Double Take (2009 film)

Last updated

Double Take
Double Take film.jpg
Directed by Johan Grimonprez
Written byJohan Grimonprez
Tom McCarthy
Produced by Nicole Gerhards
Emmy Oost
Hanneke M. van der Tas
Denis Vaslin
Cinematography Martin Testar
Edited by Dieter Diependaele
Tyler Hubby
Music by Christian Halten
Production
company
Release date
Running time
80 minutes
CountriesBelgium
Germany
Netherlands
LanguageEnglish

Double Take is a 2009 essay film, directed by Johan Grimonprez and written by Tom McCarthy. The plot is set during the Cold War and combines both documentary and fictional elements. The protagonist is a fictionalised version of Alfred Hitchcock. The backdrop of the film charts the rise of the television in the domestic setting and with it, the ensuing commodification of fear during the cold war. [1]

Contents

Double Take is a Belgian-Dutch-German co-production and premiered in Europe at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival and in the U.S. at the 2010 Sundance film Festival.

Plot

Inspired by Jorge Luis Borges' short story 25th August, 1983, [2] Double Take's narrative plot is based on a fictional encounter Alfred Hitchcock has with an older version of himself. Whilst on set of his 1962 film The Birds , Hitchcock calls a twelve-minute break in order to answer a phone call in one of the universal studio buildings. After a foreboding encounter with a security guard, Hitchcock finds his way into a room similar to the tearooms in both the Chasen's hotel in Los Angeles and the Claridge's hotel in London. Here, Hitchcock and his doppelgänger meet. [3] The ensuing conversation between the two is characterized by personal paranoia and distrust where the younger Hitchcock is in deep fear of his older alter ego.

Intermittently returning to the room in which the menacing conversation between the two Hitchcocks proceeds, [4] the narrative takes a deathward path. Hitchcock and his doppelgänger regard each other with a mixture of revulsion and confusion. Regarding the aphorism that "if you meet your double, you should kill him", [5] both Hitchcocks knowing how the encounter must end. [6] "So, tell me, how would you like to die?" asks the older Hitchcock, sipping on a cup of coffee. All the while, Folgers coffee advertisements puncture the narration in the backdrop of the Cold War. By means of his double, Hitchcock the filmmaker realizes that he is going to die. Killed by the younger, television-making, version of himself. [7]

Cast

Looking for Alfred


In 2005, prior to making Double Take – which started as a casting, [10] Grimonprez shot the ten-minute video installation Looking For Alfred. The video installation explored the director's search for the perfect Hitchcock double. Grimonprez held screen tests in New York, Los Angeles and London. [11] He chose Mike Perry, a Hitchcock sound-alike and an impersonator of Tony Blair, while Ron Burrage, a professional Hitchcock double, as a result of this search, became a protagonist in Double Take. [10] The project explored the legacy of Hitchcock's persona as well as it made references to his films through restaging his cameo appearances. In 2007, Film and Video Umbrella published a book version of Looking For Alfred with inclusions by authors: Patricia Allmer, Jorge Luis Borges, Chris Darke, Thomas Elsaesser, Tom McCarthy, Jeff Noon and Slavoj Zizek. [12]

Themes

The themes of Double Take are paranoia, falsehoods, contradictions and the rise of the culture of fear played out through the beginning of the television era. Six major themes seem to surface:

1. Double Bottoms and multilayered metaphors

The multilayered metaphors of Double Take explore not only the character of Alfred Hitchcock meeting his double, but also the era's society as a whole. [10] Hitchcock is cast as a paranoid history professor shadowed by an elusive double against the backdrop of the Cold War, played out through the television tube; he "says all the wrong things at all the wrong times while politicians on both sides desperately clamor to say the right things, live on TV." [13] The themes explored in Double Take are all rooted in the following comment by Ron Burrage – the Alfred Hitchcock lookalike: "People always do a double take when they see me." [14] And as such the film's exploration into paranoia is also a double take on the Cold War, a mirror of the fear mongering played over the TV tube.

