The Besieged Ego: Doppelgangers and Split Identity Onscreen

152 Pages·2013·0.617 MB·English

by  Caroline Ruddell

Examines the representation of fragmentary identities in fi lm
How does the idea of a double or fragmented identity function onscreen? How
does it provide narrative cause and effect, character motivation and spectacle?
T
Do representations of doppelgangers challenge ideas about our own identities? H
E

The Besieged Ego critically appraises the representation, or mediation, of identity B
E
in fi lm and television through a thorough analysis of doppelgangers and split or
S
fragmentary characters. The prevalence of non-autonomous characters in a wide I
E
variety of fi lm and television examples calls into question the very concept of a G
E
unifi ed, knowable identity. The form of the double, and cinematic modes and
D
rhetorics used to denote fragmentary identity, is addressed in the book through

E
a detailed analysis of texts drawn from a range of industrial, historical and cultural G
contexts. O
The doppelganger or double carries signifi cant cultural meanings about what it IDENDOP
means to be human and the experience of identity as a gendered individual. The TITPEL
double also expresses in fi ctional form our problematic experience of the world YG
ONAN
athse are sfoorcei aral,i saensd i msuppoprtoasnetd qlyu ewshtioolnes a anbdo uatu tthoen oremporeusse, nstuabtijoenc to. fT ihdee nBteitsyi eognesdcr eEegno SCREEGERS A
NN
and concomitant issues regarding autonomy and the nature of lack and desire D
S
in identity formation and experience. This is essential reading for students and PL
IT
researchers in fi lm theory, fi lm genre, psychoanalysis and fi lm, and fi lm aesthetics.
C
A
R
Caroline Ruddell lectures on fi lm, television and popular culture at St Mary’s O
L
University College, where she specialises in fi lm theory, representation onscreen IN
E
and animation.

R
U
D
D
E
L
L
Cover image: Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky, 2010
© Fox Searchlight/The Kobal Collection.
ISBN 978-0-7486-9202-6
Cover design: Kit Foster
9 780748 692026
www.euppublishing.com
Ruddel 1119.indd 1 21/11/2013 14:01:54
The Besieged Ego

