Rogerebert.com :: Movie reviews, essays and the Movie Answer Man. Satyajit Ray Org. They made the critics scream, but now these films are classics - "They cancelled the British distribution, and they sold the negative as soon as they could to an obscure black-marketeer of films who tried to forget it, and forgotten it was, along with its director, for 20 years," Powell wrote in his memoir Million-Dollar Movie. The story of how Peeping Tom was championed by Martin Scorsese (among others) has often been told. In hindsight, it is apparent that the critical revulsion toward the film was prompted not by its formal or aesthetic shortcomings but because of its subject matter.
A self-reflexive film about scopophilia and the murderous gaze was never likely to appeal to British reviewers of the period. Even the ones who hated it the most acknowledged that Powell had "remarkable technical gifts" and praised the acting and cinematography. Their gripes were with a story (by Leo Marks) driven by "sadism, sex, and the exploitation of human degradation. " Throughout cinema history, visionary directors have often left audiences and critics baffled.