2. The Commercial Break

The five Folgers commercials for instant coffee that play throughout Double Take are referring to the commercial break of the television format, described by Hitchcock as "the enemy of suspense" and "designed to keep you from getting too engrossed in the story". [15] Moreover, the commercials represent the exploration of the theme that fear and murder lurks in the domestic setting, "where it always belonged". They also imply a yearning for successful 'falsehood'. [4] The question of why the Folgers housewives wouldn't simply prepare real coffee refers to the film's question why our culture yearns for successful imitation—for falsehood. [4] In this contradiction one act masquerades its opposite. The Folgers commercial is subverted in such a way that its message, "Drink Folgers," becomes coded as part of a murder plot. [7]

3. Political Layering, The Cold War & The Birds as metaphor

Double Take presents the Soviet Union and the US as doubles in a series of power plays attempting to assure the other's demise. [5] Besides that Double Take is also about how two man always do the talking: [16] in the 'Kitchen Sink Debate' of 1959, the first televised summit live, Nikita Khrushchev outsmarted Richard Nixon, "whose best retort to the Soviet leader's critiques of U.S. capitalism is to point to the latest in TV sets". [17] Double Take implies that the predominant purposes of the space race as well as the television were propaganda, "both individually and, to greatest effect, when acting together". [18] The infamous 'Kitchen Sink Debate' mimics the conversation between Hitchcock versus Hitchcock, which mimics the man and woman debate in the kitchen during the Folgers commercials in turn.

The mirroring of Hitchcock versus Hitchcock (as Hitchcock frequently doubled himself as the storyteller in his films through his cameos), [9] suggests a similar doubling of Rixard Nixon and the young John F. Kennedy during the first televised presidential debates, the same Kennedy who finds his match in Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and finally Khrushchev versus Leonid Brezhnev just as Brezhnev is plotting Khrushchev's downfall. [19]

The paranoia in Hitchcock's work becomes an allegory for the kind of fear that became so normal during the Cold War. [5] Echoes of and excerpts from Hitchcock's The Birds (1963) propose the film as an allegory for television – which has, according to Hitchcock, "brought murder back into the home-where it always belonged", [18] and as the threat of missiles descending from the sky, suggesting a psychohistorical analogy between the fear of nuclear attack and Hitchcock's suspense. [18]

4. Reality vs Fiction

Double Take plays with different genres against one another and with how fiction comes to stand for reality or the other way around. [10] It shows a recent history against a fiction even while it presents that history itself as an ongoing story of claustrophobic suspense. [18] In the end not only politicians but Hollywood as well are "invested in perpetuating a culture of fear". [18] Double Take also refers to the doubling of cinema versus television through an intimate fiction story versus a bigger political narrative as well as through the rivalry between cinema and its televisual double. This mirrors the plot that sets up Hitchcock the filmmaker versus Hitchcock the television-maker at a time television was taking over cinema. [16]

But Double Take adds a contemporary twist: "You think all the way through that cinema is going to be killed by television or television is going to kill cinema or America is going to kill Russia or Russia is going to kill America. But at the end, it’s the third one, the new one, the younger one, the YouTube version, that comes along and kills them all." [16]

5. Cultural References: the Figure of the Double in Literature

Seeing one's own doppelganger is usually a bad omen; it might even be a "premonition of death". [9] The first narrated line during the 'Borgesian' confrontation between Hitchcock young and old in Double Take launches the plotline and comes with a warning: "If you meet your double, you should kill him." [20] This provocative statement one should kill one's identical suggest that doing so means nothing but self-protection or even self-preservation. [2] For it is believed that the double has no reflection in the mirror, it can be seen as a mirror itself: "because he performs the protagonist's actions in advance, he is the mirror that eventually takes over." [9] Double Take is based on a similar plot. [9] Hitchcock himself gets eliminated in the first round of a Hitchcock lookalike competition. But all the participants of the competition áre Hitchcock, so "he's losing to himself". [7] Hitchcock studies are "proliferated to such a degree that there are many different Hitchcocks". [7] As Thomas Elsaesser notes that we now have a Hitchcock defined as Nietzschean and as Wittgeinsteinian, as Deleuzian and as Derridean, as Schopenhauerian and as many more contradictory things. In this way Hitchcock returns "as so many doubles of his own improbable self". [21]

