Motifs
The double and the portrait
Man facing his reflection, his shadow, his other self.
A man meets in the street someone who resembles him exactly and takes his place, a portrait ages instead of its sitter, a nose leaves its owner's face and makes a career in the civil service. The double is a motif that crosses languages and centuries, because it allows the staging of what one refuses to acknowledge in oneself. Cinema seized it with its own means: two faces superimposed in Bergman, a woman remade in the image of a dead one in Hitchcock, twin gynaecologists in Cronenberg.
works 11
- NovelThe Devil's ElixirsDie Elixiere des TeufelsE.T.A. Hoffmann · 1815A novel of German dark Romanticism, told by a monk who meets his double.Literature
- Short storiesThe NoseНосNikolai Gogol · 1836A short story of 1836 in which a Saint Petersburg civil servant loses his nose, which now leads a life of its own.Literature
- NovelThe DoubleДвойникFyodor Dostoevsky · 1846A short novel of 1846 in which a modest ministry clerk sees his exact double appear.Literature
- NovelStrange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr HydeRobert Louis Stevenson · 1886A lawyer is worried by a friend's will and keeps watch in order to catch sight of a stranger.LiteraturePublic domain
- Short storiesThe HorlaLe HorlaGuy de Maupassant · 1887A solitary man records, day after day, the signs of a presence he cannot see.LiteraturePublic domain
- NovelThe Picture of Dorian GrayOscar Wilde · 1890A wish made before a canvas, and a painted mouth that is no longer quite the same.LiteraturePublic domain
- CinemaSunset BoulevardBilly Wilder · 1950Former stars of the silent era appear in it: Buster Keaton, H. B. Warner and Anna Q. Nilsson at a bridge table; Cecil B. DeMille and Hedda Hopper play themselves.Cinema
- CinemaVertigoAlfred Hitchcock · 1958Adapted from a French novel by Boileau and Narcejac, the film transposes a story of shadowing to California.Cinema
- CinemaPersonaIngmar Bergman · 1966An actress who has stopped speaking and the nurse who cares for her live alone by the water, and end up merging into one another.Cinema
- CinemaDead RingersDavid Cronenberg · 1988Two twin gynaecologists, who secretly share their patients and their mistresses, see their arrangement begin to crack.Cinema
- CinemaThe Double Life of VéroniqueLa Double Vie de VéroniqueKrzysztof Kieślowski · 1991Two identical young women, one in Poland, the other in France, linked without knowing each other.Cinema