Episode 119 - The History of Doppelgängers in Horror

This week Abby and Alan explore the history of Doppelgängers in film and literature, focusing on horror and science fiction. 

Email filmsaboutlunatics@gmail.com to submit your short stories and paranormal experiences.

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Get Lunatics Merch here. Join the discussion on Discord. Listen to the paranormal playlist I curate for Vurbl, updated weekly! Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback. Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.

Sources for today's episode:

• Self As Other; The Doppelganger by Gry Faurholt of Aahus University, the article can be found here.
• IMDB for general information on the films we are going to discuss today
• Edgar Allan Poe’s The Story of William Wilson
• An article by Terry Thompson (1998) James's the Jolly Corner, The Explicator
• A fandom.com entry on The Therered from Us (2019)
• Vox.com article by Emily St. James Jordan Peele’s Us — and its ending — explained. Sort of.
• Article by Katherine Bowers, Gothic Doubling and The Double, Gothically

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:18

Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Lunatics Radio Hour podcast. I'm Abby Brinker, sitting here with Alan Codan.

Speaker 2 0:28

Or are you,

Speaker 1 0:29

Have you ever seen your own doppelganger?

Speaker 2 0:31

No.

Speaker 1 0:31

What would you do if you

Speaker 2 0:32

Did? I would have to evaluate if his life was better than mine, and if so, I would have to assimilate it.

Speaker 1 0:40

Interesting.

Speaker 2 0:40

So maybe I'm the doppel

Speaker 1 0:41

Ganger that's actually quite, uh, well themed to some of the things we're gonna talk about today.

Speaker 2 0:46

I mean, sure. I mean, why wouldn't you wanna just like slip into a better version of your own life?

Speaker 1 0:51

But can you, can you really,

Speaker 2 0:53

I mean, with crime, you can do anything<laugh>.

Speaker 1 0:56

So, today is part two of our, what's turned out to be quite an epic deep dive into Doppel Gangers. Today we're going to focus on Doppel Gangers in in pop culture. Last week we talked all about the history and the mythology, the actual belief in allegations of Doppel gangers. Today it's gonna be largely focused on horror and science fiction interpretations of that. But before we jump into that, I posted on Instagram this week and just asked if anybody out there had very interesting doppelganger experiences in their own life. And I was quite overwhelmed that a lot of people have also, I did a poll on Twitter and like 80% of people who responded said that they had seen their own doppelganger or somebody else's. And, and I know that could just be like, oh, somebody that looks similar. But I think with Doppel Ganger, it's one of those things where you're like, oh, I think that's Alan. And then you're like, oh no, it's, it's not Alan.

Speaker 2 1:49

I think, uh, I can take a lot more, uh, away from these stories for people that like, don't live in places like New York City. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you know, we're surrounded by, what are we up to? 8 million, 9 million now.

Speaker 1 1:58

Couldn't tell

Speaker 2 1:59

You, there's only so many faces. Right. And variations. But if you are somebody that lives way out in the woods with no other human in sight and standing, you know, at the edge of your property every night at two in the morning is someone that looks just like you, then yeah. I'm gonna, I'm going to listen to your story.

Speaker 1 2:16

Seems like you're referencing us a little bit with that one.

Speaker 2 2:19

Oh, the movie? Yeah. Perhaps subconsciously. Hmm mm But yeah, just like walking through Times Square, seeing thousands of people, there's a good chance you're gonna see someone with similar features,

Speaker 1 2:29

Similar features. Yeah. But there's a difference between someone that looks that close

Speaker 2 2:34

To you. I'm also gonna say that there is a rise in doppelganger sightings since the pandemic.

Speaker 1 2:41

Why?

Speaker 2 2:41

Because we see less of people's faces. You just see the eyes, you

Speaker 1 2:46

Know? Oh, with masks on, you mean?

Speaker 2 2:47

Yeah, sure. And like, you know, the brain interprets the rest of someone's features. It's the same reason why they, after they had the study about whether people are more attractive or less attractive on wearing masks, and the answer was more. And it's just because people's brain fills in the gaps.

Speaker 1 3:02

Well, it's just because people like a good mystery. They want what they don't have. That's why people play games when you're dating. You don't text someone back, suddenly they're interesting to you. That's how you won me over

Speaker 2 3:13

<laugh>. I guess that's what it's all about. Romantic manipulation,<laugh>.

Speaker 1 3:17

All right. So let me share some of the personal experience doppelganger submissions I got on Instagram, just because I think they're fascinating. Okay. So one comes from our friend, also named Alan a storied native on Instagram, who is an awesome historian of New York City, especially Queens, but, but all of New York City. So he had friends back in high school who claimed to see them in their neighborhood, and then they would message him and be like, yo, I just like saw you in, you know, whatever street. And he'd be like, what the? Like, I'm home, you know, today or whatever mm-hmm.<affirmative>, or I'm not there, but this would happen to him all the time. And so this was a recurring thing until he graduated. Then he started this new job, and one of his coworkers currently looks like super similar, and he sent me a photo of them together, and they do look like they could totally be doppel gangers.

Speaker 2 4:03

Yeah. Every so often I'll encounter these stories on Reddit. Yeah. Like, wow. Yeah, you have a double that like either works in the area or I just like see him lurking around, like, do you have like a long lost twin? Or do you have a brother or anything? And the answer is no. And then eventually they'll run into each other<laugh> and they'll be a hundred percent identical. The example I'm thinking of, uh, is like a big, like ginger bearded guy. Yeah. Um, with like a vi a lot of very distinct features mm-hmm.<affirmative> and those, they happen to like work in like office buildings right. By each other. And they're like, so they're wearing the same like business casual type outfit, wearing the same exact everything, same haircut. And like, that's just weird.

Speaker 1 4:41

Yeah. I wonder too, if, if not that like, certain people are more distinct looking than others, but like, if per se you are somebody who's really tall, who has red hair, that you're just more likely because they're, you are rare in a way that people are like, oh, that looks like this guy. You know? Like if you know someone like that than any other tall person with red hair, you're like, oh, it's, it looks like Jimmy.

Speaker 2 5:03

Right. Uh, you know, if you have certain distinctive features.

Speaker 1 5:06

Right. Our friend on Instagram, Nicole also told us, so there was this sleazy guy who kept hitting on her, like throughout I, I think like, you know, sometime, even though he had a girlfriend, and then eventually they were all at the same party and she ran into him, and her and his girlfriend looked identical. She said like even down to their mannerisms, their weight, their hair, like how they put, you know, their clothing. Like, everything was so, so, so similar that it was like very, and I was like, whoa. Can you imagine though, like running into somebody where it's like looking at yourself in 3D like that, you know, like, that just must be a really interesting way to see yourself. Sure. Even though obviously it's not you,

Speaker 2 5:46

You ever been 3D scanned?

Speaker 1 5:49

No. Have you? Of

Speaker 2 5:50

Course. For what, A couple years ago I was working on a movie about this guy that basically his whole life exists on, on the internet. Yeah. So there was like all, like half the movie took place, quote unquote, in the internet because it was like an al an allegory for like where he spends his time. Sure. The whole movie was shot green screen, and, you know, there's all these like, memes coming to life and everything. They had to like build like a whole CG world that this guy was like walking through. Right. And so they did s they're using a bunch of like, you know, models and cartoons and that sort of stuff, but they also did 3D scans of the entire crew. Oh, cool. And so like, we're all just in the movie somewhere, walking around in the background. They're just like, they, they map us to

Speaker 1 6:32

As like extras.

Speaker 2 6:33

Yeah. Like the, it's, it's just like our image stretched over a 3D model, and it's like they're adding like the clothing, like the weird hats and everything. So it's like we're, we are a billion different extras. Uh, just like That's cool. You know, sprinkled throughout the

Speaker 1 6:49

Movie, I wanna see you as a billion different extras. That sounds cool. Yeah. I didn't know this movie existed. And then finally, so our friend Hector from the Reshoot movie podcast also told us that he had a doppelganger and from a distance, his mom actually couldn't tell them apart, which I think is funny.

Speaker 2 7:04

Mothers usually can't

Speaker 1 7:06

<laugh> Yeah. Mothers, they don't have a sense of what their kids look like. Nope. So in film and literature, doppel gangers function a bit differently than they do in real life. And when I say in real life, I'm referring to what we talked about in the last episode when it comes to mythology and belief systems and kind of this paranormal double in fiction that sometimes happens. It's usually used as more of a mechanic, a storytelling mechanic. And it, and it can be a little bit different. For instance, in some cases it's like less paranormal double and more psychological evil twin or something like that. And so for this episode, I, I kind of broke things down into categories of doppel gangers. And this is not, I'm sure incredibly scientific, but I am kind of attempting instead of to walk through all of the examples of doppel gangers in literature and film chronologically to kind of lump them into relevant categories.

Speaker 2 8:00

Sure. I mean, yeah, there's a lot.

