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Dead Ringers

Theatrical release poster
Directed by David Cronenberg
Produced by Marc Boyman
David Cronenberg
Written by Novel:
Bari Wood
Jack Geasland
Screenplay:
David Cronenberg
Norman Snider
Starring Jeremy Irons
Geneviève Bujold
Music by Howard Shore
Cinematography Peter Suschitzky
Editing by Ronald Sanders
Studio Morgan Creek Productions
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release date(s) September 8, 1988 (1988-09-08) (TIFF)
01988-09-23 September 23, 1988 (United States)
Running time 116 minutes
Country Canada
United States
Language English
Gross revenue $8,038,508[1]

Dead Ringers is a 1988 psychological horror film starring Jeremy Irons in a dual role as identical twin gynecologists. Director David Cronenberg co-wrote the screenplay with Norman Snider; their script was based on the novel Twins by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland. The film is very loosely based on the lives of Stewart and Cyril Marcus.[2]

Contents

Synopsis

Elliot and Beverly Mantle are identical twins and highly successful gynecologists. Elliot, the more aggressive and confident of the two, seduces women who come to the Mantle Clinic. When he tires of them, the women are passed on to the shy and passive Beverly, remaining unaware of the substitution.

When Beverly becomes attached to the troubled actress Claire Niveau (Geneviève Bujold), it upsets the equilibrium between the twins. It turns out that Niveau is a trifurcate; she has an abnormal reproductive system. Beverly describes her internal arrangement as having "three doorways," which means she probably will not be able to have children. Beverly tells Niveau that her condition is "fabulously rare."

Beverly mistakes Claire's male assistant for her lover, and comes to believe that she's cheating on him. This sends him into clinical depression, prescription drug abuse and delusions about "mutant women" with abnormal genitalia. Beverly seeks out metallurgist Anders Wolleck and he constructs a set of bizarre gynecological instruments for working on these mutant women, even using them once on a real person. Beverly is then put on administrative leave by the hospital board after collapsing on a patient. The board holds the surgical tools as evidence of a disturbed mind. Due to the twins' codependent relationship, Beverly's breakdown eventually causes Elliot to follow.

Cast

  • Jeremy Irons — Beverly Mantle / Elliot Mantle
  • Geneviève Bujold — Claire Niveau (as Genevieve Bujold)
  • Heidi von Palleske — Cary (as Heidi Von Palleske)
  • Barbara Gordon — Danuta
  • Shirley Douglas — Laura
  • Stephen Lack — Anders Wolleck
  • Nick Nichols — Leo
  • Lynne Cormack — Arlene
  • Damir Andrei — Birchall
  • Miriam Newhouse — Mrs. Bookman
  • Jill Hennessy — Mimsy (as Jillian Hennessy)
  • Jacqueline Hennessy — Coral
    • (Jill and Jacqueline Hennessy, themselves identical twins, made their film debut in this movie as twin prostitutes)

Responses

Dead Ringers won the Genie Award for Best Canadian Film of 1988.

It is the favorite Cronenberg film of Korean director Chan-wook Park[3] and was voted for in the 2002 Sight and Sound Poll by Lalitha Gopalan[4]. In 1999, Rolling Stone listed Dead Ringers as 95th on their list of 100 Maverick Movies.[5] Total Film placed Dead Ringers 35th on their list of the "50 Greatest Horror Movies Of All Time"[6] while Entertainment Weekly placed it 20th on their list of The 25 scariest movies of all time[7]. In 2004, the Toronto International Film Festival Group named Dead Ringers the 6th best Canadian Film ever made[8].

Although Dead Ringers closely follows the case of Stewart and Cyril Marcus, director Peter Greenaway claims himself and his film A Zed and Two Noughts as the source for Dead Ringers.[9]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Dead Ringers (1988) - Box Office Mojo". Box Office Mojo. http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=deadringers.htm. Retrieved 2010-03-18. 
  2. ^ Maslin, Janet (1988-10-02). ""Ringers": the Eerier, the Better". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE3DC1439F931A35753C1A96E948260. 
  3. ^ Neil Young's Film Lounge (2004-08-22). "Park Life". http://www.jigsawlounge.co.uk/film/parkchanwookinterview.html. 
  4. ^ BFI | Sight & Sound | Top Ten Poll 2002 - How the directors and critics voted
  5. ^ http://www.filmsite.org/rstone2.html
  6. ^ http://www.totalfilm.com/news/shock-horror-1
  7. ^ http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,272478_5,00.html
  8. ^ http://listing-index.ebay.com/movies/TIFF_List_of_Canada's_Top_Ten_Films_of_All_Time.html
  9. ^ Greenaway, Peter. "Greenaway On A Zed and Two Noughts". BFI: The Early Works of Peter Greenaway. http://greenaway.bfi.org.uk/material.php?theme=3&type=Greenaway&title=zed. 

External links

Films directed by David Cronenberg
1960s
Stereo (1969)
1970s
Crimes of the Future (1970) · Shivers (1975) · Rabid (1977) · Fast Company (1979) · The Brood (1979)
1980s
Scanners (1981) · Videodrome (1983) · The Dead Zone (1983) · The Fly (1986) · Dead Ringers (1988)
1990s
Naked Lunch (1991) · M. Butterfly (1993) · Crash (1996) · eXistenZ (1999)
2000s
Spider (2002) · A History of Violence (2005) · Eastern Promises (2007)
Genie Award Winners for Best Motion Picture

The Changeling (1980) • Les Bons débarras (1981) • Ticket to Heaven (1982) • The Grey Fox (1983) • The Terry Fox Story (1984) • The Bay Boy (1985) • My American Cousin (1986) • Le Déclin de l'empire américain (1987) • Un Zoo la nuit (1988) • Dead Ringers (1989) • Jésus de Montréal (1990) • Black Robe (1991) • Naked Lunch (1992) • Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (1993) • Exotica (1994) • The Confessional (1995) • Lilies (1996) • The Sweet Hereafter (1997) • The Red Violin (1998) • Sunshine (1999) • Maelström (2000) • Atanarjuat (2001) • Ararat (2002) • Les Invasions barbares (2003) • Les Triplettes de Belleville (2004) • C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005) • Bon Cop, Bad Cop (2006) • Away from Her (2007) • Passchendaele (2008)







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