Science fiction films in recent years have been noticeably lacking both credible science and original fiction, but this multi-national production is a startling exception, presenting a complex tale of emotional manipulation that engages the imagination without the crutch of special effects. The intriguing plot, set in a recognizable near future where medical advances have completely eliminated the threat of natural death, follows a young volunteer (Harvey Keitel) who after having experimental micro-cameras implanted into his eyes agrees to follow a woman known to have a rare, incurable disease, in order to record on video her final days for the entertainment of a desensitized and nostalgic TV audience. Despite the morbid premise (anticipating by two decades the current glut of tacky, ersatz 'reality TV' programming) it's a surprisingly life-affirming movie, maintaining a mood of cautious optimism even while prophesying dark days just around the corner.
29 Reviews
One of Tavernier's best films.
euskir11 July 2001
A great film, and quite scary, specially for Tavernier's view over the media (television here, but just replace that word, and nothing will be different), in a not so far future. Sad, because was Romy Schneider's last film. She, and Harvey Keitel, are in the leading roles, under Tavernier's direction the two in top form. In a way, this was ahead of other future "prophecy films", sure one of the best.
A problematic view of our dying world
Rodrigo_Amaro4 February 2013
The world is so infatuating, troubled and desperate that the only way we can care about it is to run away from our troubles by seeing others in distress, dying or getting killed by the thousands each day on the news or in fictionalized accounts as we get ourselves fed in what is called "entertainment". In the world of "Deathwatch", the latest advance in satisfying bored beings (won't call them human since most of them here are mere walking robots) is to follow a reality TV show whose main star is a terminal patient who is about to die at any moment.
A show like this would be considered an outrageous act, a new low yet all sides of the issue whether being regular viewers or righteous souls opposed to it, they all watch it. Why? Because its too hard to kill curiosity. You may wonder how this managed to be presented? Well, we have Roddy (Harvey Keitel), a volunteer on a new experience where he has a camera implanted on his brain which records everything he sees, his eyes are the intrepid lenses who follow the poor Katherine (Romy Schnieder) recently diagnosed with an incurable disease. The filming of someone's downfall reflects in the escalating viewers numbers who are in it, trapped in this program, just waiting for the final hour. They want to be there, they wanna be present in those moments thinking they won't let her die alone. She'll have the company of millions.
George Orwell's "1984", Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" and Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" all worked in giving us frightening visions of a future that already was somewhat happening in the time these authors were living. We're followed everywhere, there's pleasure everywhere, books are depressive and if you go against your rules there's punishment ahead waiting for you. I was almost waiting for "Deathwatch" to be a little like those examples (this is based on David Compton's novel), but it missed an authoritarian government to force people to watch it. But there's conflict, not only between idealisms (very reduced) but the one fought by Katherine and her choices since she doesn't want to be involved at all in this ludicrous spectacle worked on her back on her disgrace. Here starts many of the films confusing issues. It throws that mass consumerism and media are evil forces but it never gives them a proper face: the audience who watches the reality show all look simple people, compelled by the woman's tragedy; the master behind the curtains (Harry Dean Stanton) seems too good despite his ways of getting what he wants, always hiding himself from anything until he realizes there's no other way than show up and face the problem. We're never able to see who is sponsoring it; and why it's so important to present such thing.
I'm not sure if the problem lies in the original source or in the way such was translated to the screen. All I know is that as long as it kept feeding me with ideas, new paths of thinking the unthinkable or the less shown on other films it kept me captivated, fully immersed in its story. Then the second half came in, proving to be sadly Hollywoodian and simplistic and disengaging. Luckily, the movie didn't mirrored its characters in the sense of us watching something dying slowly in front of our eyes. The final result is an interesting piece about mortality and how powerless humans are in face of many obstacles (and this is all sides of the issue, when it comes to Roddy's own problems while filming this project). Bertrand Tavernier makes an artistic, different and beautiful film over a delicate and rarely touched upon theme with efficiency which is death and everything surround it.
Here's a quite innovative sci-fi film, more human, down to earth and less imaginative and technical as those films tend to be, "Deathwatch" is a thoughtful experience with pleasant and powerful performances by Schneider, Keitel and Max von Sydow playing Katherine's first husband. Satisfying despite its problems. 8/10
A show like this would be considered an outrageous act, a new low yet all sides of the issue whether being regular viewers or righteous souls opposed to it, they all watch it. Why? Because its too hard to kill curiosity. You may wonder how this managed to be presented? Well, we have Roddy (Harvey Keitel), a volunteer on a new experience where he has a camera implanted on his brain which records everything he sees, his eyes are the intrepid lenses who follow the poor Katherine (Romy Schnieder) recently diagnosed with an incurable disease. The filming of someone's downfall reflects in the escalating viewers numbers who are in it, trapped in this program, just waiting for the final hour. They want to be there, they wanna be present in those moments thinking they won't let her die alone. She'll have the company of millions.
George Orwell's "1984", Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" and Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" all worked in giving us frightening visions of a future that already was somewhat happening in the time these authors were living. We're followed everywhere, there's pleasure everywhere, books are depressive and if you go against your rules there's punishment ahead waiting for you. I was almost waiting for "Deathwatch" to be a little like those examples (this is based on David Compton's novel), but it missed an authoritarian government to force people to watch it. But there's conflict, not only between idealisms (very reduced) but the one fought by Katherine and her choices since she doesn't want to be involved at all in this ludicrous spectacle worked on her back on her disgrace. Here starts many of the films confusing issues. It throws that mass consumerism and media are evil forces but it never gives them a proper face: the audience who watches the reality show all look simple people, compelled by the woman's tragedy; the master behind the curtains (Harry Dean Stanton) seems too good despite his ways of getting what he wants, always hiding himself from anything until he realizes there's no other way than show up and face the problem. We're never able to see who is sponsoring it; and why it's so important to present such thing.
I'm not sure if the problem lies in the original source or in the way such was translated to the screen. All I know is that as long as it kept feeding me with ideas, new paths of thinking the unthinkable or the less shown on other films it kept me captivated, fully immersed in its story. Then the second half came in, proving to be sadly Hollywoodian and simplistic and disengaging. Luckily, the movie didn't mirrored its characters in the sense of us watching something dying slowly in front of our eyes. The final result is an interesting piece about mortality and how powerless humans are in face of many obstacles (and this is all sides of the issue, when it comes to Roddy's own problems while filming this project). Bertrand Tavernier makes an artistic, different and beautiful film over a delicate and rarely touched upon theme with efficiency which is death and everything surround it.
Here's a quite innovative sci-fi film, more human, down to earth and less imaginative and technical as those films tend to be, "Deathwatch" is a thoughtful experience with pleasant and powerful performances by Schneider, Keitel and Max von Sydow playing Katherine's first husband. Satisfying despite its problems. 8/10
International version different than N. American?
ammacinn21 May 2002
Warning: Spoilers
I love this film, and have seen it several times on video and even once at a repertory cinema in Vancouver. I'm in Japan at the moment, and just picked up an old Japanese video release of it here from a second-hand store. Here's a shock -- the version of the film available here has some significant DIFFERENCES from the North American in print. There are some minor scenes that were cut from the North American release -- Keitel announcing a commercial break and shining his shoes, which he tells Stanton are made of ostrich, is a scene I sure don't recall in the N. American version, or Romy Schneider telling Max von Sydow how she loves to see the moon come out during the day. But there's also a significant plot point that differs, too -- conveyed by a few brief scenes and lines that are NOT in the American version (WARNING: spoilers follow). (I mean, it HAS been years since the last time I saw it, so maybe I've just forgotten the film, but I really don't think so). KATHERINE IS NOT ACTUALLY DYING, in the movie; she has been deceived by the doctors and the TV crew. We think she really is sick all along, but in fact she is being tricked, with the plan of "rescuing her" later in the series. The doctors reveal this shortly after Keitel blinds himself -- they have a conversation that goes like, "Do you think he should have been told that she's not really dying?" It's the medicine she's been prescribed; IT is making her sick. When Stanton calls the Mortenhoe residence, and Mortenhoe tells Katherine that "they're on the way," von Sydow has lines about how "it's all a mistake, you're not really sick, it was all a stunt -- you just have to stop taking the medicine!" So when Stanton and the TV crew and such are racing to Mortenhoe's in the helicopters, they're coming, in part, to "rescue" Katherine; and her decision to take all the pills and commit suicide, to ruin them, plays VERY DIFFERENTLY in this context. Maybe it was felt North American audiences couldn't handle it?