Speaker 1 8:02

Yeah. So before we get into that, let's talk about today's sources and then we'll jump into the meat of the episode.

Speaker 2 8:07

Wikipedia,

Speaker 1 8:08

No Wikipedia on today's list.

Speaker 2 8:10

What? Yeah.

Speaker 1 8:11

You serious? A lot of short stories, a lot of articles and films. But no Wikipedia today,

Speaker 2 8:18

We've, we've never not had Wikipedia in this

Speaker 1 8:20

Source. That's

Speaker 2 8:21

Not true. That that's, it is true.

Speaker 1 8:23

<laugh>, the first source is an article Self as other the doppelganger Byre Holt of a House University. The article can be found on double dialogues.com. Im db for general information about the films that we're going to discuss today. Edgar Allen posed the story of William Wilson, an article by Terry Thompson from 1988. James is the jolly corner, the explicator a fandom.com entry on the tethered from us, a vox.com article by Emily St. James Jordan peels us, and its ending, explained sort of an article by Katherine Bowers, Gothic Doubling and the Double Goth. And I'll link the articles in the descriptions that you guys can find them easily. In gray Fow Holtz article, they outline the way this mechanic usually manifests in literature, quoting from the Double dialogues.com article. The doppelganger is an uncanny motif comprising two distinct types. One, the alter ego or identical double of a protagonist who seems to be either a victim of an identity theft perpetuated by a mimicking supernatural presence, or a subject to a paranoid hallucination. Or two, the split personality or dark half of the protagonist, an unleashed monster that acts as a physical manifestation of a dissociated part of the self. And I'm going to take those two types here and raise you a few<laugh> of categories.

Speaker 2 9:49

Yeah, I, I don't know. That's, I'm just having like, flashbacks to college of like taking really fun courses, Uhhuh<affirmative>, and they just put it in the most boring way possible.

Speaker 1 10:00

Oh, I thought that was like a, a good explanation of the literary device, but yeah, we're gonna, yes. You know, us we're not that.

Speaker 2 10:06

It's very succinct. I'll give you that<laugh>, but come on.

Speaker 1 10:09

So first we're gonna start with, I think maybe what is the most prolific category here of doppelganger and that's psychological thriller. Sure. So sometimes this genre is a literal twin. Sometimes it's an imagined twin. Sometimes the double isn't a twin at all, but nothing paranormal or supernatural is actually happening for the most part. The re the, the thing that's tying this category together in my mind is that the doppelganger is indeed psychological or the effect of it is creating some kind of psychological distress on the protagonist.

Speaker 2 10:44

What do you mean? There's nothing supernatural happening though. Hit me with a movie. What, what's, what's a movie that

Speaker 1 10:49

Black

Speaker 2 10:50

Swan. Black Swan, the one movie that we're gonna talk about time and time again that I have not seen.

Speaker 1 10:56

Right. So like in us.

Speaker 2 10:58

Okay. I've seen us.

Speaker 1 10:59

That's not psychological. Those doppel gangers exist according to the mytho of the film. They exist in flesh and blood. Okay. In Black Swan, they do not.

Speaker 2 11:09

So how is that not supernatural

Speaker 1 11:10

Though, in Black Swan? Because it's psychological. She's imagining it. Oh.

Speaker 2 11:14

Oh, okay. So, gotcha. It's just all in her head. Right? It's, there's nothing happening tangibly,

Speaker 1 11:20

Or the, an example could be there's a movie about twins and one of those twins is evil and one is not evil, but it's not paranormal or supernatural. Two twins actually exist.

Speaker 2 11:33

Gotcha. Okay.

Speaker 1 11:34

Okay. And it's like a psychological thriller, not because someone's imagining the other double, but just because that's the, the tone of the film. I understand. Okay. So a really good example that I don't think you've seen, but some people might have

Speaker 2 11:45

Black Swan

Speaker 1 11:46

Is Cronenberg's film Dead Ringers from 1988. I'll set the scene for you. Dead Ringers tells the story of two identical twins. Okay. We talked about this a bit on an episode with Sarah Quincy a few months ago about Kronenberg, but they're both played by Jeremy Irons and it's about this like agonizing fall from Social Power. They're both doctors and it's actually based on these creepy twins that lived in the Upper East Side of Manhattan many years ago.

Speaker 2 12:13

This is a real

Speaker 1 12:13

Story. It's based on a real story, but then it becomes very Kronenberg esque. This is one of my favorite Kronenberg films, though. This film would be categorized under evil twin films for sure. And not paranormal Doubles. I do think it's worth mentioning because the film uses Doppel gangers in like kind of a literary mechanic sense. So there is some foreshadowing that comes into this film with the fate of one of the twins in where in that, that it kind of like finds its way to one twin and then the other. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And that's something, remember back to last episode when we talked about the foreshadowing of like Lincoln or Katherine the Great seeing their doppelganger right before death. Okay. So it's, it's not one for one, but I'm, I'm just kind of calling back to that idea of foreshadowing,

Speaker 2 12:54

Right? This is Jeremy Irons

Speaker 1 12:55

Instead. Right. Where sometimes something will happen to one twin and then inevitably to the other

Speaker 2 12:59

Big Jeremy Iron fans, by the way. Oh

Speaker 1 13:01

Really? Yeah. You should watch this movie. You see him twice the

Speaker 2 13:04

Whole time. I just love his voice

Speaker 1 13:05

From just in general or did he do like a narration of something that you like?

Speaker 2 13:09

Uh, I love his voice in general, but uh, he has done multiple audio books.

Speaker 1 13:13

Cool. The connection between the Twins and Dead Ringers does seem to sort of transcend typical human connection and dabble into something more ethereal. But again, I'm not categorizing this film as paranormal at all. It's psychological for sure. Another film that I'm a huge fan of and got to rewatch for this episode is Sisters from Brian d Palma Sisters is from 1972. And it's, again, very near and dear to my heart. Please watch Sisters, if you haven't

Speaker 2 13:40

Seen it. I have not seen Sisters.

Speaker 1 13:42

It's Stars, Margot Kitter and Jennifer Salt. And this film has like a ton of horror t tropes, which is one of the reasons why I really like Brian d Palma's filmmaking.

Speaker 2 13:50

Just, just gimme the quick pitch. What's Sisters about? She, you literally just rolled up your

Speaker 1 13:56

Sleeves, the credits roll. No. So the film is brilliant. I don't wanna give away too much, but the general quick pitch

Speaker 2 14:03

Yeah. Give away Nothing Please.

Speaker 1 14:05

Is that you have two twins, or you have, you have a set of twins. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, a guy starts sleeping with one of them. Okay. It kind of turns into her birthday and we, we get a sense that like something

Speaker 2 14:17

Her birthday or their

Speaker 1 14:18

Birthdays, their birthday, but like we don't see the other twin right away. Okay. But we start to get a sense that there's something's going on with her. Like she needs medication. He goes out, gets her meds, and he picks up a birthday cake for for her. Okay. Brings it back. This is not giving away anything. This all happens in the first few minutes of the

Speaker 2 14:34

Film. Okay. Birthday cake copy.

Speaker 1 14:36

He runs into the other twin and she kills him.

Speaker 2 14:40

Ugh.

Speaker 1 14:41

But what happens is a neighbor who's like a reporter witnesses this from a window. It's very like rear window in some ways. Brian Palm is like, always calls on different, like Hitchcockian sort of of themes, but then it kind of becomes this slow unraveling of what the evil twin versus the good twin. How it all fits together. And again, it's like this psychological thriller of like kind of trying to understand what actually happened between them and what their connection is.

Speaker 2 15:07

Okay. I follow.

Speaker 1 15:08

So it kind of flirts with the line between evil twin and psychological doppelganger. And that's the

Speaker 2 15:15

Question. But there's no monsters.

Speaker 1 15:16

No monsters.

Speaker 2 15:17

Lame

Speaker 1 15:18

<laugh>. Wait, we're gonna have a whole section on that. Just wait.

Speaker 2 15:21

Better hurry

Speaker 1 15:21

Up. Another Brian de Palm film worth mentioning is Body Double from 1984. Another film that I love. Both Body Double and Sisters have clear ties to Hitchcock and he exploits these themes in like an updated and I think like, refreshed way for the time period. These are both, you know, from the seventies and eighties.

Speaker 2 15:38

Okay. Well do you wanna pitch this one too?

Speaker 1 15:41

I think you would actually like Body Double More Than Sisters. It's an erotic thriller.

Speaker 2 15:45

Okay. As, as erotic as the Mermaid movie

Speaker 1 15:49

In a, in a way that I think you might like more. What

Speaker 2 15:52

Am I, what was that movie?

Speaker 1 15:52

The

Speaker 2 15:53

Lure. The Lure, yeah. That was a great movie. Because when you say erotic thriller, that's what I picture.

Speaker 1 15:58

This is like an eighties erotic thriller. I I I I think it's quite erotic<laugh>,

Speaker 2 16:05

You've made that clear. Okay.<laugh>.

