After 34 years, one of the best horror films of the 1980s returns to the cinema!

In 1989, David Cronenberg, the master of body horror, gave us one of his most fascinating and disturbing films, Faux-Semblants. The work is released in a restored 2K version on October 25th thanks to Capricci Films. This other iconic Cronenberg film is also out on October 11th!

The story of Faux-Semblants introduces us to two twins, Beverly and Elliot Mantle (Jeremy Irons). Famous gynecologists, they share everything: the same apartment, the same clinic, the same ideas and the same women. One day, a famous actress came to them for consultation due to infertility.

Two brothers fall in love with her. If for Elliot she remains a woman among others, for Beverly she is “a woman” and refuses to share him with her brother. For the first time, the Mantle brothers will think, feel and act differently. This is just the beginning of the descent into madness.

David Cronenberg started thinking about the script for this film in 1974. The film director read in a newspaper the story of two twins who died in an apartment in New York. They were gynecologists. When the director discovered this story, he immediately thought it was fantastic and had to make a movie about it.

“I waited and waited and no one ever did. I finally realized that if I wanted to see this movie, I had to make it myself. Later someone told me “There was a novel called Gemini that was more or less based on the same theme. The first version of the script dates back to 1981, around the time of the scanners.Cronenberg confides.

If a director is going to buy the rights to a novel, it’s mostly for legal, not artistic, reasons. In fact, he doesn’t really like the direction the author is taking and will take a lot of liberties with his script.

“In the book, for example, one of the twins is gay and the other is not, for me that made a big difference between them, and I was drawn to their similarities rather than their differences… There were many aspects of the book. without significant doubt, but not for me”Cronenberg explains.

Performance by Jeremy Irons

The director contacted the best American actors to play the Mantis twins, but they all refused. The artist explains that some people did not like the script or perhaps did not want to work with him. “But in general they were afraid of the film. Fear of two things: one was the fear of schizophrenia. You imagine it’s a dream for an actor to play twins. But in fact, in this film it’s a very difficult role because they’re real.”David Cronenberg says.

For the filmmaker, in most twin films, one of the two is the undisclosed killer. There is a good twin and a bad twin. But, in his film, they are more complex and have many scenes together with many dialogues.

“So some actors thought that if they did that, they would become schizophrenic. And then, a lot of American actors do the ‘method’ acting studio. The actor who uses the method has to deliver the line to a real person so that you feel the reality of the situation.”

In this film, the performer of the role of twins had no one in front of him, he had to imagine an interlocutor. British Jeremy Irons was not intimidated by this challenge. “Of course, the actor was playing with a stand-in who gave him a cue that allowed him to direct his gaze, but the stand-in wasn’t really acting.”Cronenberg emphasizes.

According to the director, the actors were driven by one thing: gynecology. “A lot of American actors who are concerned about their image are very macho. That was a real problem for some very famous actors, whose names I won’t mention…I finally realized that I had to go to England to look for an actor. Jeremy Irons was the first person I contacted there.”The director reveals.

Two irons for the price of one

To film the two Jeremy Irons opposite each other, David Cronenberg explains that he used a technique commonly used for a double film: split screen (the screen is split in two vertically). “Split screen is as old as cinema. It’s the simplest method. We cover, roll the film and hide the other half of the picture. The actor goes to the other side and we shoot again. So we zoom in and see the two. They’re talking together.”

Cronenberg and his team did the same, but with more sophisticated equipment. Tricks are not done in the shooting, but in the laboratory. According to the artist, Faux-Semblants uses a lot of scenes: it’s an absolute requirement that the camera and lights don’t move at all.

“But this is a very subtle split screen. It doesn’t have to be vertical, in the middle of the image. The image can be shared in any way, horizontally, vertically or diagonally. The dividing line can also be moved or even canceled in the middle of the scene. If two people are sitting on a sofa, the separation is for example the middle. Then one gets up and walks back. The separation moves according to its own motion, rotates. The end result is the separation merges with the image, it is invisible.”

If you want to move the camera at the same time, it’s possible, but it has to be tied to the ground, explains David Cronenberg. “The operator first makes a movement and that movement is stored in memory by the computer. That way the camera can repeat the exact same movement as long as we want.”

intensive role

For example, for a very simple scene where the twins are walking down the hall, the team had three days of shooting. “Normally, with two actors, it would have taken about two hours to shoot. Now, if Beverly and Elliott were too close to each other while walking, the split wouldn’t work anymore.”

When Jeremy Irons starred in the second part of the picture, he had to listen to his brother’s dialogue with an earpiece hidden under a fake ear, which was right under his ear so that Cronenberg could film him from the front.

“The dialogue has to be in perfect sync, otherwise everything changes. When he walks, he has to be careful not to lean in, make sure his gaze is in the right direction, while listening to his dialogue with headphones. At the same time, I have to play live.”

“So Jeremy’s performance is even more impressive when you know all that. The rest of the work is done in the lab. They have two shots to blend into one: one shot with Jeremy on the left and the double on the right and another one with Jeremy on the right and the stunt on the left. We have to blend the two shots into one— frame by frame so that the separation moves at the same time as the characters. It’s very difficult.”The director thinks.

In France, Faux-Semblants attracted 600,000 curious people back in 1989. It’s out in theaters on October 25th if you want a catch up session! Let us remind you that “Premiere” magazine named it among the “25 most dangerous films”. In turn, Entertainment Weekly named it “the 20 scariest movies of all time”.