If any of you can confirm that I'm not nuts here, and that the film I've just described is quite DIFFERENT from the US version, PLEASE e-mail me. One easy way to test would be to check out the runtime on the video release back there -- the original one, from way back when, I think on Embassy. The runtime is NOT 128 minutes (the version I watched actually is).
All told, the international cut is slower, meanders more, but is ultimately the superior version, carrying Katherine's defiance out more fully. I recommend it, if you can actually find it. If you're curious, no, it isn't in print here anymore.
If any of you can confirm that I'm not nuts here, and that the film I've just described is quite DIFFERENT from the US version, PLEASE e-mail me. One easy way to test would be to check out the runtime on the video release back there -- the original one, from way back when, I think on Embassy. The runtime is NOT 128 minutes (the version I watched actually is).
All told, the international cut is slower, meanders more, but is ultimately the superior version, carrying Katherine's defiance out more fully. I recommend it, if you can actually find it. If you're curious, no, it isn't in print here anymore.
"Everything's of interest but nothing matters"--a quote from the dying woman.
planktonrules11 December 2016
This is a relatively low budget sci-fi film set in what should be the distant future. And in this future, diseases have mostly been eliminated. However, it's strange that the entire picture looks like Britain circa 1980! It reminds me a bit of "Gattaca" where the astronauts are shown boarding the ship in black suits--presumably because space suits would have cost a lot! This is not a major problem...but a problem.
In this futuristic world, folks are intrigued by any death that occurs to a young person...since they happen so infrequently. And, because of this, a sleazy TV show wants to follow someone as they die...because, as one of the execs says, "death is the new porn"! And, that person they've chosen (Romy Schneider) wants nothing to do with fame or money...she just wants to die in peace. And, she eventually flees to the poor part of town...where she can blend in and be anonymous. So, they use their newest invention to follow her surreptitiously...a camera embedded into a reporter's skull (Harvey Keitel). So, what he sees, the world sees as well.
In some ways, the film is very prescient. After all, in this future, reality television is king...just like it is today. It's also a bit like watching "Network". But you can't help but think that for folks to be unfamiliar with death you'd THINK the world would have changed in some way...with newer styles of clothes, cars and buildings.
I think this film is worth watching. However, I also think Bernard Tavernier's direction is, at times, rather slow...not bad but slow. And, at the end it becomes glacially slow!! Because of that, as well as the constricted affect of most of the actors (definitely NOT Keitel), the impact of the film is lessened and the film loses steam. Overall, good but not great.
In this futuristic world, folks are intrigued by any death that occurs to a young person...since they happen so infrequently. And, because of this, a sleazy TV show wants to follow someone as they die...because, as one of the execs says, "death is the new porn"! And, that person they've chosen (Romy Schneider) wants nothing to do with fame or money...she just wants to die in peace. And, she eventually flees to the poor part of town...where she can blend in and be anonymous. So, they use their newest invention to follow her surreptitiously...a camera embedded into a reporter's skull (Harvey Keitel). So, what he sees, the world sees as well.
In some ways, the film is very prescient. After all, in this future, reality television is king...just like it is today. It's also a bit like watching "Network". But you can't help but think that for folks to be unfamiliar with death you'd THINK the world would have changed in some way...with newer styles of clothes, cars and buildings.
I think this film is worth watching. However, I also think Bernard Tavernier's direction is, at times, rather slow...not bad but slow. And, at the end it becomes glacially slow!! Because of that, as well as the constricted affect of most of the actors (definitely NOT Keitel), the impact of the film is lessened and the film loses steam. Overall, good but not great.
Interesting premise bogged down by ambiguity
bregund20 April 2017
Warning: Spoilers
If Harvey Keitel with camera eyes doesn't creep you out, then the concept of "deathwatching", a reality show premise if there ever was one, certainly will. This prescient film certainly seems to foretell the advent of TV exploitation of personal identity, complete with a team of producers manipulating events to wring the most dramatic scenes out of its victims. You could argue that Katherine signed off on it, as all of today's reality-show contestants do, but we're not seeing the most watchable scenes as we do on a reality show, instead this film shows long, boring stretches of time, self-reflection, bickering, and routine mundane details such as sleeping in a hostel or riding on a bus, intended to convey a sense of impending doom I suppose. At one point Keitel is wracked with guilt at betraying Katherine's trust, but by that point it seems rather disingenuous and artificial. Max von Sydow is wonderful, as he is in everything he does, and here he makes the most of a small but important role as he tries to give Katherine some dignity. All in all, the film doesn't go deeply enough into the characters for me to care about any of them.
Dying to be a star
sol12185 April 2012
Warning: Spoilers
***SPOILERS*** Futuristic movie about this TV reality show that has a person die live on TV from some unknown and incurable disease who's ratings have been going through the roof. It's up to the shows producer Vincent Ferreiman, Harry Dean Stanton,to get new contestants who are about to die on the show for a fee of $500,000.00 to $600,000.00 and let them do the dying for him live on TV!
The latest contestant Kathy Graves, Romy Schneider, has been told by her quack doctor who works for the reality show a Dr.Mason, William Russell,that she's got not more then two months to live. Even though Kathy who seems to be full of life with a pair rosy cheeks and California surfer girl complication looks like the very picture of health! Kathy soon gets a bit fed up in becoming a TV star by dying live on the air and goes into hiding in the slummy section of Glasgow Scotland at a church run flop house for the homeless. It's later that reporter Roddy,Harvey Keitel, is hired by the TV studio NTV to track Kathy down with a TV video camera implanted in his head. It's then that Roddy like Gregory Peck in the 1969 film "The Chairman" can record Kathy's every movement up until the moment she dies of her fatal disease which will be broadcast live on NTV!
As Roddy gets to know Kathy his opinions about her suddenly change in that she's not only some hot dish, in the cold dreary and drizzling Gasgow surroundings, but he suspects that she's nowhere as sick or dying of an incurable disease as he's been told by his boss TV producer Ferriman. In fact later Roddy's build in his skull video camera malfunctions that also provided him, who lost his sight by being a POW in some unmanned past war, with the ability to see.
***SPOILER ALERT*** Joining sides with Kathy, who's now his both eyes and ears, that blind and clueless Ruddy gets to her, with Kathy's directions, first husband Gerald Mortenhoe's, Max Von Sydon, house on the Scottish coast who for the last six years has been writing classical music and getting drunk on 12 to 25 year old bottles of scotch whiskey. It's then that the truth comes out about Kathy's so-called fatal illness which is not only not fatal but had been made up by Ferriman and quack doctor Mason just to have her as a contestant on his top rated TV show "Death Watch"! You can't really blame Kathy in what she did at the end of the movie in seeing that her whole life was turned upside down by being exploited and humiliated by TV producer Ferriman. The best part about all that was that Ferriman had no way of getting Kathy's last moments on earth broadcast on his show since his cameraman Roddy, with his head installed TV video camera out of commission, had no way of recording it.