Speaker 1 16:08

It's,

Speaker 2 16:09

Uh, they, they show their shoulders

Speaker 1 16:10

It's sexy. I think it's a, and it also has kind of a rear window vibe.

Speaker 2 16:15

Okay. So we're back

Speaker 1 16:16

And a, and a Vertigo vibe. I don't, it's hard to give to, to talk about this film. I'll, I'll say this. Both Body Double and Vertigo the Doppelganger Act in the same way. And I'm just gonna say that cuz I don't wanna ruin all these films for people. But if you've seen one, then you understand the other.

Speaker 2 17:08

Okay. But if you had to only watch one, say someone's really pressed for time and needs to watch a doppelganger movie

Speaker 1 17:14

Out of those two, or out of all doppelganger

Speaker 2 17:17

Movies, out of those two,

Speaker 1 17:19

I would say if the idea of an erotic thriller sounds interesting to you, you should watch Buddy Double.

Speaker 2 17:23

Right. Because the one is an erotic thriller and one's not. Correct. That's a pretty clear choice then. Yeah. Okay, great. Moving on. And

Speaker 1 17:30

I don't mean it's like porn, you know, but it's,

Speaker 2 17:32

It's sexy, right? I mean Well, they do, they do show their shoulders<laugh>

Speaker 1 17:35

Vertigo from 1958, a very, very classic Alfred Hitchcock horror film doppelganger. And that really, again, is squarely in this category of psychological because it's ultimately about like projection versus reality and delusion. You

Speaker 2 17:50

Just keep shaming me for not watching these movies, aren't you? Yeah.

Speaker 1 17:54

Okay. It's cool. Welcome to<laugh>. Welcome to the episode. Yep. Let's get this one out of the way because you haven't seen this one and I'm passionate about

Speaker 2 18:00

It. I have at least seen parts of Vertigo.

Speaker 1 18:02

No, I'm gonna talk about Black Swan now. What parts of Vertigo have you seen

Speaker 2 18:07

The Vertigo shots? Oh sure. It's filmmaking 1 0 1. Yeah.

Speaker 1 18:11

They should have showed you the whole movie.

Speaker 2 18:12

Yeah, probably. I think I did watch the whole movie at one point. I just, I don't know. Watching things in a classroom setting is not the most memorable.

Speaker 1 18:22

Hmm. It's funny, a lot of these, I actually took a, it wasn't clear my obsession with, with Brian d Palma, it's because I took a class in film school just about him. And those films had a, a major impact on me.

Speaker 2 18:33

Well, you just wait until we get to the Godzilla episode and I'm gonna shame you for not watching all of those movies.

Speaker 1 18:38

I've watched so many Godzilla movies with you.

Speaker 2 18:41

Oh, have you?

Speaker 1 18:42

So many more than I know that you've watched all of them. I've watched so many more than the Normal

Speaker 2 18:46

Person is first off, I have not watched all

Speaker 1 18:48

Of them. You've watched a lot of them. Okay. What are there like 50 something films?

Speaker 2 18:52

53. But Abby, what part of Godzilla Glows right before he unleashes his atomic breath,

Speaker 1 18:59

His spine.

Speaker 2 19:00

That's correct. Not his eyes.

Speaker 1 19:02

We were playing horror trivia the other day. I learned my lesson. Famously Black Swan uses a doppelganger in a psychological sense. In 2010, Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan hit theaters and it was an Instant Sensation. The screenplay was written by Mark Hyman, Andres Hines and John Jay McLaren. The film stars, Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, both exceptionally talented in this movie. And there's so much to say about it in general.<laugh>, let alone just its use of Doppel gangers. So to give you Alan and any viewers who have not seen it, black Swan takes the classic tale of Swan Lake, which is a ballet and it uses the actors. So the, the characters in the film are putting on a production of Swan Lake at like the New York City Ballet. Okay. So the stakes are high. It's a very high pressure situation. Very kind of like toxic art scene. You know, where you have this like male, brilliant ballet director that everybody is like bending over backwards to impress and be chosen as the Queen Swan. You know, that's the kind of vibe of the movie. But what Aronofsky also does is through these characters who are putting on Swan Lake, they in their own stories that we see also act out Swan Lake, kind of in the back end of it.

Speaker 2 20:19

I have not seen Black Swan. Yep. This is established. Yeah. However, I do have one Black Swan anecdote. Okay. Uh, I did work on the college humor sketch about Black Swan starring Darren Aronofsky.

Speaker 1 20:34

Tell us everything.

Speaker 2 20:35

I actually don't remember much about it cuz this was like over a decade ago because, you know, college humor was still around. But I just remember him being very, very kind.

Speaker 1 20:44

Oh, that's great. Sometimes you meet these directors and you're like, oh, James are shattered.

Speaker 2 20:48

Oh, actually, no. He was very nice to me and the camera guy. And he was a total dick to the director.

Speaker 1 20:53

<laugh> that tracks.

Speaker 2 20:55

Now I'm thinking about that. I was pretty amusing.

Speaker 1 20:56

<laugh>. So I will say this, this film does flirt with the idea of paranormal versus psychological versus sabotage. The main character, Nina, a role that Natalie Portman won the Oscar for. She sees visions of a darker version of herself, something that she's striving to unlock. So Nina, Natalie Portman is playing this very kind of timid, perfectionist person. And the whole, in this role of the Swan Queen, she has, has to be both the White Swan and the Black Swan. So the director, the whole film is being like, you need to figure out how to unwind, how to unleash, how to let go of, of like all of the perfectionism you're carry and just like, go wild. And of course he does this in like super problematic ways by like forcing himself on her multiple times.

Speaker 2 21:45

Oh, not good.

Speaker 1 21:47

But she's like this technically perfect dancer. But she lacks this like seduction and ferocity that he's looking for in this

Speaker 2 21:54

Role. I was gonna say like, just have her like, take like a crazy wine and painting class, you know,

Speaker 1 21:59

<laugh>. But as she's obviously starting to kind of crack under all this pressure, these visions come where she's seeing this dark version of herself and they're coupled with like these violent outbursts as she's gaslit and she's tortured by this director. It's, you know, it's an intense film. The Pressure Mound says the other dancers turn against her. So I also wanna talk about Mila Kunis character Lily. Okay. Who's like this new girl. She's super cool, you know, she like smokes cigarettes. She doesn't give a about nothing. She's

Speaker 2 22:25

Cold and smoked cigarettes,

Speaker 1 22:27

<laugh>, I don't support smoking cigarettes, but that's how the film portrays her. She's like very in touch with her sexuality. She has no trouble letting loose. Like one night she like takes Nina out and like gives her ecstasy for the first time. You know, that's like her vibe. She just doesn't like care. And then we realize like partway through the film that we can't trust the version of Lilly that we see.

Speaker 2 22:47

Are you giving this entire movie

Speaker 1 22:48

Away?<laugh>? No, because we're seeing it through Nina's eyes. So we start to under, I'm just trying to explain why this is psychological. We start to understand that at least some of the things that we're seeing are in Nina's brain.

Speaker 2 23:00

Yeah, no, I got that.

Speaker 1 23:01

Versus, okay, great. But overall, the film is really like this exploration of mental illness, toxic environments. And I think it, it tells a really important story. It highlights like the difficulties of performing at this kind of level with like this ambition and this audience and the pressure. And again, it kind of like has this really gross director character who is a quote unquote artistic genius. And that's why he's allowed to get away with being an absolute predator. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. But it's at its core, there's also a lot about Nina's own history with mental illness. And I think that the film is actually a raw look at, at the, at that and how all that manifests and the effects of pressure and control and being gaslit.

Speaker 2 23:43

Is Darren Aronofski still making stuff?

Speaker 1 23:45

He is, yeah. But he makes stuff kind of slowly. Like he puts something out every, you know, five years or

Speaker 2 23:51

Something. Look, I can't name another

Speaker 1 23:52

Mother with Jennifer Lawrence. I think that might've been his last like, big One Mother.

Speaker 2 23:57

That's different from Ma, right? Yeah. That wasn't Darren Aronofski. No.<laugh>. Can you name another one? Did

Speaker 1 24:04

You ever see Pie?

Speaker 2 24:05

Oh yeah, that

Speaker 1 24:07

Was

Speaker 2 24:07

Him. I've seen that movie. That's a weird movie.

Speaker 1 24:10

Yeah. All this is weird.

Speaker 2 24:12

Is are there any Doppel gangers in that movie?

Speaker 1 24:14

The Oh, the Whale came out this year with your favorite guy,

Speaker 2 24:17

The Whale. That's true. Yeah. That's not my favorite guy. Everyone's favorite guy.

