Death Watch Movie Review

This provocative drama unwittingly anticipated the abuses of today's tabloid talk shows. In a future where science has banished disease and people die of old age, a terminal illness is big news. Romy Schneider stars as the doomed Katharine, who is courted by TV producer Harry Dean Stanton. He wants to give the morbid public what it wants – death – so he signs her to a contract allowing him to film her last days. When she flees, he hires Harvey Keitel to pursue her and gain her confidence. Keitel has had a miniature camera implanted in his brain which beams back to the station all that he sees. “Art house” science fiction, brooding, thoughtful, and deliberately paced.

1980 (R) 128m/C FR GE Romy Schneider, Harvey Keitel, Harry Dean Stanton, Max von Sydow; D: Bertrand Tavernier; W: Bertrand Tavernier, David Rayfiel. VHS, LV SUE