The latest contestant Kathy Graves, Romy Schneider, has been told by her quack doctor who works for the reality show a Dr.Mason, William Russell,that she's got not more then two months to live. Even though Kathy who seems to be full of life with a pair rosy cheeks and California surfer girl complication looks like the very picture of health! Kathy soon gets a bit fed up in becoming a TV star by dying live on the air and goes into hiding in the slummy section of Glasgow Scotland at a church run flop house for the homeless. It's later that reporter Roddy,Harvey Keitel, is hired by the TV studio NTV to track Kathy down with a TV video camera implanted in his head. It's then that Roddy like Gregory Peck in the 1969 film "The Chairman" can record Kathy's every movement up until the moment she dies of her fatal disease which will be broadcast live on NTV!
As Roddy gets to know Kathy his opinions about her suddenly change in that she's not only some hot dish, in the cold dreary and drizzling Gasgow surroundings, but he suspects that she's nowhere as sick or dying of an incurable disease as he's been told by his boss TV producer Ferriman. In fact later Roddy's build in his skull video camera malfunctions that also provided him, who lost his sight by being a POW in some unmanned past war, with the ability to see.
***SPOILER ALERT*** Joining sides with Kathy, who's now his both eyes and ears, that blind and clueless Ruddy gets to her, with Kathy's directions, first husband Gerald Mortenhoe's, Max Von Sydon, house on the Scottish coast who for the last six years has been writing classical music and getting drunk on 12 to 25 year old bottles of scotch whiskey. It's then that the truth comes out about Kathy's so-called fatal illness which is not only not fatal but had been made up by Ferriman and quack doctor Mason just to have her as a contestant on his top rated TV show "Death Watch"! You can't really blame Kathy in what she did at the end of the movie in seeing that her whole life was turned upside down by being exploited and humiliated by TV producer Ferriman. The best part about all that was that Ferriman had no way of getting Kathy's last moments on earth broadcast on his show since his cameraman Roddy, with his head installed TV video camera out of commission, had no way of recording it.
Romy, Keitel, great script-- but movie doesn't live up to its potential
gdauphin7 August 2006
I'm saddened that no one seems to remember Romy Schneider-- at least in the USA they don't. Arguably the most beautiful woman who ever lived, she deserves a place next to Ingrid Bergman, Sophia Loren, Bardot, and Liz, among others, as one of the great screen beauties. This is not her best film and she was a bit past her prime at this point, but anything with Romy is worth seeing. Haunting to watch knowing that she died soon after. The film itself is highly flawed, which is a shame because it had all the right elements-- great director, brilliant cast, fascinating script. What went wrong? Would be interesting to see if someone else can make a successful remake. Perhaps in the hands of Mr. Minghella?... but more likely they'd give it to a Hollywood director who would cast Meg Ryan in the Romy Schneider part. So, let's leave well enough alone. Please.
Prescient dark film - how long 'til we're watching "Deathwatch"?
fwatherton6 December 2003
This movie foretold the downside of the "reality TV" craze twenty years before it happened. Wonderful brooding cinematography around greater Glasgow at its most depressed. This is definitely a film which deserves to be in greater circulation and better known than it currently is. Romy Schneider's last film, ironically enough, and an excellent very real performance in a fairly artsy 70s vein. I should note I saw this in Glasgow some years ago, and it was the European cut, not what sounds to be a bowdlerized American version which misses some of the point.
Harvey Keitel's Bobby Deerfield
TheFearmakers3 June 2022
An intense firebrand of a crime-genre actor playing against type during the 1970's Renaissance opposite a beautiful dying European woman is reminiscent of BOBBY DEERFIELD, where Al Pacino put the breaks on his otherwise aggressive persona as a subdued race car driver driving around with Martha Keller, and Harvey Keitel opposite Romy Schneider will seem like deja vu, only it's science-fiction along with the romantic melodrama...
Both elements coexisting in a not so futuristic-looking future where people rarely die of diseases, and a television series called DEATH WATCH does what THE TRUMAN SHOW would years later: filming the life of a person without them knowing, and where Keitel, working for shallow producer Harry Dean Stanton, has cameras implanted into his eyes to follow a dying author, Schneider's Katherine Mortenhoe, around the eclectic Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland location, from beautiful tall grass fields to various dark-art ghettos, where she thinks he's simply her love interest, not a roaming camera...
The shame is that French director Bertrand Tavernier never fully realizes how creative and potentially intriguing the TV-station's plot-line is, throwing most of the more suspenseful aspects meant for the characters onto their travelogue-style surroundings, peppered with random protesters within a quasi police state that's supposed to be of an Orwellian nature but without explaining exactly how, or why...
Making DEATH WATCH lovely on the eyes, and, filled with a terrific side-cast from a gorgeous barfly (Caroline Langrishe) to Keitel's faithful narrating ex (Thérèse Liotard) to an 11th hour expository Max Von Sydow, it's an involving enough character-study... but when Keitel''s given his own dire circumstance to compete with the woman he's predictably fallen for, the couple's need and passion is deleted, leaving the audience very little to hold onto for either the science-fiction or romance genre.
Both elements coexisting in a not so futuristic-looking future where people rarely die of diseases, and a television series called DEATH WATCH does what THE TRUMAN SHOW would years later: filming the life of a person without them knowing, and where Keitel, working for shallow producer Harry Dean Stanton, has cameras implanted into his eyes to follow a dying author, Schneider's Katherine Mortenhoe, around the eclectic Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland location, from beautiful tall grass fields to various dark-art ghettos, where she thinks he's simply her love interest, not a roaming camera...
The shame is that French director Bertrand Tavernier never fully realizes how creative and potentially intriguing the TV-station's plot-line is, throwing most of the more suspenseful aspects meant for the characters onto their travelogue-style surroundings, peppered with random protesters within a quasi police state that's supposed to be of an Orwellian nature but without explaining exactly how, or why...
Making DEATH WATCH lovely on the eyes, and, filled with a terrific side-cast from a gorgeous barfly (Caroline Langrishe) to Keitel's faithful narrating ex (Thérèse Liotard) to an 11th hour expository Max Von Sydow, it's an involving enough character-study... but when Keitel''s given his own dire circumstance to compete with the woman he's predictably fallen for, the couple's need and passion is deleted, leaving the audience very little to hold onto for either the science-fiction or romance genre.
Prescient but Pretentious
a_chinn9 May 2017
This European science fiction story reminded me in many ways of Fassbinder's "World on a Wire," the starkness, the deliberate pacing, and the art house pretensions all within a clever sci-fi premise. However, Fassbinder made his film engaging, suspenseful and also thought provoking. This film, while thought provoking, is dreadfully dull. The story here has TV producer Harry Dead Stanton sending reporter Harvey Keitel (who has camera implants in his eyes with special x-ray properties) to interview a dying writer, Romy Schneider. The film does pose interesting questions about privacy and independence in a society where both are eroding. This topic is made all the more interesting and prescient today, in the age of Google Glass and social media. Unfortunately, the film moves as a leadened pace and is populated with uninvolving characters, despite three strong actors in the leads, along with Max Von Sydow in a supporting role. This film does have it's defenders, but I found it pretentious and dull, though it may be that I'm just not a fan of writer/director Bertrand Tavernier, whose only film I've ever liked was "Coup de torchon."