Jose Luis Borges' initial short story August 25, 1983 is based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Double. [2] as well as on Tom McCarthy's story Negative Reel in the book Looking For Alfred. [22] Authors like Adelbert von Chamisso, Hans Christian Andersen, Edgar Allan Poe and many more were inspired by the idea of the double as well. [23] The narration of Double Take is in fact already a double itself, for it is inspired by Borges' novella The Other (1972). Borges rewrote his novella into Agustus 25, 1983 (1983), and it was the latter one that was reworked for Double Take. [9]

6. Hitchcock's Belly Button, women and male hysteria

Hitchcock often portrays strong females leads, who according to Grimonprez mirror his own fears and phobias projected back onto the female character as a way to try to contain her, or even poison her. [9] Similarly, this male hysteria is also installed between man and man in Double Take. [16] Hitchcocks makes this confession in Double Take: "we always fell in love with our characters, that's why we killed them." Grimonprez claims that "Hitchcock wants the woman to embody his own desire, but his dreamwoman never redeems his anxiety precisely because she refuses to fit into that mould. The man then is ultimately faced with a split reality." [16] He is doubled, as it were. Just like the moment Sigmund Freud was confronted with his double during a train journey, when the door of the washing-cabinet swung back and Freud didn't recognize himself in the mirror. For a moment he believed someone entered his travelling compartment by mistake. He only realized that the man was nothing but his own reflection when he jumped up to show the stranger the right direction. Freud "thoroughly disliked his appearance". [24] Whereas this encounter with his double, an anxious feeling crept over him. According to Freud, "meeting one's double is an encounter with the uncanny, occurring at the boundaries between mind and matter and generating a feeling of unbearable terror." [16] The double, once a figure "endowed with life-supporting power", [2] transforms itself "into the opposite of what it originally represented. [...] It becomes "the uncanny harbinger of death"". [2] [24]

In an interview with Karen Black, the last in a row of Hitchcock’s famous female protagonists who featured in Hitchcock’s final film Family Plot (1976), Black confirms to Grimonprez that the story about Hitchcock actually not having a belly button was true. [25] This story became part of the plotline in the film Hitchcock didn’t have a Belly Button. "If Hitchcock didnt have a belly button he might be a clone and there might actually be many doubles of the master, of which Ron Burrage was one", wrote Grimonprez. [25]

In Hitchcock didn’t have a Belly Button Black does expressions of Hitchcock. And as she is pretending to be Hitchcock she becomes his vocal double. Jodi Dean writes on his blog I Cite that we experience two people but one voice: "we hear the one who is speaking and know that it is him, but we also hear another – only rarely do we mistake one for the other, we know the difference". [26]

Release & Critical Reception

Double Take premiered in Europe at the Berlinale [27] and in the US at Sundance. The film was screened at several film festivals, including IDFA. [28] Double Take was released on DVD by Soda Pictures [29] in England and Kino Lorber [30] in the United States. It was acquired for TV release by ARTE in 2011.

Variety described Double Take as "wildly entertaining", [17] The New York Times called it "the most intellectually agile of this year’s films" [31] and the Hollywood Reporter found the film "bracingly original", assuming that it "would have tickled Hitch himself". [32] John Waters mentioned Double Take as "My top 10!" in Art Forum and Screen described the film as "Ingenious, witty, virtuoso!". [33]

Double Take is part of the permanent collections of the Tate Modern (Artist Rooms) and Centre Pompidou, amongst others. It was screened at the New Directors/New Films Festival (presented by The Film Society of Lincoln Center) and The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA.