Speaker 1 24:21

<laugh> Burned and Frazier. Yeah. And there's, it sounds like he's in post-production of something right now, but so yeah, he, he's still out there. I went to before college before my parents kind of like agreed to let me go to a film program for school. Uhhuh<affirmative>. They sent me to this really amazing program in Maine for a few weeks called the Maine Media Workshops. And

Speaker 2 24:39

It's Did you learn how to operate a steady cam?

Speaker 1 24:41

There was, there's they, they do like official steady cam courses there, I

Speaker 2 24:45

Am aware. Oh,

Speaker 1 24:46

<laugh>. But it's really cool. They have like programs for adult filmmakers, for college age, for photographers, for all different kinds of like, technical processes. And it was a very, very transformative and important experience for me. It was, honestly, it was like so helpful technically to learn about so many different things on a film set before I even got to college. But the point is, in this experience, I've met friends that I absolutely loved and I met this one guy that I hated. He was just like another guy in my program, like another kid. And he was sounds like a jerk. He was just so obnoxious and pretentious and all he cared about was Darren Aronofsky. So from that I was like, Ugh, I, this guy is like, I will never watch Darren Aronofski if this is what this guy likes. But now I, I like him quite

Speaker 2 25:33

A bit. This is, that's literally the film school experience.

Speaker 1 25:36

Yeah. Requi for a dream. You know, it's like those kind of movies. It's like film school movies that he makes. Yeah.

Speaker 2 25:41

You hate him because there's always that one guy that has this massive encyclopedic knowledge. Uh, and when you voice your opinion about something, he just, uh, explains to you why you're

Speaker 1 25:52

Wrong. It's actually why, despite all of the discussion of film that we do, I don't like talking about art or film or whatever our TV with people a lot because it ends up being exactly what you're saying, that people's opinions are fact when they forget that it's art. And, and everyone can interpret that art in a different way. And I find it very obnoxious the way that some of these conversations come out where everybody's like, well no, this is why this is a good movie and if you like this movie, if you don't like this movie, you're stupid. Or if you do like this movie, you're, you know, it's like, it's that kind of sense. Yeah.

Speaker 2 26:25

I can't tell you how turned off I got having those conversations because, you know, there I was in film school and it's like, oh, so what's your favorite movie? And we're getting answers, you know, like Buffalo 66 Citizen Kane just like, you know, and I'm like, I like Terminator two

Speaker 1 26:44

<laugh>,

Speaker 2 26:44

Which is a cinematic masterpiece. Yeah. I stand by it as quite possibly one of the best movies ever made.

Speaker 1 26:52

I think everybody's own lived experiences and interests totally paints your interest in all of this. And it's just obnoxious to talk to people about it who are not open-minded. That's all rant over. But I do like Black Swan, I do like Darren Aronofsky as a director, and if you haven't seen it, it's a very, very good example of a psychological doppel gang or film.

Speaker 2 27:16

Yeah. I haven't seen it, man. Now I'm just like reliving the trauma of trying to defend my opinions about movies I like. Just because like, I didn't resonate with Midnight Cowboy. I would get shame

Speaker 1 27:28

<laugh>. Well now yeah, now we can have this podcast to get our revenge on all of the film school. Listen,

Speaker 2 27:36

Midnight Cowboy is not a bad, it's a good movie.

Speaker 1 27:38

I don't think I've seen it.

Speaker 2 27:39

It's, it's fun. But I just, I did, I missed a lot of the undertones, you know? Yeah. And if you miss the undertones, you're a idiot.

Speaker 1 27:47

Or maybe that director didn't, could do a good enough job.

Speaker 2 27:51

No. It's actually a great movie.<laugh>. So you've never seen Midnight

Speaker 1 27:53

Cowboy? No. Is it a Western?

Speaker 2 27:55

No. Uh, yeah. It's, it's about a male sex worker. Well, he just wants to become a male sex worker, so he just like goes to the big city to do that. Cool. Yeah. And there's, you know, things where he just starts like flirting with, you know, older women to try to, to pick up clients. Uh, but the women just think that they're being hit on. Hmm. You know, and like conflict ensues when he asks for payment. Right. You know, it's a lot of societal commentary, but it's, it's a fun movie. Yeah.

Speaker 1 28:24

Cool.

Speaker 2 28:25

What's his name? Dustin Hoffman's in it. Oh, cool. As like a little as like a little Weasley guy.

Speaker 1 28:57

That's usually his character.

Speaker 2 28:58

Yeah. His character is named Ratso Rizzo. If that doesn't like quantify his character type.

Speaker 1 29:04

So more of a rat than a Weasel. Yeah.

Speaker 2 29:06

That's the movie where Dustin Hoffman goes, Hey, I'm walking here.

Speaker 1 29:10

Gotcha. Iconic.

Speaker 2 29:11

Yeah. Another classic example of filmmaking,<laugh> Improv line. Actually a taxi cab ran the barricade because they had like a blocked off street and a taxi just like burst through and almost hit Dustin Hoffman. And so he just like, you know, slaps the hood and says, Hey, I'm walking here. You know, but that the, the car wasn't even supposed to be in the

Speaker 1 29:30

Movie Parodied Excellently by Sandra Bullock and Mis congeniality

Speaker 2 29:34

Another cinematic masterpiece.

Speaker 1 29:36

I agree.

Speaker 2 29:36

Okay. Sorry for derailing our Doppel Ganger episodes. Talking about Midnight Cowboy.

Speaker 1 29:41

Yeah. No doubles in Midnight Cowboy. I assume

Speaker 2 29:43

It's been a while since I've seen it, but I don't remember anything like that.

Speaker 1 29:46

Then let's talk about science fiction doppelganger

Speaker 2 29:48

Films. Okay.

Speaker 1 29:49

But I do wanna be clear because obviously there is a very fine line between cloning and science fiction. Doppel gangers. I'm not talking about cloning.

Speaker 2 29:58

Why I think that counts.

Speaker 1 30:00

Well, I already put together the research in a way that excluded it.

Speaker 2 30:04

<laugh>. Okay. Well I'm going to make an strong asterisks. Uhhuh<affirmative> saying cloning counts.

Speaker 1 30:10

Why do you think cloning counts?

Speaker 2 30:12

That's what I believe.

Speaker 1 30:13

I'm gonna say why I don't think it counts

Speaker 2 30:15

<laugh>. Okay. And I'll, I'll lobby why It

Speaker 1 30:16

Does, because a clone is a copy of somebody versus, so it's kind of the same person versus in a lot of cases, Doppel gangers are like a different version of that person, like an evil version or a successful version or whatever. But a clone is a carbon copy. It's just having the same person multiple times.

Speaker 2 30:36

Have you seen the sixth day?

Speaker 1 30:39

No.

Speaker 2 30:39

Starring the world famous Arnold Schwarzenegger. I

Speaker 1 30:43

Thought you were gonna say The Rock. No, I have not.

Speaker 2 30:45

Fantastic film all about cloning. So this takes place in the slightly distant future Okay. Where human cloning is illegal, but cloning as a technology exists. In fact, you can go to, uh, a re pet facility ah, to get your pet renewed if you would. That's cute. Yeah. That's how like the movie kind of opens. Right? Cuz he's like replacing their family dog. Aw. But then Arnold comes back to see his family with a man that looks just like him. Ooh, Woohoo. That sounds like doppelganger, right?

Speaker 1 31:22

But it's a carbon copy.

Speaker 2 31:25

Yes. But mm-hmm.<affirmative>, there's a lot that goes on with this film. There's lots of nefarious plans, you know, uh, corporate espionage, there's the, you know, it's an action movie. Yeah. But there's a lot of psychological elements behind it. First off just the, the, the crazy psychological head trip of walking into your home and seeing yourself there with your family. Yeah. That's bad. Yeah.

Speaker 1 31:48

Right. I concede. Yeah.

Speaker 2 31:50

So there you go. Clone, that's a cl very much a cloning movie, but doppelgangers.

Speaker 1 31:55

I'm also gonna say this very vague comment that there's a film in theaters right now that I love that is about cloning, but I am not talking about it because I don't wanna spoil it for anybody. But I just know how hard it is for me not to talk about it because it's so timely to this episode. But it's cloning not doppelganger.

Speaker 2 32:15

Okay. I'm just gonna spoil it for you. You're talking about Ant Man in the Wasp Quantum mania.

Speaker 1 32:22

<laugh>. Good guess, but no, there's

Speaker 2 32:23

A, there's a whole sequence Uhhuh<affirmative> where he just keeps me, there's so many duplicates of himself. Cuz due to like the timeline keeps splitting into different probabilities that there's just so many versions of himself. All slight differences.

Speaker 1 32:37

Again, I don't think that's a d or if they exist on different timelines,

Speaker 2 32:41

They're all in the same room.

Speaker 1 32:42

Okay. Well I haven't seen that movie. That's not the movie I was talking about.

