TRIBUTES AND RETROSPECTIVES

Double Take

Dead Ringers

David Cronenberg
1988 - Canada / United States - 1h56
int. -12 ans

Screenings : wednesday 24 - 4:15 pm - Pathé - 1 - presented and followed by a debate with the film directors and Toki Pilioko - actors

Beverly and Elliot are inseparable twins to the extent that they share the same female conquests. Celebrated gynaecologists, they are complementary in their work: one is more comfortable in the world of society, the other prefers to remain in the shadows. This unseemly balance is turned upside-down when a barren actress comes to see them.

“For many people Dead Ringers is a major turning point in David Cronenberg's work. This assertion is both true and simplistic. But this time he distances himself from the theatre of horror for which he is famous to move into the field of psychological drama. For the first time he uses a news story, two gynaecologist, and probably homosexual, twins found dead in their apartment, that he twists to serve his universe, taking it to the fantastic (that “moment of hesitation between the natural and the supernatural”, as Lourcelles said), then, in its final part, towards an emphatic domestic tragedy. The Mantle brothers, twin gynaecologists, played by Jeremy Irons, in his greatest role, share everything: surgery (wages), apartment (bed?), female conquests … This balance is broken by the intrusion into their lives of sterile actress Claire Niveau, the memorable Geneviève Bujold. The weaker of the two, Beverly, falls in love, in a self-destructive passion, combining affective dependency with drug addiction, drawing his brother Elliot into his downfall. At the end of the day, the main element between these two brothers is who needed who the most. Leaving gore to behind him, Cronenberg embraces psychological horror,clinically showing how moral suffering debases people, in the continuity of his constant themes, but in a form acceptable to the critics”. DVDClassik

Restored version previewing its theatrical release on 29 April 2023.

CAST AND CREW

Cast : Jeremy Irons, Geneviève Bujold, Heidi von Palleske, Barbara Gordon, Shirley Douglas, Stephen Lack
Screenplay : David Cronenberg, Norman Snider
Cinematography : Peter Suschitzky
Editing : Ronald Sanders
Music : Howard Shore

Production : Morgan Creek Entertainment, Téléfilm Canada, Mantle Clinic II

French distributor : Capricci