Prior to release it was pitched at Sheffield Doc/Fest's 2007 MeetMarket.

Awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alfred Hitchcock</span> English film director (1899–1980)

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was an English film director. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 feature films, many of which are still widely watched and studied today. Known as the "Master of Suspense", Hitchcock became as well known as any of his actors thanks to his many interviews, his cameo appearances in most of his films, and his hosting and producing the television anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955–65). His films garnered 46 Academy Award nominations, including six wins, although he never won the award for Best Director, despite five nominations.

<i>Psycho</i> (1960 film) Film by Alfred Hitchcock

Psycho is a 1960 American horror film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The screenplay, written by Joseph Stefano, was based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch. The film stars Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, and Martin Balsam. The plot centers on an encounter between on-the-run embezzler Marion Crane (Leigh) and shy motel proprietor Norman Bates (Perkins) and its aftermath, in which a private investigator (Balsam), Marion's lover Sam Loomis (Gavin), and her sister Lila (Miles) investigate her disappearance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spy film</span> Film genre

The spy film, also known as the spy thriller, is a genre of film that deals with the subject of fictional espionage, either in a realistic way or as a basis for fantasy. Many novels in the spy fiction genre have been adapted as films, including works by John Buchan, le Carré, Ian Fleming (Bond) and Len Deighton. It is a significant aspect of British cinema, with leading British directors such as Alfred Hitchcock and Carol Reed making notable contributions and many films set in the British Secret Service.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thriller (genre)</span> Genre of literature, film, and television

Thriller is a genre of fiction with numerous, often overlapping, subgenres, including crime, horror, and detective fiction. Thrillers are characterized and defined by the moods they elicit, giving their audiences heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety. This genre is well suited to film and television.

<i>Strangers on a Train</i> (film) 1951 film by Alfred Hitchcock

Strangers on a Train is a 1951 American psychological thriller film noir produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and based on the 1950 novel Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith. It was shot in late 1950, and released by Warner Bros. on June 30, 1951, starring Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, and Robert Walker.

<i>The Invaders</i> American television series

The Invaders is an American science-fiction television series created by Larry Cohen that aired on ABC for two seasons, from 1967 to 1968. Roy Thinnes stars as David Vincent, who after stumbling across evidence of an in-progress invasion of aliens from outer space—the aliens disguising themselves as humans and gradually infiltrating human institutions—tries to thwart the invasion despite the disbelief of officials and the general public, and the undermining of his efforts by the aliens. The series was a Quinn Martin production.

<i>Family Plot</i> 1976 film by Alfred Hitchcock

Family Plot is a 1976 American black comedy thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock in his final directing role. It was based on Victor Canning's 1972 novel The Rainbird Pattern, which Ernest Lehman adapted for the screen. The film stars Karen Black, Bruce Dern, Barbara Harris and William Devane; it was screened at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival, but was not entered into the main competition.

<i>The Man Who Knew Too Much</i> (1956 film) 1956 film by Alfred Hitchcock

The Man Who Knew Too Much is a 1956 American mystery thriller film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, starring James Stewart and Doris Day. It is Hitchcock's second film using this title, following his own 1934 film of the same name but featuring a significantly altered plot and script.

<i>The Confessional</i> 1995 Canadian film

The Confessional is a 1995 mystery-drama film directed by Robert Lepage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alfred Hitchcock's unrealized projects</span>

The following is a partial list of unproduced Alfred Hitchcock projects, in roughly chronological order. During a career that spanned more than half a century, Alfred Hitchcock directed over fifty films, and worked on a number of others which never made it beyond the pre-production stage.

Psychological thriller is a genre combining the thriller and psychological fiction genres. It is commonly used to describe literature or films that deal with psychological narratives in a thriller or thrilling setting.