Speaker 2 32:46

One even works for Baskin Robbins, that's like a, I don't know, they, they paid a lot for branding

Speaker 1 32:51

<laugh>. Okay. So one film that I'm not gonna talk about, but just as an example, invasion of the Body Snatchers, which has a ton of different versions. It's been retold before. It often appears on doppelganger film list when you look up, you know, best doppelganger films. But it would fall under the category of cloning, I believe. But a, an example of a science fiction film, I think, and I'm curious what your thoughts are that is strictly about Doppel Gangers is Jordan peels us from 2019.

Speaker 2 33:19

I have seen this movie.

Speaker 1 33:21

We just watched

Speaker 2 33:22

It. Yes. We rented the DVD from the library. It's almost impossible to talk about this movie without spoiling things.

Speaker 1 33:30

Yeah. So skip ahead like five minutes if you haven't seen it and you want

Speaker 2 33:33

To maybe 10 just to be safe, who knows how long we're

Speaker 1 33:35

Talking. Just go pause and watch it and come back.

Speaker 2 33:37

Yes.

Speaker 1 33:38

Beyond being my preferred mix of Horn comedy, which I love us explores this deep psychological question with the use of doubles or in this case the tethered, which is what the double gangers are called.

Speaker 2 33:50

Hold the phone. Yes. You found this movie funny.

Speaker 1 33:53

Yeah. Are you kidding me? The whole Elizabeth Moss.

Speaker 2 33:56

Who's Elizabeth Moss?

Speaker 1 33:57

The white family with Ophelia and Play Call the Police and the Place The Pol. I think it's, I think it's very

Speaker 2 34:03

Funny. Oh yes. That was a humorous sequence.

Speaker 1 34:06

Yeah, there's, there's, I think the whole dad is funny. You know, there's like a vibe to it. A funny vibe.

Speaker 2 34:11

When I think of horror comedy, I think of like scary movie.

Speaker 1 34:14

I'm not thinking of horror parody, I'm thinking of horror comedy

Speaker 2 34:18

Or you know, like Evil Dead three, right. Where it's mostly a comedy with some horrific elements.

Speaker 1 34:25

You and I have different definitions

Speaker 2 34:27

That we do.

Speaker 1 34:28

So quoting from fandom.com here, just to help us define the role of Doppel Gangers in this movie, quote, the tethered are an antagonistic race of Doppel gangers in Jordan Peel's 2019 horror film. Us the tethered were made by humans and were originally meant to control their surface counterparts. However, it failed and the tethered were abandoned for generations. The tethered copied their surface counterparts. Whatever they did, they did as well. Except in a more horrific and strange way. There's this scene at the end, the final scene where Lupita is, is with herself. Right. With her double mm-hmm.<affirmative>. It's at that point that she reveals kind of the impetus of, of the tethered and how they came to be and that they were this government experiment as a way to control the, the living people like as puppets. Uh, they would manipulate them on the, on the underground side and control their actions on the above ground side. And that the experiment failed. But now all of these, these generations of people were abandoned.

Speaker 2 35:30

It almost sounded like using clones with a weird relationship with quantum entanglement. Right. Where with whatever one does, the other does as well. Right. It seemed though that it was, maybe that's why it was a failed experiment. It was just kind of the other way around where whatever they did upstairs, whatever the, the real people did, the, the Doppel Gangers had to do instead.

Speaker 1 35:55

Right. Yeah. Which is, there's like, what the scene where they're all meeting for the first time and they're talking about like giving birth and having C-sections and you're like, that's, that's heavy. Yeah.

Speaker 2 36:04

That's, that was terrifying.

Speaker 1 36:05

I'm going to quote from the vox.com article by Emily St. James cuz I think she really explains the nature of the film in a great way. Okay. Quote, it's central metaphor of meeting a literal twin of yourself certainly can be read as a commentary on race, but it's also a pretty brilliant commentary on class, on capitalism, on gender, and on the lasting effects of trauma or mental illness. You can probably add your own possibilities to this list. All of these concepts keep informing one another. If you wanna read What Happens to Red and Adelaide as a commentary on how differently traumatic incidents weigh on Children of Means versus children who grew up with little money. Doing so can support both an interpretation of the film as being about mental illness and one where it's about class. What's more us doesn't seem to want to be read as social commentary in the way Get Out was the middle hour is so fun. Precisely because it never really bothers to stop and make you think about the movie's deeper themes. It's too busy killing off tethers by chewing them up in a boat's motor end

Speaker 2 37:08

Quote. I did appreciate what you said while we were watching the movie.

Speaker 1 37:11

What did I

Speaker 2 37:12

Say that the only real racial commentary in the film was how Fast the White Family dies<laugh>.

Speaker 1 37:18

Yeah. I mean obviously there's more, but to me that was just so funny that the, the white family is immediately killed by their doppel gangers. They, they really had no fair fight in them.

Speaker 2 37:29

They had none.

Speaker 1 37:30

They were so stupid. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 37:31

<affirmative>, I gotta, I gotta pull in the reins here cuz we're not, I'm not trying to just like give a movie review in terms of the Doppel gangers. I really loved the, the mythos. I wish they explained the world a little bit more. I kind of wanna like see the prequel movie now. Sure. Uh, of like the, the, the founding of the tethered also, how the hell did they survived on there for so long? Do

Speaker 1 37:51

They Eating rabbits?

Speaker 2 37:52

Eating rabbits

Speaker 1 37:54

And the rabbits obviously multiply.

Speaker 2 37:55

Got it. Yeah. How they feed the rabbits though

Speaker 1 37:57

That, I don't know.

Speaker 2 37:58

It can't be a sealed ecosystem. That's crazy.

Speaker 1 38:01

Maybe the rabbits eat the dead bodies of the tethered when they die.

Speaker 2 38:04

That's amazing. U h, okay. I mean, yeah, all these questions are just because I found the world so, so interesting.

Speaker 1 38:11

I hope, I hope someday you get a prequel to this movie

Speaker 2 38:14

Or a sequel. I'm fine with. I'm fine with either.

Speaker 1 38:16

I hope we get an expanded view into the world.

Speaker 2 38:19

The, the tether verse.

Speaker 1 38:20

Yeah. There you go.

Speaker 2 38:22

Or just start combining the movies where we start seeing tethered versions of the Aliens from Nope,<laugh>.

Speaker 1 38:29

There you

Speaker 2 38:30

Go. There'd be nuts.

Speaker 1 38:31

Another example of a science fiction doppelganger film is the film Doppelganger from 1993. Oh, here

Speaker 2 38:38

We go.

Speaker 1 38:38

Starring Drew Barrymore Doppelganger is a fairly poorly rated movie, but it certainly, I would say it's fun to watch with a group. Drew's murderous doppelganger makes us think that she's psychological for a large portion of the film, but the ending reveals what the double actually is and it's totally bizarre and unique to this movie. I don't think any of the other doppelganger films that we've seen are like this at all.

Speaker 2 39:01

Something about it was familiar of like a version of yourself literally ripping apart from yourself to go do mysterious, like mischievous things. But

Speaker 1 39:11

Do you remember what was like inside the doppelganger

Speaker 2 39:14

Bones?

Speaker 1 39:15

No. It was like, it was like a, a monster kind of

Speaker 2 39:18

Well, yeah, that's what I'm saying. It was like literally flesh would rip out of Drew Barrymore Yeah. Form into a person. Go do bad and come back. Yeah. I've I've, I've seen this trope somewhere else and I cannot remember where. Hmm. Where Yeah. That's just like the little evil part of you that goes and does bad things. Did it ever explain where it came from or why she can do

Speaker 1 39:39

That? I don't think so. Hmm. And like, technically is it paranoid? Like I'm putting it in science fiction because it's, it's not a haunting, it's, it's, it's actually a thing that is happening in the world of this movie.

Speaker 2 39:51

Uh, I'd put that, I mean, it takes the ending where she like we actually see that all happen takes place in a church.

Speaker 1 39:57

I think it's, I think it's her old house. It's not a

Speaker 2 40:00

Church. Oh really?

Speaker 1 40:00

Yeah. It's like the house that she lived in in la

Speaker 2 40:03

It's a beautiful

Speaker 1 40:03

House. Well, yeah, it was like a gothic manner.

Speaker 2 40:06

It, it, it, I don't know the, the closest approximation of that is like when you see like little Voldemort living in the back of Quar quarrels head or whatever his name is, where it's just like a little thing that can like come out and do bad things.

Speaker 1 40:19

There's also another film that does that. I was, well spoiler malignant by James won has

Speaker 2 40:25

That thing. Yes. That's the movie. Yeah, that's the movie I'm thinking of. Oh, okay. Malignant. Yeah. A hundred percent. That's the movie I'm trying to think of,

Speaker 1 40:30

Which I also purposely didn't include because

Speaker 2 40:33

Why? That's perfect.

Speaker 1 40:34

That was a conjoined twin that it was like a, a cyst then, you know, it was that kind of a thing.

Speaker 2 40:40

We, we are splitting hairs here.

