Greetings subscribers and followers! As much as I hope you enjoyed the last month of silent-era-influenced, psychosexual art cinema, I hope you continue on with my writing for March, which covers various movies about the transference of identity. This includes stories of mistaken, assumed, transformed, and fractured identities from the 1950s-70s. Sometimes influenced by 19th century literature like Dostoevsky’s The Double or Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, themes of fractured identity became a gothic trope into the 20th. As a starting point, Alfred Hitchcock’s films constantly deal with the transference of guilt, and this is often combined with characters who mirror each other, from Shadow of a Doubt to Psycho, and many in between.
These doppelganger themes become increasingly abstracted in art house cinema from all over Europe. My writing specifically covers Persona (1966), Footprints on the Moon (1975), Mr Klein (1976), The Tenant (1976), and Despair (1978). Imagery and themes intertwine, and can also be compared to Hitchcock’s output. Psycho is reflected very differently from Persona to The Tenant. The Tenant has a likeness to Mr Klein and Footprints. Footprints walks backwards into Persona and The Wrong Man. It is a veritable network of confusion and combination.
If I get a good response to these writings, I am considering exploring these themes further, possibly with a specific focus on genre or low budget cinema. I could also explore other parts of the world and focus on non-white-European experiences. Further still, I could continue the fractured lines of identity through to David Lynch, or back around to Luis Buñuel.
Until then, I hope you enjoy the reading experience, and I encourage you to upgrade to a paid subscription if possible. This year I plan to continue with themes that interweave many films in order to make much larger pieces of writing broken up into 4 weekly installments. It requires more time, effort, and research, and any income I make from this will allow me to continue at this pace!
The Spring thaw will soon be upon us.
