tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post2632472084387483827..comments2024-03-12T12:38:23.542-04:00Comments on The Kind of Face You Hate: The Cronenberg Series Part 9: I'm Not Youbill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-5250687890347498362013-12-30T15:18:55.794-05:002013-12-30T15:18:55.794-05:00"so deeply bonded that everyone else must hav..."so deeply bonded that everyone else must have seemed faintly alien to them."<br /><br />Sure, but in DEAD RINGERS we're seeing everything from their point of view, and that point of view is an alien one.<br /><br />Your cult analogy works too because of course we know how most cults end up.bill r.https://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-42705296525345116802013-12-29T05:05:21.974-05:002013-12-29T05:05:21.974-05:00They didn't strike me as alien so much as almo...They didn't strike me as alien so much as almost pathologically interdependent, so deeply bonded that everyone else must have seemed faintly alien to them.<br /><br />Their relationship puts me in mind of the mutual parasitism between a cult leader and his most devoted follower. Most of the power is held by the former, but that power is near useless without the specific insecurities of the latter to work on. It's to his credit that Cronenberg avoided the obvious, garden-variety sordidness and sensationalism of the incest angle and found stranger, richer depths in the story, as well as perfect performances from Irons to bring it to life.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05364322006357208797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-6138175010449135662013-12-28T11:14:29.122-05:002013-12-28T11:14:29.122-05:00I would say that's all very specifically part ...I would say that's all very specifically part of Cronenberg intentions, plus lots of other stuff. I mean, if you begin with the question, as he seems to have done, "What if there were identical twins?" then you're opening yourself up to thinking about it from every conceivable angle.<br /><br />Plus, I think what you say is there in the movie. The problem is that humans have bigger brains than snakes, so they can't make the "virtual snake" idea work. Elliot might have managed it if he was the only one who had to do any of the work or any of the thinking, but when you add a second guy into the mix...bill r.https://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-88120917997143852982013-12-28T10:23:16.059-05:002013-12-28T10:23:16.059-05:00For a long time I've had an elusive thought wa...For a long time I've had an elusive thought wandering around in my mind regarding two-headed snakes. In any pictures I've seen of them they are always positioned side-by-side, and I wondered what effect it might have on a simple mentality to have one visual hemisphere forever occupied by "yourself". Do they create a kind of virtual snake between them, one that lives in both their minds but isn't necessarily the same on either part? <br /><br />Maybe there is something like this in the particular weirdness of <b>Dead Ringers</b>. These are twins constantly in each other's fields--visual, mental, occupational, etc.--more so than is ever likely in mundane reality. What effect does it have on your your self-image, your self-worth, your general sense of self, to see "yourself" forever wandering around outside you? And what effect does it have when "yourself" then behaves in ways you would not? <br /><br />I can imagine a feedback loop of comparison and reaction building in the personality, probably something akin to the fear of the doppelganger--except <i>here</i> both twins are exposed to their double, with escalating reactions fueling each other's divergence into dysfunctional extremes.<br /><br />Not to say that any of that is Cronenberg's specific intention, of course. It's merely what my fingers spit out when <b>Dead Ringers</b>, your post about it and my apparent preoccupation with two-headed snakes all collide in my head. I don't need an identical twin to have my own little weirdnesses, but then who does?Noumenonhttp://andrewleonhudson.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.com