Speaker 1 40:42

I know, I know. But if you don't then this world of this episode would be like 45 hours long. There's so much to talk

Speaker 2 40:48

About. Of course. It's, yeah. It's like

Speaker 1 40:50

We need some barriers to

Speaker 2 40:52

This. I refuse No malignant is the, is the example that I was thinking of. Okay. It it is the perfect example of like the evil version of yourself.

Speaker 1 41:00

Yeah.

Speaker 2 41:01

You know, cuz like yeah. They were literally identical twins and one was evil and one was not. One also had superpowers

Speaker 1 41:09

Talking about evil versions of yourself. Of course. Spanning both cinema and literature are our dear old friends Dr. Jelan, Mr. Hyde, this

Speaker 2 41:18

Is a doppelganger.

Speaker 1 41:20

If you think all of the other, you just went on a rant about how big this world of doppelganger should be. But this is outside your boundary.

Speaker 2 41:27

Yes. Because they don't look like each other,

Speaker 1 41:29

But they are the same person.

Speaker 2 41:30

The visual likeness is a key component of the doppelganger verse. They

Speaker 1 41:38

Look somewhat like each other.

Speaker 2 41:40

Only in that movie with, uh, what's his name?

Speaker 1 41:43

John Malkovich.

Speaker 2 41:44

With John Malkovich. Yeah. Where it's literally John Malkovich with a different wig on and they're like, wow, those guys look nothing alike.

Speaker 1 41:51

<laugh>. Okay. Well we, we extensively covered Jekyll and Hyde in October of last year. We did a whole series on Jacqueline Hde. So you can listen to that there. I think if we're talking about things so broadly, it's worth mentioning because it's, and the reason why I put it in science fiction is because it's a serum that forces the, the change to happen.

Speaker 2 42:13

In my mind, the quintessential version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as we discussed, is from a League of Extraordinary gentlemen. And they look in, it's basically just like the Hulk. Would you say that Bruce Banner and the Hulk have a doppelganger relationship?

Speaker 1 42:30

No. Split personality.

Speaker 2 42:32

Split personality. I would like to argue that Jekyll and Hyde are the same.

Speaker 1 42:36

Okay. I, I concede again.

Speaker 2 42:38

Thank you.

Speaker 1 42:39

One double that is based in science fiction but has psychological implications. And I think you're gonna take issue with this as well. Oh, here we go. Is Frankenstein's monster,

Speaker 2 42:48

What

Speaker 1 42:49

Not clearly a doppelganger perhaps, but a literary device that Mary Shelley was using to hold up a mirror to force our characters to reflect upon their own lives, which is kind of the same function of a doppelganger in literature. I'm gonna quote here from Katherine Bowers

Speaker 2 43:05

Quote, I'm giving you a real skeptical look. For all those who can't see

Speaker 1 43:09

Quote punter uses the examples of Robert Lewis Stevenson's, the strange case of Dr. Jelan, Mr. Hyde and Oscar Wildes the picture of Dorian Gray to showcase the double type in both cases, the double figures, the violent monstrous hide end dorian's decaying aging self-portrait reveal, the horrors apparent when the self is physically divided, Jekyll's goodness is offset by hyde's murderous tendencies just as dorian's external beauty with the internal decay and degeneration represented in his portrait end quote. It's, it's, to me it's, I I understand that it's one person, but it also is kind of the same idea of an evil twin. You have one that's the evil version and one that's the good version and together they make up a hole. So whether those two things are physically split or not, it's similar in that way. You have someone who's really evil, someone who's really good, someone who's really this, someone who's really that together. They're balanced being,

Speaker 2 44:06

I'm getting flashbacks to high school this time when being forced to write an essay on like, tell us why the author intended this. And I'm like, I don't see it. I don't see it at all.

Speaker 1 44:19

You don't see that.

Speaker 2 44:20

I mean, I understand what you're saying. I just don't see any relationship to doppel gangers outside of the rela the do unless we're talking simply a duality of a split person.

Speaker 1 44:29

Well, I'm just talking about taking a step back, Uhhuh

Speaker 2 44:32

<affirmative>,

Speaker 1 44:33

Why Doppel gangers are used in film and in literature what the purpose is. I see. And the purpose is usually similar to what we see with these examples,

Speaker 2 44:45

Right? It's this, it's the person usually without the same filters. Right. And just by adjusting the filters, it makes it completely different. Usually evil person.

Speaker 1 44:57

It's all comes back to human nature at the end of the

Speaker 2 45:00

Day. Doesn't it? Always.

Speaker 1 45:01

The final example of doppelganger in science fiction is annihilation

Speaker 2 45:05

The final

Speaker 1 45:06

That I'm gonna talk about.

Speaker 2 45:07

Okay.

Speaker 1 45:08

The film came out in 2018 based on a novel from 2014 written by Jeff VanderMeer. Again, it's hard to talk about these things without spoiling them, but I, I will just say that the use of doppel gangers here mimics us in a lot of ways

Speaker 2 45:22

Okay. Mimics us as society or mimics the film, us the film. Okay. The 2019 movie.

Speaker 1 45:27

Yeah. Which caused a lot of chaos at the library when I was trying to explain that I needed the DVD of US

Speaker 2 45:33

<laugh>. Yeah, no, I can see that. Well, you brought up a really good point of you gotta draw the line somewhere. So cuz one very doppel gangee trope that I don't want to touch on simply because it belongs in a different episode, is when you start doing time travel shenanigans. And so it was literally you from either the past or the future and you're trying to stop yourself from doing something or trying to make something happen and it's just causing all sorts of chaos or like any kind of like crime thriller that involves time travel.

Speaker 1 46:07

Well, we have a time travel series coming up very, very shortly.

Speaker 2 46:11

We do. Yeah. Okay, great. So yeah, I'm not, I won't go too deep into this,

Speaker 1 46:15

But, but that's different because that's your literal self. That's like back to the future. It's not a different version of you, it is you

Speaker 2 46:22

Yes. But like now we get philosophical of like, what makes you, you, that person has had slightly different experiences. That person has slightly different memories or

Speaker 1 46:32

Just slightly more or less memories.

Speaker 2 46:34

Right. But also what version of time travel are we talking about? You know, is it like we're with one continuous timeline? Is it that this per this person is not going to only exists in this timeline? Are you actually that person? You know, like where do you draw the line? So, uh, it it, it gets doppel gangy because again, you're having like the, the, the weird thing of seeing yourself do things or having to stop yourself from doing things.

Speaker 1 47:03

We'll get to it all very soon. Yep. Good teaser there. Interestingly, I found a lot of the literary uses of Doppel gangers that I wanna highlight at least fall under the paranormal category. Less so films, but more so a lot of like Victorian era ghost stories, for instance, used doppelganger mm-hmm.<affirmative> in a paranormal strictly paranormal way. Sure. Which is more kind of in line with the way we talked about them in the last episode versus a lot of the film adaptations are, you know, psychological science fiction, all the things that we've talked about so far. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 47:38

<affirmative>

Speaker 1 47:39

The Jolly Corner by Henry James, the namesake of our cat was first published in December of 1908 and it appeared in the English Review. It is indeed a ghost story. The jolly double tells the story of a protagonist who returns to his now empty childhood home and begins to frequent it at night in the hopes of running into his own ghostly. Double quoting from the article by Terry Thompson quote, the idea of characters encountering their doppel gangers identical or nearly identical versions of themselves is probably as old as storytelling itself from Artemis to her shadowy other hackee to Dr. Jekyll in his alter ego. Mr. Hyde breeders have long been intrigued by the prospect of a man or a woman meeting a ghostly double, especially if that strange other self is somehow evil, supernatural, or at least a bit sinister in the Jolly Corner. One of the last stories that Henry James wrote, the author created an elegant brooding doppelganger tale. Certainly one of the most compelling in all of American literature. End quote. One exciting adaptation of this because I think it is less known. Hmm. But for anyone who has seen the series, the Haunting of Blind Manor, which I did watch.

Speaker 2 48:51

Did

Speaker 1 48:52

I watch that? No, I don't think so.

Speaker 2 48:53

What did I watch?

Speaker 1 48:55

Hillhouse? Yes. Which is similar, but in Blind Manor there is an episode called the Jolly Corner Uhhuh<affirmative>, which the director's actually based on the plot of this, which I would've totally had no sense of, of the inspiration behind it until I saw this. I see. So if anyone's seen that, they might have some sense of, of this short story.

Speaker 2 49:14

Got it.

Speaker 1 49:15

There's also a story called The Poor Claire by Elizabeth Gaskill in 1856 Gaskell's the Poor Claire was first released as a serial. Interestingly, it was actually published in a magazine that Charles Dickens ran called Household Words. Hmm. The Poor Claire is another Victorian ghost story that brings us into the world of a young woman who is being cursed by her grandmother. And I know these examples again, are, are things that we're less familiar with. So the reason I wanted to highlight these is because I wanted to show the way that this stoppel ganger motif seems to function in this literature from this era versus the way it kind of functions in a lot of them are modern films.

