1. Blow-Up (1966)/Blow Out (1981)
A two way tie for number one. Before he was Facing Off against Nic Cage and way before he was an Old Dog or Wild Hog, John Travolta made artful and suspenseful films like Brian De Palma's Blow Out. Partially cribbing from The Conversation, Blow-Up follows Travolta's Jack Terry into the woods one evening as he tries to get sound effects for a movie he's creating. With his microphone aimed into the air, a car tire blows out and it's thrown over a bridge into the creek below. Upon relistening, Terry's keen ear becomes uncertain that the tire simply blew out. And as the dead man inside the car was a presidential candidate, the whole picture itself doesn't quite add up. Fifteen years before De Palma's film, there was the Antonioni movie Blow-Up. The film that greatly inspired Blow Out, Blow-Up's hero is a photographer rather than a sound engineer. But like Travolta's Jack Terry, Blow-Up's protagonist thinks he's having a regular day at work. When he goes through his pictures again, he begins to suspect that he has evidence of a murder. Both of these films, like many other films tackling voyeurism, give only brief moments of actual spying. The essence of these films is how even brief glimpses into others' lives, moments that we shouldn't have seen, might deeply affect our own existence.
Which voyeur-obsessed films have we missed? Leave a comment or find me on my podcast (details in the bio below).