"Strangers on a Train" A nightmare beckoned by a doppelganger

"Strangers on a Train" Synopsis

Guy, a tennis player, is accosted by a strange man on the train. The man's name is Bruno, and he knows that Guy wants to leave his cheating wife, Miriam, and that he wants to remarry Anne, the senator's daughter. Then Bruno proposes to exchange murders between Guy's wife and his own nagging father. Guy thought it was Bruno's joke and didn't deal with it. However, Bruno ends up killing his wife Miriam. Guy's lighter is stolen by Bruno on the train, and he is held onto it as "evidence." Moreover, his alibi is also questionable. Eventually, Guy ends up being looked at with distrust by the police...

Index

• Fear of facing another self
• How to “draw” and “tell” a story
• Conflict with Raymond Chandler
• “Messenger of Darkness” Bruno

Fear of facing another self

Doppelgänger is a German word that combines Doppel (double) and Gänger (pedestrian), and refers to a person who looks exactly like oneself or a hallucination. In folklore, it is said that encountering a doppelganger will bring you into trouble, and it has long been considered a symbol of bad luck.

Film director Jordan Peele, known for `` NOPE '' (22), has been terrified of doppelgangers since he was a child. The fear of facing another self. It may be an intense nightmare that shakes one's identity. `` Us '' (2019), in which a family of four with the same appearance and shape comes to kill them, can be said to be the fruition of his latent fear.

Jordan Peele was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece Vertigo (1958). The film features two women, Madeline and Judy, played by Kim Novak in two roles. Two women with the same face, like twins. ``Vertigo'' is a strange love story in which a man chases the doppelganger of the woman he once loved.

"Strangers on a Train" (c)Photofest / Getty Images

I believe that there is another Hitchcock film called the "doppelganger film" that should not be forgotten. ``The Strangers on a Train'' (51) is based on Patricia Highsmith's novel of the same name. The film features two men: Guy (Farley Granger) and Bruno (Robert Walker). The two meet by chance on a train, and after talking for a while, Bruno makes a frightening proposal. An exchange of murders in which each party undertakes the murder of the other.

Guy and Bruno don't even look alike. In fact, you could even say that he is the exact opposite character. However, to me, Bruno seems to be another version of myself that has split from a certain guy (GUY). The brute (cruel, savage) demonic mentality that resides in Guy, who wants to erase his wife from this world and marry the senator's daughter, has manifested in the form of BRUNO. At the beginning of the movie, there is a scene where a railway line splits into two at a turnout. Of course, this is a symbolic representation of a crossroads in life. But at the same time, it probably captures the moment the doppelganger was born.

At a tennis match, Bruno is the only one staring at Guy, among the spectators chasing the ball and shaking their heads from side to side. Gai looks worried and turns away. It's an intense fear of another self staring at you, just as Jordan Peele was afraid of the shadow of his doppelganger as a child.

How to “draw” and “tell” a story