place in this scene. We have no idea what he is killing her with, nor do we know what she is so afraid of when she is looking at Mark. The woman seems to be paralyzed with fear and isn’t moving a muscle. We have limited knowledge of what she is actually seeing and are confused ourselves as to why she is not running or trying to fight.

Throughout the movie we then encounter more and more murders, we  still get a  limited view on the scene. We still don’t exactly know what the women are so afraid of when they are looking at Mark. Are they afraid of the weapon, are the afraid because he is filming or are they just all paralyzed by the fright of impending death.

Not until the last scene when the camera point of view changes do we get the full effect of what is happening during the murders. In the last scene Mark is explaining to Helen why he is killing women, what his motive is in his actions and how he murdered them. The camera angle then shifts the point of view to Helen’s eyes. As the audience we are no longer looking through the lens of his camera at the murder but through the victim’s eyes. What we see is a mirror. There is a mirror connected to his camera so the victims can watch themselves dying. This was Mark’s way of filming a new sort of fear.

The choice of the director to change the camera angle like this takes the film in a full circle. We start the story off on one end of the camera watching from one point of view and then at the end we are taken 180 degrees and watching the murder from the other end. What we learn in this last scene reveals to us exactly what that woman in the first scene was seeing and why she was so paralyzed with fear. She was so scared because she was seeing herself; her scared face, knowing that her death was soon to follow and she was going to see the whole thing. The cinematography allowed for the beginning and end to be in connection and it revealed the final mystery to why he was killing the woman, as well as how he was getting to a deeper sense of fear. It takes the movie from just a simple horror film with a serial killer, to a psychological film that leaves you uncomfortable.

Jessica Engle

The 1960 Michael Powell film, Peeping Tom, demonstrates the compelling angle of how a psychological thriller transcends into a cinematic milestone. Personally, I am a zealous fan of suspenseful cinematic films within the horror and thriller genres, having been inspired by numerous Stephen King stories and Alfred Hitchcock’s works as well. However, Powell illustrated a more passive exploration behind the sinister nature of the protagonist or anti-hero, a more potentially necessary classification of the notorious Mark Lewis. Also, this film pacifies the audience by centralizing all action around the main character, regardless of his many episodes resulting in homicidal compulsions. I feel this technique was applied to the film with the intention of exploring how a clinically disturbed serial killer conceives such a violent modus operandi against women. Having said that, this film introduced a new concept worthy of rehashing for horror film profitability; this involved horrific violence implemented on attractive, young, helpless females as a cliché Hollywood tactic. Although this popular new trend amongst audiences may hold some undertones regarding misogynistic violence, these changes provoked both the appetites and expectations of cinematic audiences across the world.

The film explores the life of a deeply troubled man named Mark Lewis, a photographer and film-obsessed individual who constantly documents everything with a camera. Although the film portrays Mark as a peculiar and unassertive individual, Mark articulates many cryptic implications that he is psychologically damaged because of his father’s academic ambitions. Specifically, Mark mentions how his father was a biology professor who centralized his research goals behind putting a youthful human being under the constant surveillance from an active camera. Once this was mentioned, the essential confession of his background allowed the audience to process the concept that he will most likely grow up to be a paranoid, mentally ill member of society. Due to the abuse of his privacy in his early youthful development, it becomes clear that he is basically implying that the unknown experiences his turbulent childhood are the somber mystery behind his murderous desires. Ironically, even though his father’s desire for both academic prestige and new discoveries in the field of psychology, Mark’s disturbed existence was the ultimate consequence of such elite accomplishments. Therefore, the audience is forced into a state of virtual sympathy, without forgetting the fact that mark is a deviant murderer in need of both professional help and incarceration. Even though his father is nonexistent in this film, he serves as a contemptible scapegoat since his academically-praised research transformed his child into a monstrous individual.

