16mm 1984 17 minutes
A homage to George Orwell
Music by the Eurythmics
VOYEURISTIC TENDENCIES is not so much a film about voyeurism as it is our tendency to be voyeuristic. That tendency, nurtured by the filmmakers carefully crafted succession of visual teases and exploited by the camera's ability to become our eyes, becomes in increasingly evident as the film progresses. The camera teases the viewer, in this case, co-voyeur, not with sexual or erotic innuendo, but rather with graphic and aesthetic challenges. The partially opened window of a woman's dressing room forces us to realize our urge to see more about these hidden worlds. This type of cinematically- induced self- realization makes VOYEURISTIC TENDENCIES a powerfully human film. Most of the people we view appear to be merely going through the motions. Their actions seem hauntingly void of emotion or thought. By temporarily becoming voyeurs, we were hoping for bigger and better things, e. g. passion... melodrama, but are left with only a secretary nervously tapping her nails. ... a perfect sex film for the 80's. We are teased, cajoled, lured and finally snubbed as we learn one possible answer to what has happened to sex; it has been subsumed in our society's current confusion between artifice and reality. – James Irwin also available from One Way Films