Myles Kane and Josh Koury’s captivating documentary, Voyeur, uses sharp editing and intriguing characterization to unfold the dichotomy of the contentious word
Voyeurism is a tricky subject. It’s exists in a strange dichotomy of unsavory perversity and inquisitive sexuality. Whether it is a sexualized fantasy of gawking at taboo behavior or observing the mundaneness of ordinary life, voyeurism exists in many plains of desire–sexual or otherwise. Simply put, the act of voyeurism cannot be solely categorized as a perverse sexual inclination. And while that may not be the case for most people who think of voyeurism, it is to a great deal of people who enjoy looking. After all, what is cinema if not a voyeuristic pleasure?
One need to look no further than the moving image to understand that cinema (and the phenomenological act of it) is nothing more than a gaze. In it’s act of recording, the camera becomes a perpetual voyeur–a peeping tom of sorts. With the perennial gaze of the lens, the voyeur is not only the camera, it is also the operator of said camera. Further still, is the camera’s mediating status between subject and viewer. It is but a facilitating apparatus that lets us enjoy the splendor of body and more. So I posit this: is it right to categorize Gerald Foos, the protagonist (or antagonist, depending on how you see it) of Voyeur as a perverted individual, when us cinephiles partake in the very same behavior day-in and day-out?
Film scholars like Laura Mulvey and Chris Straayer suggest that the cinematic gaze of the viewers is primarily concerned with voyeuristic sexualization, and yet there are certain films that do not adhere to that strict paradigm, just as Foos did not always adhere to it. Sure, one can look through filmic history to see this at play. Starting from 1897 film Peeping Tom all the way up to Alfred Hitchcock’s entire filmography (from Rear Window to Birds), many films actualize that ideology, but what about other films that embody voyeurism in the same way in which a Parisian bistro might encourage the more innocuous act of “people-watching?”
This dichotomy between sexual and inquisitive voyeurism is the main focus of Myles Kane and Josh Koury’s Voyeur, wherein the viewer is presented with two sides of voyeurism. One is the voyeurism of famed reporter Gay Talese, who makes a living peering into other people’s lives, where he is constantly observing, recording, reporting. He embeds himself into sex communes, the dregs of society. Talese lives the story as much as he writes it. In many ways, it is similar to the “people watching” of those Parisian bistros–it is a yearning born out of precociousness and intellect. It is this kind of voyeurism that is widely celebrated as being eye-opening and original.
On the other hand, there is Gerald Foos, a motel operator outside Denver who embodies his voyeurism not through pen and paper but rather through erotic pleasure. By constructing a clandestine hallway with dummy air vents on the ceiling of his motel rooms, Foos was able to walk along the entire motel, gawking at his guests from above. And while Foos admits he had constructed the systemic peephole for sexual voyeurism, he too realizes that there is more to it than that (albeit after shockingly admitting that there is only so many times a person can masturbate in one night).
Soon, Foos realizes that he had constructed a bizarre research chamber of sorts. Here, the motel owner could observe just how boring life can be. In his desire to find ultimate voyeuristic pleasure, Foos stumbled upon an existential conundrum of the ordinary. He had hoped to see perverse sexual fantasies that even his wildest imagination could not conjure. Instead, Foos saw the utter boredom that encapsulates most lives. From the dark vents above his customers’ rooms, Foos was able to observe the mundane. He saw people watching TV, smoking cigarettes, reading a book, eating food. In the end, Foos realized that this was more of a social experiment than it was an actualized sexual fantasy, something that deeply intrigued Guy Talese’s journalistic eye.
Fresh off the success of his thought-provoking and taboo book, Thy Neighbor’s Wife, Talese needed a new subject. He needed something (or someone) that connected to the sexuality that he explored in his seminal book. And it just so happened to be that Foos was waiting, ready to be plucked from obscurity. He wanted to be studied, much like he did to his customers during his nightly peeping tom visits. It was during the book tour for Thy Neighbor’s Wife that Talese was contacted by Foos, who had grown enamored with Talese’s fascination in American sexuality. To Foos, Talese was just like him–researching and writing about American behaviorism.
Foos saw himself not as a perverted individual, but rather a “researcher” according to his own words. In his eyes, keeping meticulously detailed notes on his observations elevated him above perversion. Rather, he was now a social scientist, showcasing a hidden world that even Talese could not embed himself into, even if he tried. But beyond his bizarre beliefs about himself, Foos continued down the rabbit hole of cognitive self-preservation. He referred to himself in the third person in these notes, as a sort of distancing effect that presumably made Foos feel better about his behavior. It was a way in which Foos could feel better about his actions, and at the same time, see himself not as a perverse sicko, but rather a dedicated “researcher” much like Talese.
This mirror between these two characters–one a hard-nosed sleuth, the other a bizarre peeping tom–is the fascinating dialectic proposed by Voyeur. In it’s drive to uncover the secrets that Talese had been writing about for nearly thirty years, Voyeur creates a fascinating cookie trail of twists and turns, maintaining a constant stream of narrative propulsion. And while many in the audience seemed to be summarily aware of the story surrounding Voyeur, it seemed that most were continuously left guessing as to how this story could possibly become more strange.
Whether it was Foos constant need to feel like an omniscient presence or his strangely interesting experiments he would perform on his customers (such as leaving pornography magazines in the bedside drawer that also stored the Bible), the subject and his fascinations are inherently absorbing. Coupled with Myles Kane and Josh Koury’s sharp direction and adept editing, Voyeur is a masterful documentary that explores a side of human sexuality seldom seen before.
Be sure to check out Voyeur this Sunday, October 15 at 9pm at the New York Film Festival before it hits Netflix December 1.
