Camera machine. Leo Marks, Michael Powell and Peeping Tom

Camera / Machine is built on an audio interview with ‘Peeping Tom’ [1960] scriptwriter Leo Marks. In the interview Marks discusses Michael Powell and their working relationship before, during and after 1960’s ‘Peeping Tom’. Mark’s interview was candid, at times salacious, and at times funny but what really interested me was his discussion of the working relationship between writer and director.

The exploration of this relationship is at the heart of the film and provides a platform for academic investigation into the collaborative process between the film’s director and its scriptwriter. Marks is candid about his influence on the final version of the film, stating that Powell ‘didn’t object to an author putting in the shots as the author saw them…’ This assertion openly problematises the traditional accepted authority of the director as visual storyteller and when juxtaposed with Marks reputation for paranoia and his suspicion that his words might be used inappropriately or out of context, presents Marks as a questionable and possibly unreliable narrator. Using both archive and footage shoot specifically for the project, the film challenges traditional spectator expectations through its structure, its audio/visual composition and its editing strategy. Through the nature of the original audio recording, the use of an unexplained note taking ‘tape operative’ and a considered and abstracted image, viewers are encouraged to ‘lean into’ the film to fully grasp the significance and implications of Mark’s words and the insights offered through the connections presented. The film is designed to ask for active participation through a pro-active engagement with the material articulating the significance of the writer/director dichotomy and the reliability or not of a paranoid narrator.