All language subtitles for 2 The Strange Gaze of Mark Lewis (2004).fcd-en

I remember,
along with my friends at Nickelodeon,

being really struck by this film.

For a very long time
it was the film we brandished

and talked about all the time,
saying what a unique film it was,

unlike any other ever released.

The first time I saw Peeping Tom
was in the Midi Minuit cinema

when it was released in France.

It was only shown
in the Midi Minuit cinema

which specialised in soft porn
and horror films,

referred to as Cinéma Bis
in film magazines of the day.

Peeping Tom came as such a shock
that we said to one another,

"Whoever has made Peeping Tom
must have made other good films."

There was something
so incredibly unique about this film

that it had to be worth
looking at this film-maker's work.

Michael Powell was English.

He had directed several
low-budget films in the 1930s

but only started to show his true worth

once he met Hungarian scriptwriter,
Emeric Pressburger.

In 1939 Powell and Pressburger
embarked on an exclusive partnership.

Together they wrote and directed
15 or so unique films

key works in the history
of British cinema.

Powell and Pressburger formed
a company called The Archers

and led the field for 15 years.

The Thief of Baghdad,
Black Narcissus,

The Red Shoes
and The Tales of Hoffmann,

all made by The Archers,
soon became classics.

From the lafe '40s onwards
they were shown on American TV,

especially in the affernoon
when children were watching.

They would marvel
at the fairytale images

of these enchanted characlers,

brought to life by the artistry
of Powell and Pressburger.

Coppola, Lucas and Scorsese
were among those children

and were all deeply affected
by the images in those Archers films.

The memory of the films
stayed with them for a long time.

Scorsese once said of them

that you felt as if anything could
and would happen in them.

At the time he wasn't aware
that they were made by Powell.

In the same period in France
art-house cinema was in its heyday

and no one had heard of Powell.

All these films had been released.

I missed them because the oldest films
had gone out of circulation.

The only film by Powell
that you could see

in the late '50s in local cinemas
was The Battle of the River Plate,

which isn't a great film
and not that interesting.

It seemed to represent everything
we didn't like about British films

and contributed to Powell being labelled
as a mainstream film-maker.

At the time we were so busy defending
American and Italian film-makers,

we had so many causes to champion
against the so-called mainstream,

that British films passed us by.

What with Cottafavi,
the American Fritz Lang

and Samuel Fuller,

we were already championing
SO many people

that we rather overlooked these films.

Moreover, as young film buffs,

we were rather prejudiced
against British films,

which was a legacy
of certain British films from the '50s

which were rather laboured.

The subject matter was devoid
of interest for us.

They were about old cars

or about defending some local train.

We hated that sort of thing

and we stupidly
placed Powell in that category.

When he made Peeping Tom,
Powell was going through a bad patch.

For several years projects dear to him
had been coming to nothing.

He and Pressburger
had had a number of rejections,

the most regrettable of which
was Ondine with Audrey Hepburn,

which would have been wonderful.

Following all these failures,
he had made some really trivial films

and also a number of disastrous films.

One disastrous film he made
at that time was 7he Queen's Guard.

Coming from such an intelligent
and talented man,

it is mystifying just how dreadful it is

and devoid of interest.

So he was a bit lost.

Then he suddenly met Marks.

I think this film
came just at the right moment

for Powell to show he could make
a masterpiece without Pressburger.

Scriptwriter Leo Marks
was a mysterious character.

He allegedly turned up one morning
at the director's home

and asked, "Mr Powell,
what would you say to making a film

"about a young man
who kills women with his camera?"

They got on instantly
and Peeping Tom was born.

For the title role, Michael Powell
hired German actor, Karlheinz Bohm.

By agreeing to play
this nefarious character

born of Leo Marks' imagination,

Karlheinz B6hm was making
a radical break

with the image that had made him
famous throughout continental Europe,

that of Franz Josef, Sissi's wife,

in the three films he acted in
alongside Romy Schneider.

Karlheinz B6hm
wasn't Powell's first choice.

He'd had Laurence Harvey in mind.

Laurence Harvey might have lent
an unpleasant, distant quality to the role

which might have made the film
more acceptable to the critics.

He had also thought of Dirk Bogarde,

who turned it down

and fell out with Powell.