A superb & somber futuristic thinking man's science fiction film
Woodyanders1 February 2006
Warning: Spoilers
In a bland, sterile, heavily automated future where dying from terminal illness has become virtually obsolete, the fact that best-selling writer Katherine Mortenhoe (a fabulously fiery, feisty turn by Romy Schneider) has a rare mortal sickness that will bring about her untimely demise makes her a prime subject for a tasteless mondo-style live atrocity TV show. But the fiercely proud and self-sufficient Katherine refuses to prostitute her impending death into a hideous spectacle for a jaded audience's sick enjoyment. So amoral, opportunistic director Vincent (a sleazily appealing Harry Dean Stanton), the man responsible for the lurid, top-rated "Death Watch" series, has cameras implanted behind the eyes of eager beaver reporter Roddy (the one and only Harvey Keitel, who's excellent as usual). Roddy befriends the unsuspecting Katherine and secretly records her final days in all their ghastly intimacy.
Directed in a crisp, low-key, thoughtful manner by Bertrand Taverneir, with a lucid, intelligent, provocative script by Taverneir and David Rayfiel, sumptuous, prowling, appropriately voyeuristic cinematography by Pierre William Glenn, a beautifully melancholy tone, a frantic screaming violins classical music score by Antoine Duhamel, a deliberately gradual pace, and a lovely cameo by Max Von Sydow as Katherine's wise, reclusive schoolteacher father, this eerily prophetic and gravely philosophical film ruminates on a compelling variety of very timely and topical post-modern issues: technological advancements making it easier to invade a person's privacy and causing creativity to stagnate (Katherine's novels are actually written by a computer that she strictly programs ideas into), technology overwhelming mankind so greatly that it causes people to become unfeeling, dispassionate automatons, the morbidly irresistible allure of real life tragedy, man's denial of his own mortality, journalistic ethics, dying with your dignity intact, even fate vs. free will. A brilliant, moving, and most accomplished thinking man's science fiction gem.
Directed in a crisp, low-key, thoughtful manner by Bertrand Taverneir, with a lucid, intelligent, provocative script by Taverneir and David Rayfiel, sumptuous, prowling, appropriately voyeuristic cinematography by Pierre William Glenn, a beautifully melancholy tone, a frantic screaming violins classical music score by Antoine Duhamel, a deliberately gradual pace, and a lovely cameo by Max Von Sydow as Katherine's wise, reclusive schoolteacher father, this eerily prophetic and gravely philosophical film ruminates on a compelling variety of very timely and topical post-modern issues: technological advancements making it easier to invade a person's privacy and causing creativity to stagnate (Katherine's novels are actually written by a computer that she strictly programs ideas into), technology overwhelming mankind so greatly that it causes people to become unfeeling, dispassionate automatons, the morbidly irresistible allure of real life tragedy, man's denial of his own mortality, journalistic ethics, dying with your dignity intact, even fate vs. free will. A brilliant, moving, and most accomplished thinking man's science fiction gem.
foresees reality TV but disappoints
adamwarlock11 October 2017
Great cast and a great idea but ultimately doesn't do the job. In a future that looks like 1979 Scotland, a TV show wants to chronicle a dying woman's final days because death is now rare among all but the elderly thanks to modern medicine (we used to have faith in that). Besides the eye cameras in Harvey Kietel's eyes and a computer the heroine uses to co-write trashy novels, not much of the future is seen on screen. Why is a French director filming in the UK with American & Austrian leads? The film takes it's sweet time, basically the first half to get to Kietel filming the woman as she goes on the run. The idea is ahead of it's time with reality TV and media manipulation. But the pace is slow, the visuals bleak and colorless. The conclusion wasn't satisfying to me at all. A misfire.
Driftwood
WOZ inOZ6 May 2002
Bertrand Tavernier's tale of a critically ill woman hounded by a television network for its popular show 'Deathwatch' could be looked back in 1980 as almost a premonition in these times of reality TV and their popularity with today's viewing public.
A strong cast portrays a simple, if at times ponderous story dealing the acceptance of death and those out to prosper from it, with Harvey Keitel putting in a passionate driving performance as the TV company's 'virtual camera', a point in the film which adds a certain element of fantasy to the whole proceedings, along with vague decrepit industrial towns and eerie bays as the backdrop for the main characters to drift through. However, despite strong performances all round, the journey the film takes never seems to reach a definitive destination, rather slows, bogs down and then finally stops, and despite keeping the viewer intrigued throughout never seems to deliver anything more than the inevitable.
There is no doubt 'Deathwatch' is an original, eerie and at times beautiful film but one that does not necessarily make sense, just like Max von Sydow's eloquent line in the film that 'Events that have no significance like the flight of a bird, do not have to mean something.'
A strong cast portrays a simple, if at times ponderous story dealing the acceptance of death and those out to prosper from it, with Harvey Keitel putting in a passionate driving performance as the TV company's 'virtual camera', a point in the film which adds a certain element of fantasy to the whole proceedings, along with vague decrepit industrial towns and eerie bays as the backdrop for the main characters to drift through. However, despite strong performances all round, the journey the film takes never seems to reach a definitive destination, rather slows, bogs down and then finally stops, and despite keeping the viewer intrigued throughout never seems to deliver anything more than the inevitable.
There is no doubt 'Deathwatch' is an original, eerie and at times beautiful film but one that does not necessarily make sense, just like Max von Sydow's eloquent line in the film that 'Events that have no significance like the flight of a bird, do not have to mean something.'
I Didn't Know There Were 2 Versions:
franz6618 April 2008
Warning: Spoilers
SPOILERS!
I was shown this film in a course called "Modernism & Modernity" in the Cinema Dep't at Binghamton University back in 1986 and have never forgotten it (thank you Prof. Walsh). I have gone on to use it in my own Media Studies high school class, for it is perhaps even a more relevant critique of a celebrity and "reality" obsessed screen culture today than it was when it was released in 1980. It also serves as a fine example of how the genre of science fiction need not rely on "futuristic" expensive locations and effects, for it is incredibly location-driven and the bleakness of the Scotland it was filmed in reflects its interior contemplations on the "progress" of humanity via technology. (In these ways, it reminds me of the recent "Children of Men" by Alfonso Cuaron.)
The idea of video cameras being implanted in someone's eyes is brilliant and full of narrative possibilities. And unavoidable for us it seems. The portrayal of the reality TV show producer as being callous and only interested in ratings - with his firm belief that everyone/viewers have a "right to know" pushes the story into the opposites: "If everything is of interest, nothing is important", says the dying woman in a society where there is no natural death.
Sight as knowing and the eyes as technology opens up many theoretical discussions, especially because of the Oedipal-like scene where Roddy blinds himself for "knowing" too much.... for his shame in that knowing, as if sight gives you knowledge. (Yet as Hitchcock showed us again and again, sight is unreliable.) Reading in another user's comment that the original film's story had Katherine's death a falsity set up by the producers in order to set their show in motion made me gasp, for that makes all of the film's meanings even more powerful and painful. Wow.
This film may very well be the most memorable film I have ever seen and, yes, I agree with all the other comment-writers that it should indeed be brought into the light of day (WITHOUT "remaking" it!!!!!)
I was shown this film in a course called "Modernism & Modernity" in the Cinema Dep't at Binghamton University back in 1986 and have never forgotten it (thank you Prof. Walsh). I have gone on to use it in my own Media Studies high school class, for it is perhaps even a more relevant critique of a celebrity and "reality" obsessed screen culture today than it was when it was released in 1980. It also serves as a fine example of how the genre of science fiction need not rely on "futuristic" expensive locations and effects, for it is incredibly location-driven and the bleakness of the Scotland it was filmed in reflects its interior contemplations on the "progress" of humanity via technology. (In these ways, it reminds me of the recent "Children of Men" by Alfonso Cuaron.)
