Mid-media storm in Voyeur, Fooss wife Anita stares hesitantly at a copy of The Denver Post on their driveway, as if afraid its going to bite her. This is a BETA experience. Immediately, the film ties the figures of Talese and Foos togetheror, rather, Talese ties himself to the voyeur, explicitly, when he says matter-of-factly, Im a voyeur myself. He gives a tour of his obsessive archives, materials kept in boxes covered in collages with headlines and images from articles on and by Talese. We have our villain in the form of Shannon Whisnant, the man who bought the grill and found the foot. Survived by his beloved wife of 65 years, Eleanor (Steimes) Foos; children, Kathleen Martini, Richard (Kathleen) Foos, Sharon (Thomas) Scantlin, James (June) Foos, meanwhile, grows increasingly hostile to his perception that Talese thinks he's better than Foos, hobnobbing with big shots in New York while Foos and his wife spend their days watching TV in the Denver suburbs. Out of it stem other, lesser faults faults of fact, taste, and ethics but it is this violation that makes the whole book basically untenable. Taleses narrative is undeniably fascinating. Joan Didion Doesn't Owe the World Anything. See rank. Finally, I will be able to satisfy my constant yearning and uncontrollable desire to peer into other peoples lives. For all his caution, he did sometimes take risks. He said his Here we have a book full of motel vents, a document opening down on something inarguably and inherently private, reproduced in bookstores around the country. Netflixs 2017 documentary Voyeur starts as a straightforward documentary that follows iconic writer Gay Talese as he spends 30 years with self-proclaimed voyeur Gerald Foos. He then published it online. They are Owen, Ethan, and Braedyn Johnson. The Jinx, for example, the investigation into the crimes of Robert Durst, pivots around Durst confessing on a hot mic. The film is well-made and worth watching. What starts out as New Zealand journalist, David Farriers curiosity about something called Competitive Endurance Tickling quickly spirals into an investigation of one persons sick scam to blackmail young (white, heterosexual, able-bodied) men into obedience and silence. As Talese discovered, this was reached from the utility room via a ladder that led up to the attic. Nov 30, 2017, 11:41am PST. See rank. We learn about Foos and hisobsession with observing human sexuality in the name of "scientific research," from the late 1960s through the mid-1980s. But Talese never attempts to contact the victims, although Foos gave him their names and addresses. That word, consent, is especially charged now, in a time where powerful men from the very industries that Voyeur is concerned withjournalism, publishing, and filmhave been rocked by accusations of not knowing or caring to think about what exactly that word means. 1. The story is paramount. Dr John ONeill, director of the Menninger sex addiction clinic in Texas, dismisses as self-delusion Fooss attempts to intellectualise his peeping and his insistence he never hurt anyone. He claims that he could see her chest rising up and down, and assumed that she would be okay. Its the women in Voyeur who could have divulged the most interesting details about their partners, but who remain in the background. Member, HWA. It makes the question of what kinds of stories, and which storytellers, were rewardingand yes, its rewarding when money is involvedall the more imperative to reckon with. Beckoning window is perfect, he exclaims. When Foos, a former U.S. Navy underwater demolition expert, bought the single-storey, green-and-white-painted motel in the Denver, Colorado, suburb of Aurora in 1969, he wrote in his journal that it was the fulfilment and realisation of a dream that has constantly occupied my mind and being. Are they still alive? Talese had an obligation as a citizen to reveal Foos creepy, dangerous, illegal behavior, and did not do so. Talese, 84, recounts his long and bizarre friendship with Colorado motel owner Gerald Foos in a forthcoming book, parts of which he sent to Talese after first contacting him in 1980. From the age of nine, he spent the next six years spending an hour most evenings peering furtively through her window and watching her walk naked around her bedroom. Fooss voyeurism is merely the springboard from which a whole other tale unspools. Instead, they glamorize both Fooss story and Taleses storytelling. The compulsion usually starts before the age of 15 and becomes progressively stronger and more extreme. By signing up you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. How do you find more things to binge? Was Talese ever concerned about what other dangerous and possibly illegal things Foos had done? The level of meta-storytelling they attempt to tell delves into all the most superficial corners, like watching Taleses daughter, an artist, paint Fooss motel for her fathers book; Talese and Foos, when they first meet in 2013, stay