Identification refers to the automatic, subconscious psychological process in which an individual becomes like or closely associates themselves with another person by adopting one or more of the others' perceived personality traits, physical attributes, or some other aspect of their identity. The concept of identification was founded by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud in the 1920’s, and has since been expanded on and applied in psychology, social studies, media studies, and literary and film criticism. In literature, identification most often refers to the audience identifying with a fictional character, however it can also be employed as a narrative device whereby one character identifies with another character within the text itself.

<i>Strangers on a Train</i> (novel) 1950 psychological thriller novel by Patricia Highsmith

Strangers on a Train (1950) is a psychological thriller novel by Patricia Highsmith about two men whose lives become entangled after one of them proposes they "trade" murders.

The Short Night was a film planned by British director Alfred Hitchcock.

Hitchcockian films are those made by various filmmakers, with the styles and themes similar to those of Alfred Hitchcock.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johan Grimonprez</span>

Johan Grimonprez is a Belgian multimedia artist, filmmaker, and curator. He is most known for his films Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (1997) which the Guardian included in its article From Warhol to Steve McQueen: a history of video art in 30 works, Double Take (2009) and Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade (2016), based on the book by Andrew Feinstein. Grimonprez wrote and directed the documentary Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat about the promise of decolonisation, the hope of the non-aligned movement and the dream of self-determination.

<i>Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y</i> 1997 film

Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, a 68-minute-long film by director Johan Grimonprez, traces the history of airplane hijacking as portrayed by mainstream television media. The film premiered in 1997 at the Musée National d'Art Moderne (Centre Georges Pompidou ; and at Catherine David's curated Documenta X. "This study in pre-Sept. 11 terrorism" is composed of archival footage material — interspersing reportage shots, clips from science fiction films, found footage, home video and reconstituted scenes. The work is interspersed with passages from Don DeLillo's novels Mao II and White Noise, "providing a literary and philosophic anchor to the film". According to the director, "Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y's narrative is based on an imagined dialogue between a terrorist and a novelist where the writer contends that the terrorist has hijacked his role within society." The film's opening line, taken from Mao II, introduces the skyjacker as protagonist. Interspersing fact and fiction, Grimonprez said that the use of archival footage to create "short-circuits in order to critique a situation" may be understood as a form of a Situationist Détournement.

Kobarweng or Where Is Your Helicopter? (1992) is a short documentary directed by Johan Grimonprez that deals with the history of a remote village in the highlands of New Guinea. The videotape assembles archival footage and oral histories depicting the first encounter between the Irian Jaya people and the scientific crew, including anthropologists, of the Dutch Star Mountains Expedition. The confrontation with the crew and their helicopter caused a shock that threw the worldview of the villagers upside down.

<i>Soundtrack to a Coup dEtat</i> 2024 Documentary on Congo by Johan Grimonprez

Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat is a documentary film directed by Johan Grimonprez released in 2024. In the film, Jazz and decolonization are entwined in a historical rollercoaster that rewrites the Cold War episode that led musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach to crash the UN Security Council in protest against the murder of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. It is 1961, six months after the admission of sixteen newly independent African countries to the UN, a political earthquake that shifts the majority vote from the colonial powers to the Global South. As Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev bangs his shoe in indignation at the UN’s complicity in the overthrow of Lumumba, the US State Department swings into action by sending jazz ambassador Louis Armstrong to Congo to deflect attention from the CIA-backed coup.