The idea of video cameras being implanted in someone's eyes is brilliant and full of narrative possibilities. And unavoidable for us it seems. The portrayal of the reality TV show producer as being callous and only interested in ratings - with his firm belief that everyone/viewers have a "right to know" pushes the story into the opposites: "If everything is of interest, nothing is important", says the dying woman in a society where there is no natural death.
Sight as knowing and the eyes as technology opens up many theoretical discussions, especially because of the Oedipal-like scene where Roddy blinds himself for "knowing" too much.... for his shame in that knowing, as if sight gives you knowledge. (Yet as Hitchcock showed us again and again, sight is unreliable.) Reading in another user's comment that the original film's story had Katherine's death a falsity set up by the producers in order to set their show in motion made me gasp, for that makes all of the film's meanings even more powerful and painful. Wow.
This film may very well be the most memorable film I have ever seen and, yes, I agree with all the other comment-writers that it should indeed be brought into the light of day (WITHOUT "remaking" it!!!!!)
Scattered & unfocused; great potential, great disappointment
I_Ailurophile3 June 2023
I'd be plainly lying if I said this didn't surprise me, and to be frank, disappoint me. The premise is clear and focused; in my opinion the film itself is not. To whatever extent the movie follows terminally ill Katherine, and discreet "cameraman" Roddy, the scope of the storytelling and the ideas within are broader and less precise. 'Death watch' shows us enough of this near-future world to introduce new notions into the narrative, but not enough to truly build out that world or to do anything with those notions. At one point or another we're treated to intimations of a crumbling dystopian society; the death of imagination; foreshadowing of the real-world emergence in recent years of "artificial intelligence" being "substituted" for the "creation" of art; the loss of privacy; what it means to age and die in a world where death from illness is extremely rare, and how the old and infirm are treated; the corruption and greed of television and studio executives; and more.
Moreover, ideas are treated very unevenly in the narrative, and while it definitely reflects poorly on the screenplay, or at least Bertrand Tavernier's realization of it, I can only hope and assume that David G. Compton's novel is more even-handed. Though it hardly seems like a statement made in good faith, Vincent delivers a sage kernel of wisdom, and a theme that this could have latched upon, of making death personal, and making it matter, in a world where the end of life is largely shuffled out of view; this does not meaningfully characterize the plot as it presents, however. It's also very noteworthy that the movie leaves an aspect of the plot wholly unexplained until the last ten to fifteen minutes, and in so doing adds still another element to the tableau that doesn't remotely feel like it's given all due consideration.
But that's still not all, because there's at least as much emphasis in the storytelling on Roddy as on Katherine, and on Roddy's condition as on Katherine's. What comes across isn't that the picture is made more complex for the fact of these two facets, or any comparisons that could be drawn, but simply that Tavernier, or screenwriter David Rayfiel, couldn't find balance or decide what they actually wanted the end product to be. This is especially true in the last act as the course of events come to a head, and as if everything else going on here weren't enough to trouble the viewing experience, here's one more: I love Antoine Duhamel's score in and of itself, a bevy of ponderous musical themes so striking that I'm actually reminded of Georges Delerue's compositions for Andrzej Zulawski's 'L'important c'est d'aimer' - notes so looming in their immensity as to convey feelings of horror in some measure. Yet despite the bleakness of some of those thoughts this broaches in passing, 'Death watch' is most definitely not a horror film, and it doesn't genuinely carry itself as such in any other manner, so the music seems out of place. And all this is to say nothing of dialogue and scene writing that is part and parcel of the scattered cornucopia the feature represents, and cements it, and also amplifies it under a prominent spotlight.
It's an extraordinary cast that was assembled for this piece, and I think they all give terrific performances. The filming locations and production design are equally terrific; the hair and makeup artists did excellent work. I admire Pierre-William Glenn's cinematography. Down to the very last minutes, however, the writing is indistinct and poorly defined, and it really seems like it never fully knows what it wanted to say, be, or do. This was overloaded with a surfeit of potential, a cavalcade of possibilities, and it tries to throw them all in - with the end result that the entirety is given no clear form, or at least, too little of one. I didn't know what I was getting into when I sat to watch, but I had high expectations just based on the names involved. I'm glad for those who get more out of 'Death watch' than I did, but I think it's all too patchy, uneven, and spread thin to amount to much of anything.
Moreover, ideas are treated very unevenly in the narrative, and while it definitely reflects poorly on the screenplay, or at least Bertrand Tavernier's realization of it, I can only hope and assume that David G. Compton's novel is more even-handed. Though it hardly seems like a statement made in good faith, Vincent delivers a sage kernel of wisdom, and a theme that this could have latched upon, of making death personal, and making it matter, in a world where the end of life is largely shuffled out of view; this does not meaningfully characterize the plot as it presents, however. It's also very noteworthy that the movie leaves an aspect of the plot wholly unexplained until the last ten to fifteen minutes, and in so doing adds still another element to the tableau that doesn't remotely feel like it's given all due consideration.
But that's still not all, because there's at least as much emphasis in the storytelling on Roddy as on Katherine, and on Roddy's condition as on Katherine's. What comes across isn't that the picture is made more complex for the fact of these two facets, or any comparisons that could be drawn, but simply that Tavernier, or screenwriter David Rayfiel, couldn't find balance or decide what they actually wanted the end product to be. This is especially true in the last act as the course of events come to a head, and as if everything else going on here weren't enough to trouble the viewing experience, here's one more: I love Antoine Duhamel's score in and of itself, a bevy of ponderous musical themes so striking that I'm actually reminded of Georges Delerue's compositions for Andrzej Zulawski's 'L'important c'est d'aimer' - notes so looming in their immensity as to convey feelings of horror in some measure. Yet despite the bleakness of some of those thoughts this broaches in passing, 'Death watch' is most definitely not a horror film, and it doesn't genuinely carry itself as such in any other manner, so the music seems out of place. And all this is to say nothing of dialogue and scene writing that is part and parcel of the scattered cornucopia the feature represents, and cements it, and also amplifies it under a prominent spotlight.
It's an extraordinary cast that was assembled for this piece, and I think they all give terrific performances. The filming locations and production design are equally terrific; the hair and makeup artists did excellent work. I admire Pierre-William Glenn's cinematography. Down to the very last minutes, however, the writing is indistinct and poorly defined, and it really seems like it never fully knows what it wanted to say, be, or do. This was overloaded with a surfeit of potential, a cavalcade of possibilities, and it tries to throw them all in - with the end result that the entirety is given no clear form, or at least, too little of one. I didn't know what I was getting into when I sat to watch, but I had high expectations just based on the names involved. I'm glad for those who get more out of 'Death watch' than I did, but I think it's all too patchy, uneven, and spread thin to amount to much of anything.
Where's the trust?