Although Peeping Tom is an innovative demonstration of how a psychological thriller should be orchestrated, I felt this movie was not nearly as scary or frightening as other suspense films by the intention of Powell, respectively speaking. In this film, the directorial incentive appears to help explain why Mark’s dark lifestyle is rational to both himself and the audience, because we both have omniscient information regarding the killer’s intentions and past life. In comparison to the 1991 Jonathan Demme film, The Silence of the Lambs, the serial killer, colloquially nicknamed Buffalo Bill, is presented in a more frightening manner considering his modus operandi involves the torturous flaying of female skin in order to design clothing items resembling the female anatomy. As the FBI is on the search for this killer, they must collect and value all information regarding psychological abuse of serial killers targeting young women. In order to do a forensic analysis on such grotesque proclivities for serial killers, the FBI utilizes a young trainee to interrogate an imprisoned cannibal with possible information regarding the wanted suspect at large. In Peeping Tom, there is much less urgency because the plot focuses on both the gentle and harmful juxtaposing personality traits of the killer, Mark. As for The Silence of the Lambs, Jodie Foster is on the screen for 80-90% of the film, and Buffalo Bill is only given a few snippets of his gloomy lair in his basement. Nevertheless, these two films show many dynamic behaviors behind the minds of cinematic serial killers, and how one is intended to be scarier and the other intended to be more educational per se.

Peeping Tom is a British thriller film made in 1960, which chronicles a serial killer who films his victims as he murders them to record their faces and expressions as they die. Mark Lewis, the protagonist and serial killer, murders women to explore his obsessions with fear and voyeurism. Peeping Tom was considered a horror film at the time, but many critics have debated whether it should actually be categorized as a psychological thriller. This film’s graphic content and themes can make the viewing experience a bit uncomfortable, but once I really started to think about Mark Lewis and dive into his psyche, I became fascinated by his character and the film.

Mark Powell, the director, wants the audience to feel a connection with Mark in order to sympathize with his situation. From the start of Peeping Tom, the director Michael Powell aims to immediately bring the audience into the mind of Mark Lewis. Powell accomplishes this by bringing the camera to the point of view of Mark so the audience sees exactly what he sees. The opening scene shows an unidentified man walking towards a woman on an empty city street at night. The man approaches the woman and brings a film camera up to his eye, which transports the audience’s view into the viewfinder of the camera. This technique initially made me quite uncomfortable because it made the film seem too real and created a sense of intimacy with the characters. The point of view camera is an important function of Peeping Tom because it is a movie that has an extremely complex protagonist, and the technique gives the audience a unique way of relating to him. One of the most interesting themes of Peeping Tom is voyeurism, which I believe is still a major part of our vastly connected digital society.

Our generation is constantly sharing intimate experiences with the world through a vast network of social platforms. Platforms like Facebook or Twitter allow people to share their daily life with thousands of strangers. Anyone has the ability to gather information about someone’s life, which has fueled a society that has become obsessed with the lives of other people. We can essentially follow someone’s daily life without actually physically being with him or her, which is much like how Mark Lewis uses his camera to obsess over the women he aims to murder. Although Peeping Tom shows an extreme type of voyeurism, I believe it touches on the voyeuristic obsessions of today’s social networks and platforms.

I enjoyed Peeping Tom mostly because of its focus on voyeurism and how Powell gave the audience the ability to get inside of the Mark Lewis’ mind. Powell’s film techniques, like the point of view angle, are extremely important to the character development of the film. We see aspects of Mark’s personality that other characters do not see, such as his homicidal tendencies. Furthermore, this film made me really think about how our society does not focus on privacy anymore and, more importantly, the consequences that can follow. These women allow Mark to film them with his camera unaware of the fact that he intends to use those intimate times to murder them. Mark is able to get into intimate situations with these women where they are extremely vulnerable because he knows a lot about them. Overall, I think Peeping Tom is a phenomenal film because it directly involves the audience, and forces them to dive inside the mind of a sociopath.

Federico Fellini’s 8 ½ is a sprawling, convoluted epic, composed of parts autobiographical, dreamscape, and interpretation.  Whole theses could be written on individual scenes, with complexity and purpose layered into each aspect of production. The classic is particularly adept at commenting on film itself, so much that Rodger Ebert called it “the best film ever made about filmmaking.” One of the elements that 8 ½ so brilliantly captures is the struggle of the creator, the artist, and even more so the filmmaker with the fickle nature of artistic creation.

Even the title “8 ½” is a reference to Fellini’s filmmaking, citing the seven movies and 2 short episodes (which supposedly added up to a half) that Fellini had made prior to 8 ½. The title character, Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni), Fellini’s autobiographical protagonist, is under a great deal of stress. He is in the process of creating his next big film, but lacks a defining creative vision to give the project life. Instead he delays and delays, as the cost of the film continues to rise and the pressure on him grows and grows. Producers, production managers, and actors surround Guido, asking him what to do, and he can barely escape their inquiries. This reflects Fellini’s own struggle with creative vision after the wildly successful La Dolce Vita, and it is apparent that Guido’s angst is something that Fellini understands well.