References

  1. ↑ "Double Take Synopsis".
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Nobus, D. (15 October 2009). Borges' and Hitchcock's Double Desire. Arts Centre Vooruit, Ghent, Belgium: Paper presented at the symposium "Shot by Both Sides! Double take".
  3. ↑ McCarthy, T. (2009). Double Take – Narration of the Film. Inspired by the short story "25 August 1983" by J. L. Borges.
  4. 1 2 3 Princenthal, Nancy (May 2009). "Think Again". Art in America (5).
  5. 1 2 3 Cabin, Chris. "Double Take" (PDF). AMCFilmcritic.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 January 2014. Retrieved 3 June 2010.
  6. ↑ Zutter, Natalie. "'Double Take' Provides Layered Look at Cold War Paranoia" (PDF). ...Ology.com. Retrieved 2 June 2010.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Provan, Alexander (15 July 2009). "If you see yourself, kill him". Bidoun.
  8. ↑ "IMDB profile of Ron Burrage". IMDb.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Darke & Grimonprez, Chris & Johan (2007). Looking For Alfred : Hitchcock is not himself today... An interview with Johan Grimonprez by Chris Darke. Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz. pp. 77–99. ISBN   978-1-9042-7025-6.
  10. 1 2 3 4 van Tomme, Niels (May–June 2009). "Constructing Histories: Johan Grimonprez discusses "Double Take"" (PDF). Art Papers.
  11. ↑ "Johan Grimonprez: Looking for Alfred". e-flux. Retrieved 10 December 2004.
  12. ↑ "Film and Video Umbrella".
  13. ↑ "Double Take". Johan Grimonprez website.
  14. ↑ Reynaud, Bérénice (20 September 2017). "On the use and misuse of archival footage – Part 1 – Johan Grimonprez's Double Take (Frontier)".
  15. ↑ Romney, Jonathan. "Film of the month: Double Take". Sight & Sound. Archived from the original on 3 August 2012.
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Bernard & Grimonprez, Catherine & Johan (2010). "It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards: Johan Grimonprez en dialogue avec Catherine Bernard". L'Image-document, entre réalité et fiction, ed. J.-P. Criqui (Paris: Le Bal/Marseille: Images en Manoeuvres Editions): 212–23.
  17. 1 2 Robert, Koehler (14 April 2009). "Review: 'Double Take'". Variety. Retrieved 14 April 2009.
  18. 1 2 3 4 5 Scrimgeour, Alexander (April 2009). "1000 Words, Johan Grimonprez talks about Double Take". Artforum.
  19. ↑ Dean, J. (15 October 2009). The Real Double. Arts Centre Vooruit, Ghent, Belgium: Paper presented at the symposium "Shot by Both Sides! Double Take".
  20. ↑ Peranson, Mark (12 September 2009). "Interviews | If You Meet Your Double, You Should Kill Him: Johan Grimonprez on Double Take". Cinema Scope.
  21. ↑ Elsaesser & Grimonprez, Thomas & Johan (2007). Looking for Alfred : Casting Around: Hitchcock's Absence. Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz. pp. 137–161. ISBN   978-1-9042-7025-6.
  22. ↑ McCarthy & Grimonprez, Tom & Johan (2007). Looking for Alfred : Negative Reel. Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz. pp. 65–71. ISBN   978-1-9042-7025-6.
  23. ↑ Goimard & Stragliati, Jacques & Roland (1977). Histoires de Doubles. Paris: Presses Pocket. ISBN   2266003844.
  24. 1 2 Sigmund, Freud (1955). "The Uncanny". The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. 17: 248.
  25. 1 2 Grimonprez, Johan. "Hitchcock didn't have a Belly Button: Karen Black interview with Johan Grimonprez".
  26. ↑ Dean, Jodi. "A voice as something more". I Cite.
  27. ↑ "Berlinale".
  28. ↑ "IDFA". Archived from the original on 20 March 2014. Retrieved 11 March 2014.
  29. ↑ "Soda Pictures". Archived from the original on 10 March 2014.
  30. ↑ "Kino Lorber".
  31. ↑ Lim, Dennis (13 February 2009). "Multinational Forces at the Berlin Film Festival". The New York Times.
  32. ↑ Lowe, Justin (14 October 2010). "Double Take -- Film Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 14 October 2010.
  33. ↑ Romney, Jonathan. "Double Take" (PDF).
  34. ↑ "VAF".
  35. ↑ "Abu Dhabi Film Festival".
  36. ↑ "New Media Festival".
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.