Speaker 2 49:53

Makes

Speaker 1 49:53

Sense. But I, I don't expect us all to be super familiar with these stories, but they're all accessible public domain short stories that you can go find online and read for

Speaker 2 50:01

Free. Maybe we'll have one of those in our, uh, lunatics library episode.

Speaker 1 50:07

We actually have very modern doppelganger stories for our lunatics library for this, which I'm very, very excited about.

Speaker 2 50:13

So you might say we're giving you the, the cutting edge of fiction.

Speaker 1 50:16

There you go. So there's this final kind of wishy-washy abbey category that I wanna leave you with.

Speaker 2 50:20

Women's studies.

Speaker 1 50:22

<laugh>, some may argue that some of these are paranormal or psychological in nature, but for some reason they feel different than the implementations that we've already discussed. So I'm calling this just so like someone who just meets someone who looks like them. You know, there's no grand explanation or twist ending. We can assume the author is making a point a metaphor, but there's no clear indication that the double is ghostly or hallucinated or anything else. It's just simply part of the story.

Speaker 2 50:52

That's sounds boring. Well

Speaker 1 50:53

Buckle up and, and I will acknowledge that some of these, it might just be the case that I don't know the story intimately enough to categorize it properly, but let's just give me the benefit of the doubt here. Okay. Quoting again from Gray Fower Holtz article mm-hmm.<affirmative>, the central premise of the doppelganger motif poses the paradox of encountering oneself as another. The logically impossible notion that I and the not I are somehow identical originating in the German shower Oman in the British Gothic novel, the doppelganger like the vampire, was a product of early 19th century fascination with folklore derived from the superstitious belief that seeing one's double is an Oman of death. The doppelganger motif fuses supernatural horror with a psychological inquiry concerning personal identity and a psychological investigation into the hidden depths of the human psyche. And William Wilson by Edgar Allen Poe was first released in 1839, and then again a year later within his short story collection, the Grotesque and the arabesque. This is a great example of a just so doppelganger because it highlights this motif that we see often work. It's like getting advice from yourself. It's kind of like what you said at the beginning. Like, what was that like, trying to make a better version of yourself? Or if like, if you encounter a doppelganger that has like a better version of your life.

Speaker 2 52:15

Yeah. In the sixth, the day there is a amazing scene where someone's all like up Right. And goes through a last minute cloning process so that he doesn't die. Okay. Because the way the cloning thing works is there's like a little light flashy thing that like, you know, does a quick download of your consciousness. Uh, and then they just put it into a blank, uh, and then the blank and instantly matures, you know, not instantly, but very quickly. Then the, the new guy wakes up and the old guy is like, wait, you're not even gonna wait until I'm dead? And he says, would you? And then goes on.

Speaker 1 52:51

Yeah. Because I mean, that's interesting because it's highlighting that the double has its own, it's not just a copy. Right. It has its own motivations and

Speaker 2 52:59

Well, actually it's,

Speaker 1 53:01

I know that's saying, would you, whatever you would do, I would do. But it's also saying that like I'm, you know, I'm not gonna respect you and fall in line.

Speaker 2 53:07

Right. Because like, I'm not you. I'm right. I'm the new version.

Speaker 1 53:11

It's like robots rebelling.

Speaker 2 53:13

Sure. Yeah.

Speaker 1 53:15

<laugh>. So I'm gonna quote from William Wilson itself here. So Ed Garen pose words, quote, I have already spoken of how he seemed to think he was better and wiser than I. He would try to guide me. He would often try to stop me from doing things I had planned. He would tell me what I should and should not do. And he would do this not openly, but in a word or two in which I had to look for the meaning. As I grew older, I wanted less and less to listen to him as it was. I could not be happy under his eyes. That always watched me every day. I showed more and more openly that I did not want to listen to anything he told me. I have said that in the first years when we were in school together, my feelings might easily have been turned into friendship, but in the later months, although he talked to me less often, then I almost hated him. End quote.

Speaker 2 54:03

Yeah. No one likes a know-it-all.

Speaker 1 54:07

<laugh>. One of the earliest examples of doppelganger in film history, if not the earliest, is a film from 1913 called The Student of Prague. This film is somewhat based on the story that we just discussed by Edgar apoe, William Wilson.

Speaker 2 54:21

When was Poe From

Speaker 1 54:23

18 hundreds.

Speaker 2 54:24

18 hundreds.

Speaker 1 54:25

That story was from 1839, I think.

Speaker 2 54:27

Gotcha. I know, I'd, his stuff feels so much more contemporary.

Speaker 1 54:32

You can actually watch this film in its entirety on its Wikipedia page. It's like totally embedded within it. So if anyone wants to, it's a silent film. It's not super easy

Speaker 2 54:42

To watch. She don't even need headphones. Yeah.

Speaker 1 54:44

But it's considered the first German art film and was this really essential film to history because to history in that region, because it elevated film locally Sure. And kind of turned film into something different in Germany. So it, it's often kind of referenced in a lot of things. One thing I also wanna highlight in this section is that there is a type of gothic horror trope specific to Doppel gangers called the Gothic Double.

Speaker 2 55:12

Interesting Go on.

Speaker 1 55:13

A lot of the short stories and novels that we've referenced so far, were actually from an era of gothic literature, which would make their doubles, gothic doubles.

Speaker 2 55:23

Makes sense.

Speaker 1 55:24

The first instance of this is from a novel called Syk or Seven Cheese by Johann Paul Richter, published in 1796,

Speaker 2 55:34

Seko

Speaker 1 55:36

Seko. The novel tells the story of a man who seeks guidance from a friend who turns out to be his doppelganger and advises him to fake his own death.

Speaker 2 55:44

This was brought to my attention as the first example of do of doppelganger and literature.

Speaker 1 55:50

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 55:53

Steven. Steven cost, how do you say it?

Speaker 1 55:55

Semen Kos

Speaker 2 55:56

Se cost.

Speaker 1 55:57

Who brought this to your attention?

Speaker 2 55:58

Avi Dobkin from the Alpha to Zed podcast,

Speaker 1 56:01

<laugh>, that

Speaker 2 56:01

Tracks. I actually tracked down a copy of this book, um, but with lots of classic literature, I prefer to do it on audiobook. Yeah. Uh, just so I don't have to deal with the

Speaker 1 56:11

Old timey language.

Speaker 2 56:12

It, it just makes it more accessible. Yeah. But I could only find the German version in recorded format. Oh. Uh, so I, I have it in hard copy now. Oh, you do? Um, but I totally forgot about it because I picked it up whenever we decided to do this topic, which was a while ago. And here we are just reminded about semen cost or whatever it is.

Speaker 1 56:36

We'll convince Avi to translate it and record an audiobook version for us.

Speaker 2 56:40

Hang on. I wanna, the, there's a, the full title of this is ridiculous.

Speaker 1 56:45

Yeah. I, I absolutely couldn't pronounce it, so I didn't try.

Speaker 2 56:49

Okay. So the full title of seko, I mean, there's a long bit of German that I'm not gonna read. So SEKO itself means seven cheese. Yep. But that's a proper noun, uh, within the title. And the full title is Flour Fruit in Thorn Pieces, or The Married Life, death and Wedding of the Public Defender. F Saint Seko in Rick Richler. Mark Flockin Coen. Sch Snapple.

Speaker 1 57:19

There you

Speaker 2 57:20

Go. Sorry for my German, everybody<laugh>. Uh, but yeah, I mean, it sounds like a real page. Turner<laugh>, one last note on Sebe Kos. That's where we get the word doppelganger. So on the Wikipedia trivia page and that, that's

Speaker 1 57:34

Wikipedia trivia.

Speaker 2 57:36

Yeah. The Wikipedia trivia page. This is where I get all the information.<laugh>. Okay. Uh, SEBE Kos is the first novel in which a lookalike is described as a doppelganger, which is obviously a very German word. Yep. It is a word of Jean Paul's own invention slightly spelled differently originally.

Speaker 1 57:53

Got it. There you go. And then again, which we talked about in last episode, Katherine Crowe took that word from this novel and a, and applied it to this paranormal and this paranormal book that she wrote, which kind of put it into the zeitgeist as this paranormal term.

Speaker 2 58:10

Yeah. So I guess Sean Paul, who's the author of seko, is the, the father of the Doppelganger.

Speaker 1 58:18

There you go. It's kind of an interesting history because it's, it's like our terminology for it came from fiction, but it ca it adapted itself to describe something that's existed for thousands of years. It's kind of interesting the way it all came about here.

Speaker 2 58:34

Yeah. But also just like, leave it to the Germans to give a very, very specific word to something. Sure.

Speaker 1 58:39

Other examples of gothic doubles can be found in the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Lewis Stevenson. You

Speaker 2 58:45

Don't say,

Speaker 1 58:45

Along with Charlotte Bronte's. Jane Nair, one of my favorite authors of all time, and Reid Ette. If you haven't,

Speaker 2 58:52

You won't even let me read it.