Writer’s block is a problem that everyone comprehends, probably because writers enjoy discussing their troubles publicly (at least it’s something to write about). The creative muse comes and goes, not always at opportune times. This is especially distressing when dozens of workers and millions of dollars depend on the creative vision of one person. For the entire film Guido is grasping at creative straws: the vision of the spaceship, the angelic role of Claudia (Claudia Cardinale), the autobiographical (within the film’s narrative story) struggle with Catholicism. But the parts never make a coherent whole. Guido is desperate for something, anything to give his film life, but he can never find it. The only relief he finds (and perhaps the creative vision for his next project) is when he makes the decision to abandon the film entirely.

The opening scene of the film is representative of the trapped feeling that Guido (and presumably Fellini) will have for the entire film. Ensnared in traffic, with nowhere to go he slowly begins to suffocate. The camera pauses ever so slightly on the faces of the onlookers, seeping us in their morbid fascination (yet total disinterest) at the spectacle before them. All of a sudden, like a dream, he is free and flying through the clouds- yet still tethered to the ground. And then he falls, and reenters reality. For Fellini and Guido dreams are the only escape from the crushing pressure of reality, only to be pulled rudely back to earth and reawaken to the mess they hoped to leave behind. In the dream Guido can escape from the car he is suffocating in- all it takes is a jump cut for him to be outside of the smoking box. But back in reality there are no such quick solutions to his problems, and he is left wandering the estate, searching for a creative vision to latch on to.

The way we interpret what we see, hear, and experience relies heavily on a person’s point of view. One person’s interpretation of something is likely to be completely different than that of another. In the case of cinema, a person’s point of view plays a large role in their interpretation of what they are viewing. For example, in horror movies something that is scary to me, very well may be comical to someone else. Peeping Tom’s storyline follows one man, named Mark, through his murder of three different women. From simply hearing the summary of the film, it’d be easy to assume any viewer would empathize solely with the three female victims. Although after watching the film I feel I also have a slight tinge of empathy for Mark as well. Which is what makes point of view such an important aspect in the interpretation of film. A male viewer may find himself angry at Mark for treating women so poorly, while another may feel excitement in Mark’s kills. A female viewer potentially may feel scared by the situation and strongly dislike Mark for putting those women in such a situation. The plethora of feelings and interpretations from the film are endless, and ultimately depend on the person watching.

I feel Michael Powell strategically develops his narrative in a way that is supposed to leave us feeling a bit sorry for Mark. Throughout the entire film we watch Mark kill these women without a set motive. The mystery of the movie comes not from who is doing the killing but instead from why the killing is being done. The three women seem to share no real connection; beside that in all three murder’s Mark films their deaths. It isn’t until the end of the film though that we discover Mark’s motives for both filming and murdering these women. In each of his kills, the last thing the viewer is left with is an image of the fear in the victims face. Which largely depicts why Mark kills these women, he wants them to watch the fear on their face while being killed. This inhumane act Mark preforms is driven from his childhood. We discover at the end of the film that Mark’s father had conducted a series of tests on him as a child all dealing with fear. He would film Mark while conducting acts that were intended to scare him. These actions are in turn what stirred Mark to act in the way that he did. He had been conditioned from a young age that evoking fear in others was a normal.

It isn’t until the end of the film though that we are presented with this information, and upon realizing his motives I suddenly felt my feelings of distaste and hatred toward Mark turn to those of empathy. His previous actions were in no way validated in my mind but my point of view on the situation had greatly shifted. Case and point of how much of an impact point of view has on the way we interpret a situation. I’m sure for many other viewers the discovery of Mark’s past did little but solve their confusion of his motives. However, Powell does an excellent job framing the narrative in a way that keeps the viewer interested up until the very end. He also leaves the interpretation of Mark and his actions up to the individual watching; and although he attempts to create a sense of empathy towards Mark in the end, the rest of the film is set in such a manner that feeling no empathy for him at all would also be a completely normal response. Overall, I was thoroughly impressed with Powell’s development of the narrative and in his development of Mark’s character.