___ Laura ___
| I'm looking for a film to discuss in my thesis where a single
| actor plays two different parts and the characters look alike
| or identical. (e.g., they are twins, siblings, doppelgangers,
| reincarnations, whatever.) It needs to be an important part
| of the story that the two characters look alike - the plot
| might turn on mistaken identity or something - but it's clear
| that they are not, in the fiction, the same person (so not
| VERTIGO.) To be of use to me the film must, must, must be
| adapted from a literary work (but not a play), and inherit
| the look-alikes from it. (Ideally the actor in question
| would be a star, or at least a familiar face; and the film
| would be something worth studying & thinking about.
|
___ Gary ___
| Mulholland Drive
___
In _Mulholland Drive_ all the doubles are actually the same person. We just
have them existence in the dream world and then in the real world. A closer
example would be _Lost Highway_. If I remember it was initially a book by
Barry Gifford and so fits the criteria. (_Mulholland Drive_ was originally
a television script which was reconceived) There the Partricia Arquette
character is both Bill Pulmann's wife and also porn star who is the
girlfriend of a mobster. Of course the two characters blur towards the end,
but really are different characters and people. The film is kind of
deconstructive, so the blurring is intentional and probably wouldn't work as
a real double. Lynch also uses a double in _Twin Peaks_ (actually many),
but that is TV and not an adaptation.
I'd say _Dr. Strangelove_ would work (Peter Sellers), but that wasn't based
on a novel.
_Cat Balou_ has Lee Marvin playing both the drunk hero gunfighter and the
cold-hearted killer. They are supposed to be sort of the complement of each
other. I don't know if that was based on a play or a novel though. (I'm
fairly sure it was based on something though and wasn't an original
screenplay)
There have been numerous adaptations or films inspired by Mark Twain's _The
Prince and the Pauper_. But I assume that is kind of obvious.
John Woo's _Face Off_ has identical actors playing different characters,
although it is due to an operation. No literary source though. . .
-- Clark Goble --- [log in to unmask] -----------------------------
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