Peeping Tom Opening Analysis

Title: Peeping Tom
Director: Michael Powell
Year Produced: 1960
Budget: $135k

Peeping Tom begins with Anglo Amalgamated and Michael Powell Production idents.

The idents fade out and it cuts to an extreme close up of a mans closed eye as non diagetic music begins playing. The mans eye opens and the scene cuts to an establishing extreme long shot of a slightly unclean street at night with a woman standing on the pavement looking through a window. There is an audio bridge between these shots. You then see a man from behind, who is wearing a brown coat and brown trousers, walking down the street whistling.

It then cuts to a close up of a video camera being hidden or secured in a brown coat and switched on. This is a big indication of the time period as the camera is very old fashioned. It also denotes that the character who walked along whistling is likely to be an important character. The man walks towards the camera making the shot go out of focus. It then cuts to the next shot which I think works quite well and could be something that we could use in our opening in the flashback scene.

The next shot is a POV of the character looking through the camera lens as he walks towards the woman who was standing on the street. You can then properly see how shes dressed. Her black high heals and fur clothing connotes that she might be a prostitute. She's also wearing a red skirt which might signify that she's sexually active (which is another signifier of her being a prostitute) and also it could foreshadow that shes going to be killed. She's also blonde which would suggest that she will be killed. There is then further anchorage of the woman being a prositute when the woman says 'It'll be two quid'. The accent of the woman also connotes that the opening is probably set in London or somewhere in England. 

The woman leads the man down an alley and into a building (probably a brothel). This is all still in the same take. There is a cut between shots when she opens the door and he puts something in a bin, however both shots are the same POV shots and it cuts out a few seconds inbetween him looking in the bin and looking up at her. I think it would of been better to have it without the cut inbetween however it might not of been possible because it was such a long take.

The non diagetic music continues to play from the start through most of the opening but gets quieter and eventually stops about 1:40 into the opening. It is a piano continuosly playing a couple of notes at a medium/quick pace.

As the man is walking up the stairs another woman is walking down. She is wearing smarter clothing and is a more mature looking woman which would signify that she owns the brothel.

When they get to the room the prostitute begins to get the room ready and take her clothes off. There is an exagerated noise of a clock ticking however it is going quite quickly. This adds suspense to the scene and makes it seem more fast paced.

The mans arm then reaches across the shot and he pulls something out of his coat. Although you cant see what it is, there is diagetic sound of metal or a similar material being pulled from his coat. This would signify that he pulled out a knife or something similar, however there is then a torch light that points to the woman. This makes the audience unsure of exactly what he's doing and creates polysemy as to what and why hes doing it. The man begins moving towards the woman and she begins to looks more scared and begins screaming. Just before he gets close enough to her to stab her it cuts to the next scene of a close up of a film projector rolling. I think that this works well and is something that we might be able to incorparate into our opening however I think that it cuts too early as there isnt enough build up to the killing.

After the shot of the projector there is a long shot of the man sitting in a chair from behind watching what he had filmed of the prostitute on a projector screen. This signifies that the man had only gone to the prostitute and killed her because he wanted to use it as a short film.

All of the opening uses long takes but the POV shot uses a very long take. I think that this works well in this film as the whole film is based around the killer, but I dont think that its really something we could use well in our opening otherwise there wouldnt be enough shot variation and also it would be much harder to build suspense.

Something which I think we could use from this film in our opening is that the killers face is never shown. I think that this is effective because not knowing something about the killer creates polysemy and allows the audience to make there own interpretations of the character.