Double Body

Body Double is an American film carried out by Brian De Palma, left in 1984.

Synopsis

Whereas he interprets the bloody Vampire, Jake Scully, does not manage to leave its coffin. The actor of series Z is claustrophobic. Congédié by the director, it returns at his place and finds his wife with the bed with another. Obliged to leave its residence, it accepts the offer of Sam, an actor with whom it bound knowledge at the time of a casting: to keep a vast apartment on the heights of Los Angeles. Sam also shows him that every evening, a neighbor carries out a strip tease with her window. The following day evening, Jake épie the young woman and discovers that it is not it only to look at the spectacle… (not to go not further if you do not want to know the key of the intrigue) mysterious Indien épie him too. Later in the evening, Jake sees also the husband of its neighbor disputing with it and to strike it before leaving. The following day, Jake crosses the young woman in the car. It is followed by the Indian. Jake follows it in its turn to a shopping mall. It has return with her lover and buys linen room. Jake tries of him to speak but victim of its claustrophobia in an elevator it fails. It takes again its car and deposits its old breeches in dustbin. Jake the récupèe and continues to spin its neighbor. It finds it on a beach. The Indian is always there. It is on the telephone, her lover will not come. Jake approaches it finally. She saw that it followed it… At this moment the Indian conceals his bag. Jake continues it but arrived at a tunnel, it is again paralyzed by a faintness. The young woman assistance to be left the tunnel. She is called Gloria, Gloria Revelle. Suddenly, irresistibly carried they are embraced. The come evening, Jake tries to telephone Gloria without deciding. It looks by its telescope what occurs to her. He sees that the Indian entered to Gloria and vacuum the trunk which is in its room. Gloria returns. Jake telephones to him, it has just time to prevent it before the Indian does not try to strangle it avce the wire of the telephone. Jake precipitates at Gloria. Unfortunately it arrives too late. Attacked by the dog of Gloria, enormous a huski, it cannot save it… Questioned by the police force, Jake makes a poor witness. Exceeding Peeping Tom with breeches of his pocket, it is made scold by the inspector in load of the investigation. This one learns in Jake that Gloria was rich and that one suspects the husband Alexander Revelle but with the testimony of Jake he is cleared… Jake sinks in the depression. One evening whereas it looks at a porn with the TV, it recognizes in the gestural one of the actress Holly Body the choreography of the striptease of Gloria. To question the actress, Jake passes a pornographic casting with it. It brings back it to the apartment. Holly acknowledges to him to be engaged to make a striptease in the house of Gloria. Sam telephones. Jake makes listen to the voice of this one in Holly. She recognizes that of the man who engaged it. Then from goes away, irritated by the lies of Jake. Sam actually did not cease observing them. Jake calls the police force but remains always not very credible. It decides to go to the police station. Stopped with a stopping of police force, he sees Sam striking Holy in a car in front of the file. He follows it to a tank overhanging Los Angeles. The Indian is digging a tomb. In the car, the dog of Gloria starts to bark revealing the presence of Jake. It fights with the Indian and discovers that it is a disguise. The Indian is actually Sam alias Alexander Revelle. Reveal throws Jake in the tomb that it has just dug. Jake is paralyzed by its claustrophobia. Reveal reveals the machination then to him. It used the claustrophobia of Jake to assemble this machination and to manufacture an alibi with the character of the Indian, enabling him to kill Gloria. Jake, paralyzed, revives the scene of the departure then. He sees himself wedging in the coffin of the bloody vampire unable to leave there. But this time it decides to fight. When the director shouts Action Jake rises its tomb and faces Alexander. The dog escapes from the car. It is thrown on the two men and makes fall Alexander in the channel of the tank while falling with him. The final scene shows Jake continuing the turning of the bloody vampire with a scene where it vampirise a nude woman in her shower. The director says crossed when Jake plants its teeth in the chin-strap and cherishes the center of its victim. One replaces the young first by a double body (a lining body) and one sets up a close-up chest.

