Another Hollyweird movie that will be on my “not to see” list.
Author Gay Talese
Background from the author of this story Gay Talese, of his book entitled, “The Voyeur’s Motel.” Excerpts from a New Yorker article Talese wrote in April 2016:
“I know a married man and father of two who bought a twenty-one-room motel near Denver many years ago in order to become its resident voyeur. With the assistance of his wife, he cut rectangular holes measuring six by fourteen inches in the ceilings of more than a dozen rooms. Then he covered the openings with louvred aluminum screens that looked like ventilation grilles but were actually observation vents that allowed him, while he knelt in the attic, to see his guests in the rooms below. He watched them for decades, while keeping an exhaustive written record of what he saw and heard. Never once, during all those years, was he caught.”
Hotel owner/Peeping Tom, Gerald Foos
From a handwritten note the hotel owner/Peeping Tom, Gerald Foos, had written to author Talese:
“The reason for purchasing this motel was to satisfy my voyeuristic tendencies and compelling interest in all phases of how people conduct their lives, both socially and sexually. . . . I did this purely out of my unlimited curiosity about people and not as just a deranged voyeur. My main objective in wanting to provide you with this confidential information is the belief that it could be valuable to people in general and sex researchers in particular.
Read all the background here.
From Variety: Steven Spielberg is producing a movie version of Gay Talese’s upcoming novel “The Voyeur’s Motel” for DreamWorks with Sam Mendes directing.
Mendes will produce through his Neal Street Productions company. Mendes, who directed the James Bond movies “Skyfall” and “Spectre,” has directed a trio of titles for DreamWorks — his debut on “American Beauty,” “The Road to Perdition” and “Revolutionary Road.”
DreamWorks won an auction for the rights to Talese’s novel. CAA brokered the auction.
The story centers on Colorado resident Gerald Foos, who opened a hotel so he could watch guests having sex. Foos had reached out to Talese in 1980 with the following note:
“Dear Mr. Talese: Since learning of your long awaited study of coast-to-coast sex in America, which will be included in your soon to be published book, ‘Thy Neighbor’s Wife,’ I feel I have important information that I could contribute to its contents or to contents of a future book.”
An excerpt of “The Voyeur’s Motel” ran in the April 11 issue of the New Yorker. The novel will be published July 12 by Grove Press.
CAA brokered the deal on behalf of Mendes and Talese. Mendes is also represented by attorney Melanie Cook of Ziffren Brittenham. Talese is represented for publishing by Lynn Nesbit of Janklow & Nesbit.
DCG