The Besieged Ego
Doppelgangers and Split Identity Onscreen
Caroline Ruddell
For Deborah, Christopher and Charlotte Ruddell
© Caroline Ruddell, 2013
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LF
www.euppublishing.com
Typeset in 11/13 Monotype Ehrhardt by
Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire,
and printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7486 9202 6 (hardback)
ISBN 978 0 7486 9203 3 (webready PDF)
ISBN 978 0 7486 9204 0 (epub)
The right of Caroline Ruddell to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Sections of Chapter 3, ‘The MonsterWithin’, was originally published as
‘Breaking Boundaries: The Representation of Split Identity in Anime’ in
Animation Studies Online Journal: Peer-reviewed Open Access Online Journal
for Animation History and Theory (2007), vol. 2.
A version of the section on Fight Club in Chapter 4 was originally published
as ‘Virility and Vulnerability, Splitting and Masculinity in Fight Club: A Tale
of Contemporary Male Identity Issues’ in Extrapolation (2007), vol. 48, no. 3,
pp. 493–503, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Introduction 1
1 Why Psychoanalysis? 18
2 The Ego in Freud and Lacan 36
3 The Monster Within 55
4 Gendering the Double 79
5 Doubled Up: Body Swapping, Multiple Performance and Twins
in the Comedy Film 104
Conclusion 124
Notes 128
Bibliography 134
Filmography 141
Index 143
Acknowledgements
There are several people to whom I owe a great debt of gratitude, and who
made The Besieged Ego a pleasure to work on; any omissions or errors
are mine and mine alone. First and foremost I would like to thank Tanya
Krzywinska; if it weren’t for her great knowledge and support this book would
never have been written. I would also like to thank Linda Ruth Williams for
her support, encouragement and advice. Various colleagues have made helpful
comments and suggestions during the course of this research, and I would
particularly like to thank Leon Hunt, Paul Ward, Geoff King, Cian Duffy,
Brian Ridgers, Richard Mills, Carole Murphy, Maria Mellins, Jon Hackett,
Brigid Cherry, and Michele Aaron. I owe a debt to colleagues at St Mary’s
University College who have allowed me time to work on this book. To Gillian
Leslie, and all at Edinburgh University Press, who have been so helpful in
the writing of The Besieged Ego. Thanks also to my family whose support has
been a continual source of strength, and to my friends who have accompanied
me to the cinema and allowed me to waffle about film and television over the
years. I would particularly like to mention Laura Wood, Sarah Davenport,
Grant Burnside and Chris Lambeth. For Kevin Ricks, who was there in the
beginning and provided much support and encouragement, I am eternally
grateful. Without Peter Howell I could never have finished this project; thank
you for your endless suggestions and help, and for taking on the bulk of child-
care so I had time to watch, read and write. Lastly, life has new meaning with
Matilda Charlotte Howell – welcome to the world, and to the wonderful visual
pleasures you have to look forward to.
Introduction
The close of Angel Heart (Alan Parker, 1987, US/Can./UK) provides a
significant dilemma for both the central character Harry Angel (Mickey
Rourke) and also the viewer. Harry, as one would expect, firmly believes that
he is Harry. He looks like Harry and speaks like Harry. Viewers have identi-
fied with him as Harry Angel, the rather charming and likeable private inves-
tigator, for the entire film up to this point. The climax of the film, however,
displays Harry desperately screaming at his mirror image ‘I know who I am’,
after being told by the Devil (Robert De Niro) that he is not Harry and is, in
fact, a singer named Johnny Favourite – the very person that Harry has been
attempting to track down in the narrative. Harry’s initial reaction is to go to
the mirror as if attempting to confirm to himself that he is whom he thinks he
is. Perhaps, on the other hand, he is expecting his appearance to have morphed
into another, which would confirm this confusion around his real identity. Yet
he still looks like Harry, he still feels like he is Harry, but he is not: Harry’s
mirror image is delusional, and it takes Lucifer to convince Harry otherwise.
Angel Heart provides a narrative where Harry is sent on a wild goose chase
by Louis Cyphre (Lucifer) who is posing as a businessman. He is employed as
a private investigator to track down singer Johnny who, as Cyphre explains,
has skipped out on a ‘business’ deal they had made. The deal was that Lucifer
would make Johnny famous in return for his soul. Johnny, however, attempt-
ing to outwit Lucifer, steals the soul of another (Harry) and assumes his iden-
tity. Ultimately Johnny/Harry becomes unable to remember his former life
as Johnny and he is literally, and unknowingly, employed by Lucifer to track
himself down. The close of the narrative finally reveals that Harry is not whom
he thinks he is and, all along, he has played the villain committing horrific acts
of violence; he has no memory of these acts until the final scenes where it all
comes back to him. As is usual with psychological-based horror genres, the
2 The besieged ego
viewer is aware throughout that something is amiss; everywhere Harry goes
a dead body turns up and he seems unable to detach himself from unfolding
events, unaware of his connection to other characters. It is not until the closing
stages of the film that viewers become aware that the Devil has knowingly
sent Harry after himself (Johnny) to take back his debt. The final twist in the
plot leaves Harry (understandably) utterly confused in relation to his identity,
and the film taps in to the dramatic notion that even looking in the mirror