GOWBTW11 December 2016
Warning: Spoilers
Being in journalism is a tough job. When you decide to go to the extreme, it can go either way for you. In "Death Watch", Roddy (Harvey Keitel) takes journalism to a whole new level. He joins this TV network who implants a camera in his brain. The company watches everything through the journalist's eyes. The person of interest is a woman named Katherine(Romy Schneider, 1938-82) who has a terminal illness. She avoids the network every way possible. For Roddy's case, he has a issue he has to heed. He has to be around light. But if he sleeps, or be in darkness for certain times, he would go blind. During the time he was trying to find his flashlight, the damage was done. And Katherine went to her first husband to later discover that she wasn't even that sick. So even blind, Roddy was able to reconnect with his wife. So where's the dignity in this movie? Can't the dying ever have their peace? It's having the news of your life, without the news crew present. It's not all trust in the future, it's all about the money. This is an interesting movie about the future. Simple, but subtle. The more you watch it, the more you know. Simple as that. Rating 4 out of 5 stars.
cult movie shot in Glasgow- Scotland in 1979
nellyd239 March 2001
This film was shot in my home town, Glasgow, in 1979. Since then it has rarely been seen and indeed I only saw it myself for the first time this year. Our local arthouse cinema, the Glasgow Film Theatre, screened a one off presentation of what was alleged to be the last print in existence. Though the print itself was old and worn the film blew me away with its futuristic storyline, fantastic cast and phenomenal locations. It captures Glasgow as it was in the late 70's just before a period of great changes in the landscape of the city. Tavernier skillfully uses an environment that is full of eery imagery - graveyards, cranes and an industrial landscape that is grinding to a halt. The film also depicts a society fascinated with death. Harvey Keitel is excellent as the human camera that allows society the ultimate act of voyeurism - watching someone die on TV. Awesome. Someone, somewhere please commission
Il ne reste plus qu'à se laisser partir dans le soleil mortuaire
Dr_Coulardeau16 November 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Bertrand Tavernier has made in his career some films that have marked his time, which is the second half of the 20th century, which is to say the half-century after the Second World War. Tavernier's style, as it has marked me, is a way of going down into the soul of his characters, the inner and deeper workings of their psyches caught in a world that does not easily admit differences and variances.
This film is probably not a work of genius. First of all, it is impossible because we cannot plug a camera into the brain to capture and broadcast the brain-processed vision of what the subject sees. It is far from what happens on the retina of the two eyes because the continuous flow of sensations received on the retina is then transmitted to the brain which processes these signals in order to find elements already discriminated and kept in memory and then to find new structural elements that this brain identifies in cerebral machine code like all the animals which have a visual apparatus. But this does not really give what man sees when he looks at the world. The brain calls upon the mental level of the consciousness or the subconscious, but also of the unconscious to analyze each identified element but specially to find meta-elements which regroup the first elements already identified. These meta-elements connect and assemble the primary elements and thus reconstruct the types of relationships of the actors, or even the intentions of these various actors in the vision. This is only possible because the psyche of the individual has used its language to reconstruct in an articulated way these streams and flows of visual sensations.
But let us pass over this impossibility. One day, in a few centuries, perhaps it will be possible if humanity has not succeeded by then in its great suicide and if the earth has tolerated this destructive humanity and has not nipped it in the bud with a few pandemics and climatic changes that would lead them to go to war over two grains of rice or a glass of Vichy water, if this water is still drinkable. But I find that this principle of the hidden camera to spy, because in the end it is only spying, the invasion of the private life of the girl that the journalist follows is unbearable. Is it a denunciation? Not really. Is it a celebration? Not really. But then what is it?
I want to say simply, not much except the revelation, behind the simulation of the interest and the empathic support of the journalist for the young girl, and that is only a lie because he does not have anything to do with the young girl who is for him an animal of media laboratory, we see appearing the most diverse hidden forest of envies, desires, hostilities, jealousies, hatreds in our society and that even those who profess to help the homeless and other domestic migrants without asking questions and without stating conditions, in fact all have a biased look that imposes a reading where there should not be one, and the reading is always that we are happy that it is not us. This is a cathartic film, but it does not liberate anyone from violence or the desire to kill, rape, violate or simply destroy the other, but an anti-catharsis that is happy that these homeless and other internal migrants exist because they ultimately justify our freedom, that is, the fact that we don't have to suffer this situation and become wandering migrants from one margin to another, and this is our mistake, our illusion. We hide our knowledge that there is no hope for a happy ending because we all know that hunger and thirst know no rest and that sooner or later it will catch up with us. And think of Afghanistan. The Westerners and first of all the Americans had sworn that they had liberated the country. They had closed their eyes to the horror of their intervention.
If you want to convince yourself of the delusional and hallucinatory madness we live in, buy Stephen King's latest novel, Billy Summers, and you will get an account of what he calls lalafallujah, and I assure you that one would develop PTSD or PTSS at far less than what these American GIs are suffering and putting the locals through in Iraq.
This film thus poses a concept of reverse catharsis that allows so-called normal people to dump all the evils of the world onto the marginalized and to close the gates so that they cannot escape. As long as evil is contained in one country or another, we have the illusion that it will not reach us. And meanwhile Germany needs two or three million more workers. So, let's talk about lowering the working-week and retirement age, and we will have to import like cattle a few million more migrants, giving rise to more and more racist and segregationist ideologies in our countries. I don't know why Tavernier embarked on this film, originally in English, but what follows from the vision is not the most brilliant prophecy. It was a year before the defeat of Giscard d'Estaing in the presidential election of 1981. He was already seeing what was coming and soon Facebook was going to come, which is a camera inside our brain that films everything that happens there with an artificial intelligence that allows the machine to lead us by the tip of the nose, and when I say by the nose it is probably by the tip of the thalamus.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
VERSION FRANÇAISE
Bertrand Tavernier a fait dans sa carrière quelques films qui ont marqué son époque qui reste la deuxième moitié du 20ème siècle, donc le demi-siècle après la deuxième guerre mondiale. Le style de Tavernier tel qu'il m'a marqué est une façon de descendre dans l'âme de ses personnages, les rouages internes et profonds de leurs psychisme pris dans une monde qui n'admet pas facilement la différence et la variance.
Ce film n'est probablement pas une oeuvre de génie. D'abord elle est impossible car on ne peut pas brancher une caméra dans le cerveau pour capter et diffuser la vision traitée par le cerveau de ce que le sujet voit. On est loin de ce qui arrive sur la rétine des deux yeux car le continu reçu sur la rétine est ensuite transmis au cerveau qui traite de ces signaux en vue de trouver des éléments déjà discriminés et gardés en mémoire et ensuite pour trouver de nouveaux éléments structurels que ce cerveau identifie en code machine cérébrale comme tous les animaux qui ont un appareil visuel. Mais cela ne donne pas vraiment ce que l'homme voit quand il regarde le monde. Le cerveau fait appel au niveau mental de la conscience ou du subconscient, mais aussi de l'inconscient pour analyser chaque élément identifié mais surtout trouver des méta-éléments qui regroupent les éléments premiers déjà identifiés. Ces méta-éléments mettent en rapport les éléments premiers et donc reconstruisent les types de relations, voire les intentions des divers actants de la vision. Cela n'est possible que parce que le psychisme de l'individu a utilisé son langage pour reconstruire de façon articulée ces flots et flux de sensations visuelles.
Mais passons outre cette impossibilité. Un jour, dans quelques siècles, peut-être que cela sera possible si l'humanité n'a pas réussi d'ici là son grand suicide et si la terre a toléré cette humanité destructrice et ne l'a pas étouffée dans l'oeuf avec quelques pandémies et changements climatiques qui les amèneraient à se faire la guerre pour deux grains de riz ou un verre d'eau de Vichy, si cette eau est encore potable. Mais je trouve que ce principe de la caméra cachée pour espionner, car en définitive ce n'est que de l'espionnage, de l'invasion de la vie privée de la jeune fille que le journaliste suit à la trace, est purement intolérable. Est-ce une dénonciation ? Non pas vraiment. Est-ce une célébration ? Non pas vraiment. Mais alors qu'est-ce que c'est ?