On film

Body Double is one of the films headlights of Brian De Palma. It is a failure in room but it since conquered a certain number of fans in particular thanks to the novel of Brett Easton Ellis American Psycho whose main character Patrick Bateman is fascinated by film. The film takes again and develops the capital topics of the work of the scenario writer. The groundwork is hitchcockien and proceeds of a mixture of two films of the Master of suspense: Window on court for the man who épie his neighbor and Cold sweats for the dead woman who returns (with a different color of hair). Voyeurism thus holds to with it a broad place but always with an effect of enlargement compared to Alfred Hitchcock. The hero uses enormous glasses of sight (symbol very Phallique) to observe his neighbor whose lining is a pornographic film actress. Several analysts are pressed on this film to show that the work of palmienne rests on a work of revealing of work hitchcockienne, primarily in the field of sexuality. Of which act with this example. In addition, one can have a psychoanalytical reading of film. Jake is sexually impotent. At the beginning of film it is solidified, unable to move what translates by discrepancy its incapacity to have an erection. Of return to him, it surprises his partner while she has a enormous Orgasme with another. At the time of a course of revolving theater to the psychoanalysis, it reveals its incapacity to act. In fact Jake undergoes the weight of a Castration compared to the authority. It encounters all the forms of this one (director, professor of theater, police officer…) and lives in a crushed world of phallic symbols. Victim of the setting in scene of Sam Bouchard/Alexander Revel, it will have faced this deficiency. Initially by having a sexual relationship in public with the pornographic film actress Holy Body then by facing face to face the Indian. However this Indian is not realistic. It with the form of a Ogre of fairy tale, of an image hyperviril, which hides the Sam director substituted in the sequence final for the director of film, Jon Rubin. It is by tearing off the mask (as in the Magicien of OZ ) that Jake will be able to kill the figure of the father. One finds as the idea as the cinema manufactures truth starting from a parcelled out body. This idea is also that of Vertigo and of another influence of Palma, Luis Bunuel. In This obscure object of the desire two actresses play the same part alternatively (Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina) and the masculine role is interpreted by Fernando Rey with the voice of Michel Piccoli. In Blow Out the preceding film of the scenario writer, it shows how a cry of woman replaces the lamentable cry of a pretty actress. In Body Double two women play the same part. One is unaware of it often but in the film Psychose, it is not Janet Leigh which one sees naked in the shower but a double body, it is the final wink of film of Brian De Palma. The film has several small references which make direction. It should be recalled that after the failure of the large production Blow Out, De Palma had in heart to give the pendulums per hour with Hollywood. Melanie Griffith is the girl of Tippi Hedren interprets the Birds and of Pas of springs for Marnie of Alfred Hitchcock The director of the film " The Sanglant" Vampire; names Jon Rubin, it is also the name of the character of director Peeping Tom interpreted by Robert de Niro in two early works of Palma " Hi Mom " and " Greetings ". The character is also called Peeping Jon (Peeping Tom means English Peeping Tom). Dennis Franz which holds the role is one of the actors fetishes of internationally known Palma for its role in series NYPD Blue. Scene where Jake is abused by its professor of theater (which obliges it to revive a bad memory of its childhood) is an implicit criticism of the methods of the Actor Studio which Miss readily the Psychanalyse with its formation (and often was in addition compared with a Secte). Named under worst Realizer, the film can disorientate by its side " too much" who is also the claw of Palma.

Data sheet

Title: Body Doubles
Réalisation: Brian De Palma
Scenario: Robert J. Avrech and Brian De Palma
Production: Brian De Palma and Howard Gottfried
Production company: Columbia Pictures
Budget: 10 million dollars (7,5 million euros)
Music: Pino Donaggio
Photography: Stephen H. Burum
Assembly: Gerald B. Greenberg and Bill Pankow
Decorations: Ida Random
Costumes: Gloria Gresham
Country of origin: the United States
Format: Colors - 1,85:1 - Dolby - 35 mm
Kind: Thriller
Lasted: 114 minutes
Comings out date: October 26th 1984 (the United States), February 20th 1985 (France)
Film prohibited with less than 12 years at the time of its exit in France

Distribution

Craig Wasson : Jake Scully
Melanie Griffith: Holly Body
Gregg Henry: Sam Bouchard
Deborah Shelton: Gloria Reveals
Guy Boyd: the detective Jim McLean
Refusals Franz: Rubin, a realizer
David Haskell: Will, the professor
Rebecca Stanley: Kimberly Hess
Al Israel: Corso, a realizer
Douglas Warhit: the salesman of vidéos
B.J. Jones: Douglas
Marine Russ: Frank
Lane Davies: Billy
Barbara Crampton: Carol

Around film

turning was held with Beverly Hills, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Palos Verdes Peninsula and West Hollywood.
In 1993, Ashutosh Gowariker carried out Pehla Nasha , a nonofficial Remake Indian.
the actress of pornographic films Annette Haven had been initially selected to interpret the role of Holly, but the executives of Columbia decided to entrust the role to someone else, when they learned which kind of films it had turned in the past. She issued later that she was happy of such a decision, since she did not like in any event the scenario and would not have liked to appear in a film of such a violence.
the main character, Jake Scully, is actor. In a scene, a film producer asks him what it already turned, and the latter answers that it was rather good in For the love of the risk . Craig Wasson, the actor who interprets Jake Scully, really turned in 1979 in an episode of this series entitled the Cousin of Jennifer .
Brian de Palma had envisaged to make first Hollywood film containing of the not simulated sex acts, but the studio refused.
the First collaboration between Melanie Griffith and the scenario writer, they will be found in 1990 on To rough-hew It vanities .
the type-setter Pino Donaggio had already collaborated with Brian De Palma on Carrie in the ball of the devil (1976), Home Movies (1980), Blow out , Pulsions (1981) and the Spirit of Caïn (1992).

Original soundtrack

Hand Topic , composed by Pino Donaggio
Relaxed , interpreted by Frankie Goes to Hollywood
Thats the way I like it , interpreted by KC and the Sunshine Band

Distinctions

Nomination with the Golden Globe of the female best supporting role for Melanie Griffith in 1985.
Price of the female best supporting role for Melanie Griffith, at the time of the National Society off Film Critics Awards in 1985.
Nomination at the price of the worst realizer, at the time of the Razzie Awards in 1985.

External bonds

Body Doubles on Internet Movie Database
Critique DevilDead

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