Film

Death Watch (1979)

Director: Bertrand Tavernier

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

As so often with Tavernier, a film that promises more than it delivers. Science fiction set in a near future, it starts from the intriguing premise that, in a society from which death has been effectively banished or at least tucked out of sight, a TV network plans to transmit a real-life soap opera for the benefit of curious viewers. A network employee (Keitel) has a miniature camera planted in his brain to record everything he sees, and the subject of his death watch (Schneider) is told she has an incurable disease. But as rebellious emotions begin to rage in both parties, the humanist in Tavernier gets the better of his fantasy, leading to some windy preachment and loss of credibility. A film to be seen, nevertheless, strikingly cast and with Glasgow lending its persuasive presence as a city of the future.

---

• 
•