★ 4 / 10
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SierraKiloBravo
Click here for a video version of this review: https://youtu.be/zHv4OKXSf08 I've watched a lot of documentaries, and few have left me scratching my head as…
Click here for a video version of this review: https://youtu.be/zHv4OKXSf08
I've watched a lot of documentaries, and few have left me scratching my head as much as _Voyeur_. This is a Netflix Original Documentary that has been in the catalogue for a while. It's a bit of an odd one, and putting this review together has been hard nail down exactly what was so frustrating about it.
Let's start with the official description:
_Legendary journalist Gay Talese unmasks a motel owner who spied on his guests for decades. But his bombshell story soon becomes a scandal of its own._
The core or catalyst for this is a man named Gerald Foos who bought a motel with the specific intention of engaging in his hobby of watching people. He purposely chose a motel that had a roof pitch high enough that he could install what he called an "observation platform" along the ceiling cavity to that he could shimmy along it and spy on the people in the rooms below through the air vents.
Sounds a bit like some kind of horror movie doesn't it? It is, but the documentary barely spends any time on this aspect of the story, and I think this is where my frustration comes from. They never really address the fact that this guy was spying on people in their hotel rooms, every night, in their most intimate moments. It seems more interested in Foos as a character, and as a result the things he did are kinda swept aside like they were no big deal. There is little, if any discussion of the wrongness or immorality of what he did.
So, far from being a documentary about this a-hole and what he did, it is instead more a documentary about how a journalist pulls together an article over a period of years. It seems unsure about exactly who the subject of it is. They voyeur of the title is definitely there all the way through, but this in the end felt like it was more about Talese.
I didn't not know what to make of this once it was all over. It has its interesting parts, but I'm having a hard time recommending it.
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★ 3 / 10
Not true crime. The only crime here is Talese's reporting.
altereggo123
"Voyeur," a documentary purportedly about an infamous voyeur, should really be titled "Pseudo-Journalist," since what it really demonstrates is what a terrible…
"Voyeur," a documentary purportedly about an infamous voyeur, should really be titled "Pseudo-Journalist," since what it really demonstrates is what a terrible writer Gay Talese is. It's not "true crime," since so many of the claims in it are debatable or demonstrably false.
Talese correctly notes that it's dangerous to rely on just once source, but never bothers to check on important alleged facts of this story himself. He seems unfamiliar with Google, only learning from his daughter and others about details readily available online. He never checks property records central to the story and does a sloppy job checking on a crime mentioned by the voyeur, Gerald Foos. He unconvincingly brushes aside key discrepancies on dates.
At one point, when Foos claims that his Mickey Mantle baseball card is worth a huge sum, Talese laments, "How am I supposed to know if he is lying?" How about looking it up online? Or asking someone knowledgable? His methods are so shoddy, one has to wonder about the rest of his books.
At another point, explaining why he participated in group sex as part of his research for a book on sex in America, Talese explains that, as a reporter you can't just observe, you have to experience. Really? Did he have to kill anyone as part of his reporting on the mob? Can no one write about war, space exploration, professional sports, medical research, or anything else without being an active participant?
The documentary begins with him talking about his townhouse in Manhattan and his impeccably tailored suits. He should have spent some of his apparent wealth hiring a research assistant to ensure that what he wrote wasn't garbage. "Voyeur" reveals him wearing the emperor's clothes.
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