Bogarde didn't want to play someone
who was, according to him,

and you wonder
if he'd actually read the script,

a child molester.

Perhaps Bogarde
was thinking of the scene

where the young Mark Lewis
is beaten up by his father,

played by Michael Powell.

All those scenes were shot
in Michael Powell's house,

which confirms what he said in the
Midi Minuit Fantastique interview.

He said, "It's my most
autobiographical film," half jokingly.

Returning to work with Powell
on this film was Moira Shearer,

the star of 7he Red Shoes
and 7he Tales of Hoffmann .

She was an amazing ballerina

who was also stunningly beautiful
and a wonderful actress.

This was an early role
for Shirley Anne Field,

who, several months later,

starred in Karel Reisz's
Saturday Night, Sunday Morning ,

linking Powell's films to new films
by Reisz and Lindsay Anderson.

Then there was Anna Massey,
later used by Hitchcock

in Frenzy.

Powell was surrounded
by all his usual colleagues

who worked on all his films.

He had a cinematographer
he'd already worked with, Otto Heller,

who in the '50s went on to make

the two most distinctive
colour British films of the decade,

The Ladykillers and Peeping Tom .

Both films are reflections on people.

They are films that try to break

with a style of filming

that is overtly realistic,
even the lighting.

The finished film was shown
to British critics who fore it apart.

Their unanimous opinion
that it was sick and repulsive

scared off producers
who suspended its release

before selling it on to underground
cinemas on the porn circuit.

The public didn't reject the film

because they didn't get a chance
to see it.

The film was so destroyed
that it was scarcely shown in England.

One newspaper said the only thing
to do with it was to steal the reels

and throw them down the nearest drain.

The reviews were absurd.

Reviews in the Daily Worker,
the communist newspaper,

went as far as to talk about
the insistent, cloying sound of violins,

with a full orchestra playing,

when in fact the entire soundtrack
was played on a piano.

It was one of the most vehement,

most contemptible executions
in the history of film criticism.

It destroyed Powell.

It destroyed his career.

The critics' rejection of the film
came from the fact

that conventional, puritanical critics

who knew nothing
of the history of film-making

were deeply shocked
by Powell's vision of his hero

and by the compassion
he showed for a murderer.

They felt a murderer
should either be labelled as mad

and depicted as a madman,

or else they should be
vehemently condemned,

whereas the heroine tries to
understand him and even to save him.

The same year as Peeping Tom,
another shy, young lady killer

made it onfo the big screen.

But unlike Mark Lewis,

Norman Bates
in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho

was fortunate enough
to have ferrified his public.

If at the end of Psycho

there hadn't been that explanation
showing Bates to be mentally ill,

I'm not sure the audience would
have been so quick to accept Psycho .

Hitchcock really embellished things
as far as the law was concerned.

The discussion with the psychiatrist
at the end is quite remarkable.

Under the cover
of providing an explanation,

he actually managed
to confuse everything.

He's saying, "Whatever you do,
don't identify with this story.

"This story is not about you.

"This is the story of a madman."

He talks about a split personality.

As far as the general public
is concerned,

schizophrenics
have split personalities.

"I'm nothing like a schizophrenic

"so I can't identify with him."

How reassuring.

Psycho actually shows
a fairly legitimate progression.

To begin with,
when we're getting into the film,

we see ourselves in it.

Then by the end of the film,
we've lost that self-obsession.

We can leave reassured
that it wasn't about us after all.

Powell, on the other hand,

is much more nefarious.

Powell discredits
all representatives of the law.

He discredits any attempt
to provide an explanation.

Everyone must find their own.

It is a disturbing film.

It is a film that tackles taboos head on.

It is a dramatisation of perversion,

Mark's perversion,

which is depicted as voyeurism.

It is not a very good representation of it.

It is not a descriptive film
about voyeurism.

As for the father's perversion,

which is sadism,

it's barely touched on,

but when it is,
it's extremely painful

and all the more effective
for its discretion.

A childhood shattered

by an intrusive father

who films him non-stop,

stealing his image

and stealing his fear.

Mark goes off in search of fear.

He tries to find it

in the faces of these women,

in their eyes,

filled with terror.

This film reminds me of another film
that sparked off a lot of reaction.

I'm thinking of Clockwork Orange
by Stanley Kubrick.