J'ai envie de dire simplement, pas grand chose sinon la révélation, derrière la simulation de l'intérêt et du soutien empathique du journaliste pour la jeune fille, et cela n'est que mensonge car il n'en a rien à faire de la jeune fille qui est pour lui une bête de laboratoire médiatique, on voit apparaître la forêt dissimulée des envies, des désirs, des hostilités, des jalousies, des haines les plus diverses de la société et que même ceux qui font profession d'aider les SDF et autres migrants internes domestiques sans poser de questions et sans énoncer des conditions, en fait ont tous un regard biaisé qui impose une lecture là où il ne devrait pas y en avoir, et la lecture est toujours que l'on est heureux que ce ne soit pas nous. On a là un films cathartique mais qui ne libère personne de la violence ou du désir de tuer, violer, violenter ou simplement détruire l'autre, mais une anti-catharsis qui est heureuse que ces SDF et autres migrants intérieurs existent car ils justifient en dernière analyse notre liberté, entendons, le fait que nous n'avons pas à subir cette situation et à devenir des migrants errants d'une marge à une autre, et c'est bien là notre erreur, notre illusion. Nous dissimulons notre savoir qu'il n'y a aucun espoir que tout cela finisse bien car nous savons tous que la faim et la soif ne connaissent aucune relâche et que tôt ou tard cela nous rattrapera. Et pensez donc à l'Afghanistan. Les Occidentaux et en premier lieu les Américains avaient juré leurs grands dieux qu'ils avaient libéré le pays. Ils avaient fermé leurs yeux sur l'horreur de leur intervention.
Si vous voulez vous convaincre de la folie illusoire et hallucinante dans laquelle nous vivons, achetez le dernier roman de Stephen King, Billy Summers, et vous aurez un récit de ce qu'il appelle lalafallujah, et je vous assure que l'on développerait un PTSS ou un PTSD à bien moins que ce que ces GIs américains subissent et font subir aux locaux en Irak.
Ce film pose donc un concept de catharsis inversée qui permet aux gens dits normaux de rejeter sur les marginaux tous les maux du monde et de fermer les grilles pour qu'ils ne puissent pas fuir. Tant que le mal est contenu dans tel ou tel pays, nous avons l'illusion qu'il [...]
This film is probably not a work of genius. First of all, it is impossible because we cannot plug a camera into the brain to capture and broadcast the brain-processed vision of what the subject sees. It is far from what happens on the retina of the two eyes because the continuous flow of sensations received on the retina is then transmitted to the brain which processes these signals in order to find elements already discriminated and kept in memory and then to find new structural elements that this brain identifies in cerebral machine code like all the animals which have a visual apparatus. But this does not really give what man sees when he looks at the world. The brain calls upon the mental level of the consciousness or the subconscious, but also of the unconscious to analyze each identified element but specially to find meta-elements which regroup the first elements already identified. These meta-elements connect and assemble the primary elements and thus reconstruct the types of relationships of the actors, or even the intentions of these various actors in the vision. This is only possible because the psyche of the individual has used its language to reconstruct in an articulated way these streams and flows of visual sensations.
But let us pass over this impossibility. One day, in a few centuries, perhaps it will be possible if humanity has not succeeded by then in its great suicide and if the earth has tolerated this destructive humanity and has not nipped it in the bud with a few pandemics and climatic changes that would lead them to go to war over two grains of rice or a glass of Vichy water, if this water is still drinkable. But I find that this principle of the hidden camera to spy, because in the end it is only spying, the invasion of the private life of the girl that the journalist follows is unbearable. Is it a denunciation? Not really. Is it a celebration? Not really. But then what is it?
I want to say simply, not much except the revelation, behind the simulation of the interest and the empathic support of the journalist for the young girl, and that is only a lie because he does not have anything to do with the young girl who is for him an animal of media laboratory, we see appearing the most diverse hidden forest of envies, desires, hostilities, jealousies, hatreds in our society and that even those who profess to help the homeless and other domestic migrants without asking questions and without stating conditions, in fact all have a biased look that imposes a reading where there should not be one, and the reading is always that we are happy that it is not us. This is a cathartic film, but it does not liberate anyone from violence or the desire to kill, rape, violate or simply destroy the other, but an anti-catharsis that is happy that these homeless and other internal migrants exist because they ultimately justify our freedom, that is, the fact that we don't have to suffer this situation and become wandering migrants from one margin to another, and this is our mistake, our illusion. We hide our knowledge that there is no hope for a happy ending because we all know that hunger and thirst know no rest and that sooner or later it will catch up with us. And think of Afghanistan. The Westerners and first of all the Americans had sworn that they had liberated the country. They had closed their eyes to the horror of their intervention.
If you want to convince yourself of the delusional and hallucinatory madness we live in, buy Stephen King's latest novel, Billy Summers, and you will get an account of what he calls lalafallujah, and I assure you that one would develop PTSD or PTSS at far less than what these American GIs are suffering and putting the locals through in Iraq.
This film thus poses a concept of reverse catharsis that allows so-called normal people to dump all the evils of the world onto the marginalized and to close the gates so that they cannot escape. As long as evil is contained in one country or another, we have the illusion that it will not reach us. And meanwhile Germany needs two or three million more workers. So, let's talk about lowering the working-week and retirement age, and we will have to import like cattle a few million more migrants, giving rise to more and more racist and segregationist ideologies in our countries. I don't know why Tavernier embarked on this film, originally in English, but what follows from the vision is not the most brilliant prophecy. It was a year before the defeat of Giscard d'Estaing in the presidential election of 1981. He was already seeing what was coming and soon Facebook was going to come, which is a camera inside our brain that films everything that happens there with an artificial intelligence that allows the machine to lead us by the tip of the nose, and when I say by the nose it is probably by the tip of the thalamus.
Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU
VERSION FRANÇAISE
Bertrand Tavernier a fait dans sa carrière quelques films qui ont marqué son époque qui reste la deuxième moitié du 20ème siècle, donc le demi-siècle après la deuxième guerre mondiale. Le style de Tavernier tel qu'il m'a marqué est une façon de descendre dans l'âme de ses personnages, les rouages internes et profonds de leurs psychisme pris dans une monde qui n'admet pas facilement la différence et la variance.
Ce film n'est probablement pas une oeuvre de génie. D'abord elle est impossible car on ne peut pas brancher une caméra dans le cerveau pour capter et diffuser la vision traitée par le cerveau de ce que le sujet voit. On est loin de ce qui arrive sur la rétine des deux yeux car le continu reçu sur la rétine est ensuite transmis au cerveau qui traite de ces signaux en vue de trouver des éléments déjà discriminés et gardés en mémoire et ensuite pour trouver de nouveaux éléments structurels que ce cerveau identifie en code machine cérébrale comme tous les animaux qui ont un appareil visuel. Mais cela ne donne pas vraiment ce que l'homme voit quand il regarde le monde. Le cerveau fait appel au niveau mental de la conscience ou du subconscient, mais aussi de l'inconscient pour analyser chaque élément identifié mais surtout trouver des méta-éléments qui regroupent les éléments premiers déjà identifiés. Ces méta-éléments mettent en rapport les éléments premiers et donc reconstruisent les types de relations, voire les intentions des divers actants de la vision. Cela n'est possible que parce que le psychisme de l'individu a utilisé son langage pour reconstruire de façon articulée ces flots et flux de sensations visuelles.
