Myles Kane and Josh Koury direct Gay Talese, Gerald Foos and Anita Foos in this documentary following the release of the New Journalism writer’s book about Foos’ life as a motel owner who elaborately spied on his guests.

This underrated documentary is gripping, personality packed and uncovers subtle truths concurrent with its big controversies. Gay Talese is a big flamboyant figure of the late 20th century writing tradition that also gave us Norman Mailer, George Plimpton and Tom Wolfe. Personalities who were self consciously bigger than their subject matter. Impeccably dressed and beautifully spoken, his previous bestsellers made him a talk show regular decades ago. Gerald Foos is a gregarious man, in a happy marriage, who for years owned a motel built specifically so he could spy on his guests, nightly and unnoticed. Both men keep basements full of notes and mementoes of their past, both have a fascination with overseeing the lives of others. Hoarders with god complexes, speculators on what they witness and how it will have value to the general public. Broken mirror images of each other in many aspects. Foos, spotting a kindred spirit on TV, even invited Talese over to peep through his hidden vents with him back in the eighties. Now that the statute of limitations has passed, he seems happy for Talese to expose him and write his story. And from there a mini hell breaks loose. A lot of reviews seem to focus on the criminal aspect of this, the salacious part about a man who watched his guest engage in secret, sometimes violent acts and kept shtum. They focus on the power struggle between Talase and Foos when new, contradictory information comes suddenly to light and reputations are left in tatters. And all that stuff to me is incredibly watchable, inventively recreated and compellingly stitched together. Far too fascinating a pairing to deserve the snide scorn Voyeur seems to have garnered in the press. But where the documentary comes truly alive is in watching two men of the past realise they are now out of time. Both had an inflated idea of where their story would take them. Gay would have another bestseller. Foos would become a celebrity from his notoriety. That doesn’t happen and that is where Voyeur makes it real gains. It is a portrait of two elderly men realising the jig is up. Look at the scene where Foos watches out of his porch blinds, expecting a media circus when his story hits the papers. No such attention arrives. Look at Talese realising his book isn’t selling but his reputation is permanently diminished when he gives the Washington Post one unwise, but mass circulated, quote when reacting to the veracity of Foos’ story. There’s a lot going on in Voyuer… it is an ethical buffet about truth, morality and the media… but at its heart it is the sad tale of two complex men who thought they were above everyone, seeing all the angles, who now no longer understand how the modern world works.

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