Speaker 1 58:53

What do you mean sitting on my shelf for five years?

Speaker 2 58:56

I have every time I asked to borrow it. You do, you hit me

Speaker 1 58:59

<laugh>. The Double by Dostoyevsky was first published in 1846. The plot of the double is somewhat similar in some ways to the film we started talking about today. Ted

Speaker 2 59:09

Ringers the sixth today,

Speaker 1 59:10

No, Ted Ringers. It doesn't deal with twins, but it's a story of one man who meets his double. And there's kind of this power struggle between them that emerges. One has all the charm, the other is Les Social. You, you get it. Quoting again from Katherine Bowers quote and Dostoyevsky's text, the double appears after a metaphorical death. This progression is a mere image of a common 19th century spiritualist belief about doppel gangers. That the double's appearance is an ill Oman that often prefigures death. The reasoning behind it taken from folklore is that the spirit world in the living world coexist always hidden from each other, but before death, the barrier between them opens. For example, in Prometheus Unbound from 1820, Percy Bis Shelley describes the priest z Astor encountering his own double an apparition from the shadow world, visible only to him. The double is a mirrored reflection of the living individual in the land of the dead. It appears to the other half in life just before death comes, which we talked about. Remember, we, we quoted from Percy's Percy's, Percy Death from Shelly's. Yeah. From Shelly's Palm in the last episode, because I really like his version, which again, are based on his own. He had experiences with, you know, claimed experiences with the do game. Oh, Christy Shelley. Yeah. But he

Speaker 2 1:00:31

The less famous Shelley

Speaker 1 1:00:32

<laugh>. But he painted this picture in his I Prometheus Unbound about like, very similar to us in a way, like this shadow world post-death and this living world. And then right before death, it opens up and you meet your other half.

Speaker 2 1:00:47

Wait, Percy Shelley wrote Prometheus Unbound. Yeah. I You've read some of it, right?

Speaker 1 1:00:53

Parts of it. We both, we all did last episode.

Speaker 2 1:00:57

Right. That's when we talked about this. I, I don't know. I really wanna read it. I just, I can't stand like it. I love the content. It just sounds so cool. It just, I it's gonna be so un inaccessible.

Speaker 1 1:01:07

Have Avi read it

Speaker 2 1:01:08

For you. Okay. So for the Lunatics Library episode, we're just gonna have Avi read all of Prometheus Unbound to us.

Speaker 1 1:01:15

<laugh>. There you go. So we're talking about the Double by Dostoyevsky. Right. There's actually a 2013 film version super accessible. Sure. But it stars Jesse Eisenberg, who I know

Speaker 2 1:01:27

Don't like, ah, come on. Hate that guy.

Speaker 1 1:01:29

And there's also a famous movie, the Machinist from 2004, starring Christian Bale.

Speaker 2 1:01:34

I've seen this

Speaker 1 1:01:34

That is also inspired by this movie. Really? By this novel. Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:01:38

There's a double in that movie.

Speaker 1 1:01:40

It might not be one for one, but it's, it's somehow I haven't seen The Machinist, but

Speaker 2 1:01:44

I mean, it's been a while. I just remember him being so freaking skinny.

Speaker 1 1:01:47

Well, that's why it's famous, because he went from that to Batman and it was like the biggest weight change for consecutive film roles ever. Wow.

Speaker 2 1:01:55

Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:01:56

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens was first published in 1859 set in both London and Paris. This famous novel tells the story of a man released from prison to care for his child. Full disclosure, I have not read this novel, but it's a very important historical novel that many, many people really love. So calling that out here,

Speaker 2 1:02:17

It was the best of novels. It was the worst of novels.

Speaker 1 1:02:20

<laugh> on the film side. The final thing, I'm gonna talk about Possession from 1981.

Speaker 2 1:02:25

A fantastic film,

Speaker 1 1:02:27

Funny timing, because we actually have just made a short film, art film version of it that will be up on YouTube very soon. Ours doesn't have any doppelganger, but Possession is a bit polarizing because it explores intense and somewhat graphic themes. So some people really love it, so people really hate

Speaker 2 1:02:48

It. I'm in the latter. No, it's the only thing I'm gonna say about Possession is that it's a really weird movie. Yeah. And we've watched a lot of really weird movies. Yeah. And this is, this is up there. Up

Speaker 1 1:03:01

There. Yeah. When it comes to doubles, this film is an example of the same actor playing multiple roles within the film as a way to illustrate vastly different personalities.

Speaker 2 1:03:12

It's just like Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor.

Speaker 1 1:03:15

I, I, it's nothing like that. But that's another example of an actor playing multiple roles within a film,

Speaker 2 1:03:20

Or in Eddie Murphy in the Nutty Professor two, the Clumps

Speaker 1 1:03:25

<laugh>. That's really what it's called. Yes. Oh, interesting.

Speaker 2 1:03:28

It's classified as a comedy of romance. That movie only has 27% of Rotten tomatoes. That's a classic.

Speaker 1 1:03:34

But anyway, subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you'll be the first to know. In our version of Possession Comes out soon. A few other films. I'm gonna just list that we didn't talk about. Perfect. Blue from 1997, lost Highway, also from 97 Enemy from 2013. The Broken From 2008 Moon from 2009. Duh.

Speaker 2 1:03:54

I know that movie,

Speaker 1 1:03:55

The Similars from 2015 Look away from 2018 and The Hole in the Ground from 2019. You

Speaker 2 1:04:01

Prepped me before this episode being like, you're gonna have to talk about Moon, cuz I haven't seen

Speaker 1 1:04:06

It. What do you have to say about Moon?

Speaker 2 1:04:08

It absolutely has Doppel gangers,

Speaker 1 1:04:11

Clones. Where would you, where would you classify it? Which category?

Speaker 2 1:04:15

Uh, clones.

Speaker 1 1:04:16

Okay. So off topic,

Speaker 2 1:04:19

<laugh>. No, no, I'm sorry. You can't talk about Moon without giving the whole thing

Speaker 1 1:04:24

Away. Okay. That's the really, that's the struggle of this whole episode that I found is like, yeah, I feel like the whole time I was like, oh, here's this gray movie. I don't wanna tell you exactly what happens, but go watch it. You know? But you live in, you learn.

Speaker 2 1:04:37

I'm not gonna say that Moon is an incredible movie, but it's interesting and I remember it.

Speaker 1 1:04:41

I love Sam Rockwell, so

Speaker 2 1:04:44

Yeah. He does a great job in this movie.

Speaker 1 1:04:46

Support him no matter what I, I've seen Moon, to be fair, but I don't remember a doppelganger moment. I don't remember much about

Speaker 2 1:04:52

It. It's worth, it's worth a watch. Yeah. It's a fun movie. It's a little, I mean, I just love space movies. Yeah. Like literally anything that takes place in space, I'll watch

Speaker 1 1:05:03

Contact,

Speaker 2 1:05:03

Contact. Very little of it takes place in space.

Speaker 1 1:05:06

But some

Speaker 2 1:05:06

Of it does. Some of it does. But you put the whole movie in space,

Speaker 1 1:05:10

Then you have a whole different

Speaker 2 1:05:11

Movie then. Sure. But like that, then I'm on board.<laugh> very classic sci-fi. Yeah. Not enough is on, not enough is in space. Yeah. Too much is like on the weird planets. Not about the weird planets. I'm about, I'm all about being in space.

Speaker 1 1:05:25

Okay. We have different thoughts. I guess that's canon. Yes. We are in fact not clones of each other.

Speaker 2 1:05:32

That is correct. And be really weird. It wasn't

Speaker 1 1:05:36

In conclusion, if it wasn't abundantly clear already, there are so many different reasons doubles are used in literature and film, but this quote from Katherine Bowers really seems to sum up the majority of these examples. We're gonna let her take us home here. Quote. The double's appearance is usually terrifying because it's the manifestation of the social encounter feared most, one in which the authentic self is revealed, suddenly faced with your own mere image. Dark secrets are no longer buried, but potentially on display. If you can observe them, so can others. The terror lies in your double revealing, your own hidden true self. Perhaps even worse, a self hidden even to you end quote. And at the end of the day, like we said, it's all about human nature.

Speaker 2 1:06:22

Yeah. So I don't know about you, but I'm, I'm pretty inspired to go do a quick, uh, revisit to both SEKO and the sixth

Speaker 1 1:06:30

Day. There you go.<laugh> and, uh, midnight Cowboy. Sure. Yeah. Just throw that in there too. Why not? Why not? Thank you guys as always so much for being here. I know this was kind of a sprawling weird one, even though I feel like I say this every episode. Join us next time for a lunatics library featuring three incredible modern versions of doppelganger horror. I'm so, so, so excited for next episode. And as always, stay spooky and stay safe and we'll talk to you soon. Bye

Speaker 2 1:07:00

Bye.