August 21, 2025

Double Identity

Key Points

The film explores identity through a dual narrative of old 16mm footage and a digital format, creating an engaging viewing experience.
Using a mirror effect, Jack Nicholson's character embodies a dead man's identity, while Maria Schneider confronts her reflection in the film's contrast.
This unique storytelling approach emphasizes the fading nature of film and the notion of self as a layered experience through cinematic mediums.
The film highlights themes of perception and reality, with the scratched footage symbolizing the imperfections of identity and memory.

Abstract

Double Identity uses the old type of slug-film, a discarded 16mm screening copy of Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger (1975), duly scratched in the middle so that the images are no longer of any use.Thanks to a mirror effect Jack Nicholson takes on the identity of a dead man in both the “dead” 16mm footage and the resurrected digital copy of himself on DVD. He recounts how a blind man once gained his sight back, only to see how ugly the world was: he looks at Maria Schneider and stares at himself over the scratch in the faded 16mm version of his life. Maria Schneider decides to leave the scene. She stares at her digital mirror image but when she tries to get closer, she is absorbed by the big scratch in the middle and the fading world of film.Antimatter Film Festival (Victoria, British Columbia)

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Cite This Study

Gerda Cammaer (Mon,) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/68a6fb8c5502675167ba8a3a https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.32920/29660591.v1

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