Voyeur (2017)

April 29, 2020 2:27 AM

Journalism icon Gay Talese reports on Gerald Foos, the Colorado motel owner who allegedly secretly watched his guests with the aid of specially designed ceiling vents, peering down from an "observation platform" he built in the motel's attic.

Wikipedia about Gerald Foos: In April 2016, Spielberg purchased the rights to create a film based on Foos's life, with director Sam Mendes tapped to direct. The film was cancelled in November 2016 after Spielberg and Mendes learned of an upcoming documentary feature about the same subject
- that could have been less traditional & better film.

posted by growabrain (3 comments total)

Previously on the blue: 1, 2.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:42 AM on April 29, 2020

Just watched it, and thought that it was quite good. Some of the things that Christy Lemire complains about in her rogerebert.com review (which nonetheless gives the movie three stars) are valid; the framing device of the miniature motel does get kind of tiresome. But the re-enactment of the voyeurism has a payoff near the end, where there are multiple shots of people seeming to meet the gaze of the voyeur. That gets to the real point of the movie, which is of the exposure of the voyeur and of the people watching them: Foos being exposed by Talese, who in turn is watched by the documentarians, and then of course by us.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:06 PM on April 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

Voyeur is streaming on Netflix in the US.
posted by Etrigan at 7:42 AM on April 30, 2020 [1 favorite]