With Stanley Kubrick and Powell

we see the same dispassionate
approach to morality.

It's an amoral approach to morality.

It's not immoral. It's not anti morality.

It's simply a deconstruction
of the moral discourse.

The value of the moral discourse
lies in the way it guides our behaviour,

but the moral discourse
is of no use to us

when it comes to learning
how to tackle the question of sexuality.

What does this film show us?
It shows us the image of a pervert.

And what's shocking about it
is that we all recognise ourselves in it.

What is a pervert?

A pervert is an adult

who displays an infantile sexuality

in their adult life.

A pervert is someone
who cannot fantasise.

A pervert is someone who acts out
a scenario instead of fantasising.

What do we see?

We see Mark faced with the difficulty

of expressing his fantasies.

Instead he acts them out,
which in this case leads to murder.

What is Mark looking for?

Mark is looking for an image of himself.

It's an image that he is lacking.

This image is what will give
his mind cohesion and coherence.

Mark doesn't feel coherent.
He's wracked by anxiety.

He feels split.
He mind isn't united.

And what he's looking for
with his camera is an image.

But it's a fruitless search.
He never finds it.

Everything Powell had been criticised for
in his earlier films is crystallised here.

He was criticised for making films
that were too sexual,

for having too many erotic symbols,

and for showing unbridled passion.

And here, suddenly,

all the criticism stacked up
against him for earlier films

was suddenly unleashed
on Peeping Tom.

The audience in the Midi Minuit cinema

had no idea it was going
to get such a shock.

The horror wasn't coming
from vampires, from cloves of garlic,

from haunted castles,

or from Dr Frankenstein's experiments.

It was coming from objects
associated with everyday life.

These objects were suddenly taking on
an alarming, evil dimension.

They were taking on
a terrible significance.

Not only was this character going
to kill someone with his camera,

he was going to film the person
he was killing.

And to unravel the facts,

to capture the fear,

let's add a mirror to the camera

so that the person sees themselves die.

All those objects -
the mirror, the tripod,

the camera, and the film inside,

are everyday objects

for any film-maker.

It is his use of them that transforms
them into something alarming.

A while later I travelled to England
to see the films.

Jacques Preyer and I conducted
the first ever interview with Powell

to appear in the world.

I'm quite proud of that.

We interviewed Powell
for Midi Minuit Fantastique

and out of that meeting
came a friendship

which lasted years.

I gradually discovered his films.

He organised screenings for me.

I saw Blimp, Black Narcissus,
[ Know Where I'm Going,

The Small Back Room,
even Bluebeard's Caslle ,

his adaptation of Béla Bartok's opera
which was very hard to see.

I had seen ten or so of Powell's films
and I got the shock of my life.

He went through
an extremely difficult period

from which he was literally saved
by the Americans,

by Coppola,
Scorsese and George Lucas,

who invited him

to teach or be an artist in residence
or whatever.

They saved him.

I even gave Michael Powell a role
in Let Joy Refgn Supreme.

He played John Law,
the Scottish inventor of banknotes.

The film was too long
so I had to cut the scenes

and I didn't think at the time

to keep the footage, unfortunately.

Michael Powell wrote me a letter,
having seen the rushes,

which was one of the nicest letters
I ever received in my life.

He had understood
the ambition, the plan,

the way of moving the camera,

the relationship between
the powerful and their servants,

their relationship with the set
and the costumes.

He showed such confidence

in the curiosity of the public

and the open-mindedness
of the audience,

which I find hugely reassuring

whenever I have doubts
about my own films.

Whenever I see a film by Powell,
I can't believe

he had the nerve to think an audience
would accept the sudden switching

between colour and black and white
in A Matter of Life and Death

which starts off in heaven,

or at least in the antechamber
of heaven or hell,

and carries on
in a completely realistic way,

finally ending up
in a world of pure fantasy.

He thought the audience
would be able to accept that.

When I became director
of the Institut Lumiére

I decided we should create
a collection of books

and the first books
I wanted to publish for this collection

were these two memoirs,

which to me are the best books
ever written by a film-maker.

The books are well translated
by Jean-Pierre Coursodon.

So we published them.

Everyone who reads them
seems to fall under their spell.

Articles have been written and
I have received thank-you letters.

To my mind these two books are,
for any film buff,

absolutely indispensable.