at a motel, in case you didnt know what theyre getting at here. For three decades Foos ran a motel in Colorado, which he bought and renovated specifically to cater to his voyeuristic needs. He acknowledged on Late Night and in an interview with New York magazine that he was upset to learn of it after the book was published, but he subsequently found that Foos still had access to the motel after selling it and could have continued his voyeurism. When Taleses editor comments that shes glad he didnt see too much sexual activity because it could come across to readers as creepy, he redirects the criticism to Foos. Ballard said the story about the sign couldnt be true because Ballard owned the motel at the time Talese said Foos met Anita. Yet that pales into insignificance compared with some of the behaviour Foos observed as an adult, such as the trio two neatly dressed men and a woman who turned up within months of him opening for business and asked for a single room. But within the same week, to less fanfare, Talese revealed an even darker side of himself via a massively longpiecein the current issue of the New Yorker, titled The Voyeurs Motel. Although it has been on the magazines most read list for days, it hasnt elicited a fraction of the commentary that his remarks did. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse. Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images Entertainment. Its worth investing years of correspondence with Foos, and engaging in a dubiously personal relationship with his subject, to persuade him to finally go on the record. The unprepossessing owner, while polite and solicitous, often took some time coming to reception for a night-time request and was invariably a little out of breath. Revealing himself to wider scrutiny for the first time, Foos admits he is nervous, explaining that he fears some may not be bowled over by his decades of devoted research. But by the end,Voyeurmorphs into something unexpected, and evenmoreself-referential than the initial conceit of an author identifying with his subject: it becomes a documentary about journalism itself, including documentary filmmaking. Weiner was initially conceived as a comeback for disgraced Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner but became a mesmerizing portrait of narcissism and addiction, and his downfall, instead. He was the subject of Gay Talese 's 2016 article "The Voyeur's Motel" in The New Yorker , in which Talese disclosed that Foos was a long time voyeur of people staying in Talese almost gave the game away after his necktie dangled through the vent just yards above the womans head, but the couple didnt look up during their lovemaking. All rights reserved. That is not a courtesy extended to the people in the motel rooms whose sex lives are described by Talese and also in long quoted passages of Foos's journals, although Talese had their names and addresses. Gerald Foos is the former owner of the Manor House Motel, which operated in Aurora, Colorado. Malcolm begins the book: "Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. His too-close relationship with his subject seems to have been cemented in 1980, when Talese accompanied Foos to his viewing station and personally witnessed a woman engaged in oral sex in one of the motel bedrooms. And if we read it as I did, and wish I hadn't he succeeds: We are guilty, too. We can join them in the attic, or we can do what Foos and Talese didn't: Look away. Hes everyman.. Its here that things get murky. Later, when the book is released, a team from The Washington Post confronts Talese with several factual inconsistencies. Fooss first wife Donna, and then his second wife Anita, not only passively accept what Foos does, but they seem encouraging of his behavior. His voyeurism was on an industrial scale. If only the filmmakers werent just as caught up in the need for a good story as Foos and Talese are. By publishing parts of Foos's journal, Talese seems to implicitly endorse Foos's idea that it serves as a valuable or illuminating historical document. Photo illustration by Slate. WebGerald Foos. Talese responded late Friday night, promising more detail in his forthcoming book, but noting that in the meantime he could not provide answers to my serious and important questions. He was writing from Denver; he had just arrived in the city, he said, and was now worrying about the death threats to the voyeur my writing has just exposed. All of which catches the attention of the foots biological owner, John Wood, who wants it back. Shes long ago accepted what he is. Just as The Voyeurs Motel declined to ask Foos how he thought his victims might feel about being so studiously spied upon, even for the purpose of scientific research, Voyeur doesnt compel him to do any soul-searching. ), Several weeks later, Foos begins sending Talese his journal, which he started writing in 1966, and most of the piece is taken up with its insights, and Taleses comments on them. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. But Foos was unwilling to reveal himself to be the voyeur, so Talese abandoned the idea, left behind in his many archives in the basement of his Upper East Side townhouse. The camera turned him on. The directors dramatize some scenes of Fooss antics in the attic, and construct a dollhouse-like model of the motel itself to reveal how Foos toyed with his customers, planting sex toys and pornography in some rooms and empty suitcases in others. Family was everything and always came first for Jerry. They even uncover the discrepancies later revealed by The Washington Post, but are undeterred. Brandon and his wife are the parents of three children. So, lets review: Talese signs a confidentiality agreement that states he wont reveal anything about Foos. Voyeur starts in 2013, when Talese and Foos are back in touch, with the latter ready to come forward on the record and the former ready to pick up the thread. But because Foos insisted on remaining anonymous, preserving for himself the privacy he denied his guests, Talese filed his reporting away, assuming the story would remain untold. Play it now! So much of the damage comes in the discovery, the horror of finding out that your private moments were not private. We are witnessing something very private from people who did not give us their consent. In one particularly tense--but also comic--scene, we see Talese become incensed with Foos for having disclosed information to the documentarians in a private interview, and proceed to give Foos a mini-lecture on journalistic ethics. We get a Cliffs Notes version of Taleses controversial career, including his most famous essay, Frank Sinatra Has a Cold in Esquire, and his talk show appearances after Thy Neighbors Wife, which cast Talese as a sexual renegade. The penis, Gay Talese writes in Thy Neighbor's Wife, his 1981 book on the American sexual revolution, "knows no moral code. Anyone whos read The Voyeurs Motel will be prepared for the more disturbing chronicles of Fooss behavior. Everyone is implicated: Talese, Foos, the film crew behind the project. St. John's Church. But even if we were to allow this grossly utilitarian justification, what have we learned? (The absurdity and bathos of the scenewith Taleses tie slipping through a slat and dangling over the bed, thus almost revealing him and Foosis just one of the bizarrely compelling, borderline unbelievable bits in the piece. Both Foos and Talese are inclined to talk, and the filmmakers give them space to do so rather than interject with follow-up questions. Whats less clear is why Talese agrees to expose himself. The stuff in question refers to the exploits of a man named Gerald Foos, who, in the 1960s, bought and rigged up a motel in suburban Colorado so that he could spy on guests from an attic catwalk through the ceiling vents. When the news broke, Talese lashed out at his subject, who he called certifiably unreliable and dishonorable, and trashed his own book: How dare I promote it when its credibility is down the toilet? For his part, Foos chalked up the mistakes to his diary keeping, saying he could have made errors when typing up his handwritten diaries. Voyeur is a fascinating, queasy portrait of exposure. And despite Taleses suggestion to the contrary, its unclear how much access Foos had to the motel and its secret annex between 1980 and 1988. Pictured, the patch of land where the Manor House Motel once stood. Help contribute to IMDb. In their seven-year marriage, the couple had four children, If there is a problem with your work, you can affix a disclaimer to it and move along, or you can make the problem the focus of the work, examine it, let it work its uneasy fingers into the story. Foos rushed up to the attic to find the womans husband photographing her as she had sex with the other man. Will they recognize themselves? What causes someone to become a voyeur in the first place is invariably rooted in a childhood sexual experience. I think the book will create a real situation, lets put it that way, he says. Voyeurism is about hiding and the powerlessness of childhood. This is no time for old perverts. He bought a second motel nearby and installed fake vents there, too. "Maybe as a writer, I'm a smut peddler, but this is the voice of free America," Talese told NPR's Lynn Neary. Fooss long-suffering wife, Anita, is painted as a blank slate who only occasionally steps in to save Foos from himself. He appears uninterested in even wrestling with the question. The tickling videos may seem silly, but for the young men recruited to make them sometimes while underage their participation is only the beginning of a long battle against an unseen but vicious entity who preys on the poor and vulnerable. Once, he saw a guests dog foul a rooms carpet and furious when they didnt own up when they checked out he frogmarched them back to the room and pointed to the stain. Becausestories--including those we call nonfiction--are never just facts. Johns life choices force his mother, Peg Wood, and his sister Marian Lytle, to cut him out of the family. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. The extraordinary tale a chilling insight into what drives an otherwise respectable, married, father-of-two to sink to such depths will, with Spielbergs interpretation, doubtless have cinema audiences riveted and appalled. In 2008, a Peeping Tom secretly taped the sports journalist Erin Andrews from the peep hole of her hotel room. Now, with America a Voyeuristic Nationso much of it in the name of security (which I explain in the magazine excerpt) it is almost pathetic to witness the petrified voyeurseeking privacy.. In the intriguing and thoughtful Voyeur, Myles Kane and Josh Koury explore the 30-year relationship between Gerald Foos, a former Colorado motel owner who There seems to be no way to capture that lightning in a bottle again. 4 Photos. It's in this moral gray area that some of journalism's greatest lessons--and implications--can be explored. His wife, however a nurse named Donna most certainly did. Not often do you see the moment when a man looks in the mirror and doesnt like who he sees. As in Finders Keepers, this film centers on the white men who cant stop tripping over their egos no matter the cost to everyone around them. "Had I become complicit in his strange and distasteful project?" All rights reserved. When he was on the job, she would bring him snacks. All the essentials: top fashion stories, editors picks, and celebrity style. Readers and soon cinema-goers will doubtless come to their own conclusions. What about your needs? Its all about sexual gratification. Palace aides discuss whether they can block the Duke's forthcoming book, Putin takes his first swipe at Giorgia Meloni by completely cutting off gas supplies to Italy just days after the right-wing leader backed Ukraine. He draws us into his collapsible telescope: We are watchers of a watcher of a watcher watching the watched. Voyeurism is designed to infringe on other peoples space, and people feel incredibly violated when they discover they have been watched, he says. Many mean-sounding people here in Denver are warning him not to leave his houseand, for three days, he hasnt. If Talese does note some of the inconsistencies and moral problems which should have been the heart of the book, if it were to be written at all he then bypasses them with the swiftness of a moving train. Voyeur captures Fooss public uncovering at the hands of Gay Talese, the magazine writer and New Journalism pioneer who first met Foos in 1980, and who finally Talese was about to publish Pentagon: First Ukrainian troops finish training on U.S. Bradley combat vehicle. Its empowering to see Farrier brave lawsuits and threats to bring down the big bully. He draws us into his collapsible telescope: We are watchers of a watcher of a watcher watching the watched. He thinks of himself as a student of the human condition, not unlike Talese. As the journal progresses, however, the story takes a disturbing turn: Foos had a habit of going into his guests rooms and dispensing with any drugs they had; he had witnessed drug deals from the attic and disapproved. WebLatest news and commentary on Gerald Foos including photos, videos, quotations, and a biography. She would lie on each bed and, looking up, help him adjust the angle of each vents louvres so he couldnt be seen by his victims. Its not really clear, however, what he told Foos about his motives; like much else in the story, Taleses intentions are never properly delineated. With the help and knowledge of his wife, he modified many of the motels rooms in such a way that he could watch his guests from above the ceiling. There, Foos had laid down a thickly carpeted catwalk extending over the ceiling of all 21 guest rooms. By the end of the movie Shannons wife Lisa has just about had it with his obsession and mentions on-camera that they are talking about divorce. Its hard to feel sorry for him. It was a bizarre message (he doesnt once mention Foos by name), both more contemptuous and pitying of Foos than anything in the actual piece. The statute of limitations, he reasoned, would protect him from lawsuits and/or criminal charges. I reached out to New Yorker editor David Remnick, who declined to comment beyond what he said to the Washington Posts Paul Farhi: While the scene is certainly disturbing (Talese writes that he was shocked, and surprised to read the account in the journal), the New Yorker does not believe that Talese or it violated any legal or ethical boundaries in presenting Fooss account of it to the reader. Reading Taleses story, it is impossible not to wonder what else Foos had been up to. Foos insisted that he never harmed any of his guests, since none were aware of his watching them, and so the worst that might be said was that he was guilty of trying to see too much.". 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