Martin Scorsese restores British masterpiece

Martin Scorsese and his long-term editor Thelma Schoonmaker turned up at Bafta in London to introduce the film that, in effect, destroyed the career of Schoonmaker's late husband, the director Michael Powell . That film was Peeping Tom – now in its 50th anniversary year – about a young photographer and film-maker who kills the women he sees through his lens. Scorsese described how he and his pals (Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg) had struggled to see even a black-and-white version of the film in New York in the 1960s, so complete had its disappearance been after a slew of appalling reviews in the British press. "No one was sure it existed . . . it was like a rumour," he said on Friday, describing Powell's film as "about the madness of making movies and the danger of an artistic obsession". He added: "In our society today, in the era of YouTube and surveillance, it is even more relevant. The morbid urge to gaze needs to be thought about today." Seeing the film again – horrifying as it is – the surprise was how funny passages of it are, and with what confidence Powell plays with tone, giving Moira Shearer an ebullient dance number before dispatching her in grotesque fashion. A masterpiece of British film-making.