Mais passons outre cette impossibilité. Un jour, dans quelques siècles, peut-être que cela sera possible si l'humanité n'a pas réussi d'ici là son grand suicide et si la terre a toléré cette humanité destructrice et ne l'a pas étouffée dans l'oeuf avec quelques pandémies et changements climatiques qui les amèneraient à se faire la guerre pour deux grains de riz ou un verre d'eau de Vichy, si cette eau est encore potable. Mais je trouve que ce principe de la caméra cachée pour espionner, car en définitive ce n'est que de l'espionnage, de l'invasion de la vie privée de la jeune fille que le journaliste suit à la trace, est purement intolérable. Est-ce une dénonciation ? Non pas vraiment. Est-ce une célébration ? Non pas vraiment. Mais alors qu'est-ce que c'est ?
J'ai envie de dire simplement, pas grand chose sinon la révélation, derrière la simulation de l'intérêt et du soutien empathique du journaliste pour la jeune fille, et cela n'est que mensonge car il n'en a rien à faire de la jeune fille qui est pour lui une bête de laboratoire médiatique, on voit apparaître la forêt dissimulée des envies, des désirs, des hostilités, des jalousies, des haines les plus diverses de la société et que même ceux qui font profession d'aider les SDF et autres migrants internes domestiques sans poser de questions et sans énoncer des conditions, en fait ont tous un regard biaisé qui impose une lecture là où il ne devrait pas y en avoir, et la lecture est toujours que l'on est heureux que ce ne soit pas nous. On a là un films cathartique mais qui ne libère personne de la violence ou du désir de tuer, violer, violenter ou simplement détruire l'autre, mais une anti-catharsis qui est heureuse que ces SDF et autres migrants intérieurs existent car ils justifient en dernière analyse notre liberté, entendons, le fait que nous n'avons pas à subir cette situation et à devenir des migrants errants d'une marge à une autre, et c'est bien là notre erreur, notre illusion. Nous dissimulons notre savoir qu'il n'y a aucun espoir que tout cela finisse bien car nous savons tous que la faim et la soif ne connaissent aucune relâche et que tôt ou tard cela nous rattrapera. Et pensez donc à l'Afghanistan. Les Occidentaux et en premier lieu les Américains avaient juré leurs grands dieux qu'ils avaient libéré le pays. Ils avaient fermé leurs yeux sur l'horreur de leur intervention.
Si vous voulez vous convaincre de la folie illusoire et hallucinante dans laquelle nous vivons, achetez le dernier roman de Stephen King, Billy Summers, et vous aurez un récit de ce qu'il appelle lalafallujah, et je vous assure que l'on développerait un PTSS ou un PTSD à bien moins que ce que ces GIs américains subissent et font subir aux locaux en Irak.
Ce film pose donc un concept de catharsis inversée qui permet aux gens dits normaux de rejeter sur les marginaux tous les maux du monde et de fermer les grilles pour qu'ils ne puissent pas fuir. Tant que le mal est contenu dans tel ou tel pays, nous avons l'illusion qu'il [...]
An under-appreciated, influential gem of a movie...
Kinski_Paganini28 October 2003
In what is said to be a tragically prophetic role, Romy Schneider gives a superb performance as a dying woman at the mercy of a voyeuristic society presided over by a greedy television executive (coldly played by the brilliant Harry Dean Stanton). Also of note is an elegant cameo by the legendary Max von Sydow.
Why this movie has yet to get a rerelease is entirely beyond me. It doesn't help that it's nearly impossible to find in terms of both rental and sale. If you are able to track it down, then do not pass up the chance to see it.
Why this movie has yet to get a rerelease is entirely beyond me. It doesn't help that it's nearly impossible to find in terms of both rental and sale. If you are able to track it down, then do not pass up the chance to see it.
Great flick, Romy Schneider's last film and Harvey Keitel is wonderful.
rosie-5622 October 1999
I saw this film in May 1980, loved it, and immediately became a Harvey Keitel and Romy Schneider fan. I was shocked and saddened to read the next week in the newspaper that Romy Schneider had died suddenly. This was haunting -- especially since in this film she plays a woman who is dying and just wants to be left alone. Harvey Keitel plays a reporter working for a TV station who wants to up their ratings by filming raw drama. Harvey follows her, befriends her, and secretly films her on the run as she falls sicker and falls in love with Harvey. There are wonderful twists in the plot and technology ground breakers. Harvey has a camera lens implanted in his eye but the side effect is that he can never sleep. When I saw the Truman Show, it reminded me of this film from so long ago whose treatment of the subject matter (filming someone's life who is unaware of the fact) was such a new and exciting concept. Check this film out. You will not be disappointed!
Why have I never heard of this film before?
susan-19117 July 2004
Warning: Spoilers
This was listed on a commercial station (55- in NYC- thank you!) and was
played with mercifully few breaks. Still! An amazing, timely, quite profound and haunting movie. As mentioned elsewhere it is a bit ponderous and does
meander, but the best moments are gorgeous. Spoiler?: (Harvey catching sight
of the intimate moments he's filmed in a grocery store and realizing the betrayal of trust he has engineered.) The brief soliloquoy by Max Von Sydow on the lack of 'meaning' in life- which somehow is comforting! The version that another commentor mentions wherein Romy (and without you
other cineastes I wouldn't know that this was Romy's last film- what a waste!) is not dying- is just being set up- that would make perfect sense. Harry Dean is fabulous- why doesn't he work more? Please consider upping the rating of this.
played with mercifully few breaks. Still! An amazing, timely, quite profound and haunting movie. As mentioned elsewhere it is a bit ponderous and does
meander, but the best moments are gorgeous. Spoiler?: (Harvey catching sight
of the intimate moments he's filmed in a grocery store and realizing the betrayal of trust he has engineered.) The brief soliloquoy by Max Von Sydow on the lack of 'meaning' in life- which somehow is comforting! The version that another commentor mentions wherein Romy (and without you
other cineastes I wouldn't know that this was Romy's last film- what a waste!) is not dying- is just being set up- that would make perfect sense. Harry Dean is fabulous- why doesn't he work more? Please consider upping the rating of this.
dark
brianhart6427 August 2001
I just finished watching this movie in a pitch black room and boy was it dark.Several sequences bordered on the invisible as Harvey Keitel descends into a cameraman´s room 101. Romy Schneider a revelation and spreading compassion on all throughout. The cityscapes are glorious and the faceless people of Glasgow add to the alienation expressed by the script. Excellent shift of pace as Max von Sydow enters to fulfill Romy Schneiders dreams. Great cast, though Harry Dean Stanton under-used, and a sin that this is not more widely recognised.
great film
zazu-626 February 2000
I don't know if it is on video, but I wish I could watch this film again, after 20 years the idea still feels fresh and alive. even though there is truman show, it is not even getting close to the greatness of this film. Today, I have told a writer who is working on a cyberfilm script, to go watch this film first. technology is only a tool (most scifi films tend to forget) in telling the story of 2 suffering souls. The humans are not lost behind the scifi gimmicks, the film is about us humans. watch this film, you really won't be disappoi
One of Romy Schneider's greatest films.
Carlo Houtkamp7 February 2000
When I first saw this film at the age of seven, I was left highly impressed. From that moment on, Death Watch (La Mort en Direct) has been one of my favourite films. Although there are some weaker moments (a dull voice-over from a supporting actress, a climax that does not really hit the spot, French opening titles) the acting, the dialogues, haunting soundtrack and the charisma of Schneider and Keitel make watching this film a very good experience. Credit also to the director of photography and his camera crew, whose wonderful style may remind you of Dean Cundey's work on Halloween (1978).
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