and seeing ourselves does not necessarily confirm that we are who we think:
simplistically put, appearances can be deceptive.
Mirrors feature at other prominent moments in the film; in the scene where
Harry has sex with Epiphany (Lisa Bonet) (and actually murders her) he
looks at his mirror reflection and punches the glass, shattering his own image.
He later goes back to this same mirror and stares at his fragmented image.
Similarly, during a scene where Harry interrogates Margaret’s father (Stocker
Fontelieu), he stares in the mirror in the bathroom shouting ‘who’s the boy?’
as Margaret’s father tells him Johnny stole the soul of a young soldier; this is
a prelude to the later scene where he will similarly try to use a mirror to assert
his identity and find answers but the film also implies that it is during these
mirror scenes that Harry in actuality kills Epiphany and Margaret’s father.
Finally, Harry goes to Margaret’s (Charlotte Rampling) apartment and
finds soldier tags confirming that it was, indeed, Harry Angel whose soul was
stolen by Johnny Favourite. He consistently claims, however, that he knows
who he is and he rushes to the mirror to confirm this fact. The Devil, who
has appeared in the room, replies ‘take a good look Johnny, however cleverly
you sneak up on a mirror, your reflection always looks you straight in the
eye’. Harry continues to insist that he knows who he is and he stares in the
mirror all the while; it is during this prolonged stare at himself that Harry/
Johnny begins to see that he did commit the murders that he investigates in
the narrative, and finally realises that he is, indeed, Johnny Favourite. Harry
is arrested in the final scenes of the film, and it is here that his split identity,
or possessed self, is made explicit visually (rather than implicitly through the
use of mirrors); as the police officer tells Harry that he will ‘burn in hell’ for
what he has done, Harry nods in agreement and his head appears split down
the middle. With the use of subtle special effects the two halves of Harry’s face
and head appear incongruous and at odds with each other; Harry is not one,
but two.
The narrative structure and visual devices deployed in Angel Heart provide
a useful introduction to the content and focus of this book. Split identity fre-
quents the silver screen continually across a range of genres; this book charts
the multifaceted ways the double or fragmented identities function on-screen.
They provide narrative cause and effect, character motivation and, above all,
inTroducTion 3
spectacle. What is so effective in Angel Heart is that this unconscious subjec-
tive split nature erupts from the unknown into the ‘real’ and knowable. This
provides an extremely spectacular way of providing drama and tension to
attract an audience but it also taps into contemporary concerns that surround
identity, and this also helps to explain the popularity of narratives such as in
Angel Heart, and why they might engage audience interest.
As is the case with many of the films discussed in this book, Angel Heart’s
narrative is not simply figurative of a split nature. Rather, the film places this
in the context of the use of voodoo and black magic in Deep South America,
and, as Krzywinska argues, the film links voodoo with satanism (Krzywinska
2000: 182); Harry’s doubling is directly linked to voodoo and its relation to
the Devil. As is so often the case with doubling, a split nature is provided as a
narrative base to tap in to the problematics surrounding many charged cultural
struggles which, in this case, is an understanding of voodoo, and in horror film
conventions is often grounded in black magic. Harry’s doubling with, or pos-
session by, Johnny is used as a psychological narrative tool to address issues
surrounding cults and religions (voodoo and Christianity), metaphysics, and
the use of magic. What is also perhaps most noteworthy about Angel Heart is
that Harry (originally at least) is mainly an innocent character. The film makes
it clear that Harry was an innocent bystander who, being in the wrong place
at the wrong time, and possibly a little drunk, falls prey to Johnny’s posses-
sion and Margaret’s seduction. More usually in narratives that centre on the
double, the protagonist is guilty of some form of immoral behaviour or activity
which is then exaggerated and played out further by the dark double, or
monster within. The emergence of the dark double or monster within is there-
fore often a direct result of the protagonist’s behaviour. The double, then, is
deeply linked to our sense of humanity, morality, ethics, and often plays out
in fictional form cultural fears surrounding our capacity for monstrous or
unacceptable behaviour, our sense of self and, importantly, self-worth.
The double, or doppelganger, is no stranger to fictionalised forms but it has
thrived in the age of the moving image and this is due to several key points.
Firstly, illusions afforded by cinematic technology lend themselves well to
tales that draw on the supernatural (though it should be noted that the double
is not confined to genres that centre on the supernatural). Secondly, it is in the
visual image that the double has power or holds sway. As Andrew J. Webber
argues ‘the Doppelgänger is above all a figure of visual compulsion’ (1996: 3).
While Webber is discussing German literature, arguably the uncanny visibility
of the double is located distinctly in the visual which is the very premise of
film and television. Lastly, it is in the generic nature of (mainstream) film and
television that familiar tales are told and retold, and the double has an allure
that continues to fascinate viewers; the deeply unknowable nature of identity