BODY DOUBLE, 1984

Tagline- You can't believe everything you see.

After the well-received Dressed to Kill ( 1980), Brian De Palma returned in 1984 to make the sleeper “cult” mystery movie titled “Body Double”.  The movie is a clear nod to Alfred Hitchcock’s cinematic style and contains all elements commonly employed by the auteur, such as obsession, voyeurism and of course murder ! The theme is also commonplace- a man must determine the truth and defend himself after being falsely framed for a murder he didn’t commit. Also, the motive for the murder is nothing new- a man kills his estranged wife to inherit her money. All such themes and motifs have been dealt with a multitude of times in the past, yet this movie presents the theme in a uniquely inventive and interesting manner such as you are rarely to encounter. It is quite an experience watching it and participating in all the small sub-plots, mysteries and deceptions that Palma has so carefully planned and executed.

The protagonist Jake Scully (portrayed by the wonderfully under-stated actor Craig Wasson who definitely deserved a much brighter career) is a down-on-his luck, out of work actor of B-films(The Vampire’s Kiss from which he is thrown out due to his inability to enact a coffin scene as he is claustrophobic) who finds out that his girlfriend is cheating on him. Finding himself suddenly without a home and an occupation, he befriends a fellow actor called Sam Bouchard who offers him a snazzy octagonal shaped apartment overlooking Hollywood Hills to house sit in. The house is plush and richly furnished and comes with a special attraction, namely a telescope with a view to die for !

The telescope is oriented in a manner that it affords full view into the window of an opposite house, where the occupant, a rich lady named Gloria Revelle, performs an erotic routine every night at exactly the same hour ( as Sam points out the novel pastime to Scully, he remarks about her performance-“like clockwork”). Dressed in lingerie, jewellery and high heels, the woman dances provocatively near the window though her face is hidden by the silhouette of the blinds. Scully becomes obsessed with Gloria and during one of his nocturnal ‘spying’, he observes a fierce looking man watching Gloria from an electrical repair spot nearby. The next day he sees the man (whom he describes as an “Indian”) follow Gloria to a shopping mall and he too follows her there, partly out of curiosity and partly out of concern for her. However it is clear that his intention is not only to screen Gloria from the pursuer, for even in his absence Jake begins to follow her everywhere, even watching as she changes her panties in a shop. As Gloria leaves the mall, she drops the panty that she just bought and Scully picks it up and stuffs it in his pocket.

She then goes to a Beach Terrace Motel to keep an appointment with someone and Jake also follows where he notices the “Indian” lurking around. Jake’s position is however awkward since he cannot warn Gloria about her pursuer without also disclosing  the fact that he has been peeping on her. But when the ‘Indian’ snatches Gloria’s purse from her, Jake chases him and enters a tunnel where his claustrophobia takes over and he freezes, unable to stop the thief. It is Gloria who rescues him from his predicament and also recovers her purse which has her house card missing. Jake tries to explain his situation and kisses Gloria who however runs away from him.

That very night, Gloria is killed in her apartment by the Indian fellow, and Jake reacts too slowly to save her, instead spending the most crucial moments watching from the telescope. He becomes the prime witness to her murder, but the police are inclined to view him with suspicion and disbelief as Scully chose to get a “peep on” rather than call in the police earlier when he saw the intruder or rush to the rescue himself. When the police chief finds Gloria’s panty in Jake’s pocket, he frames a theory that Jake was obsessed with Gloria and followed her, then had sex with her and kept the panty as a “momento”, later watching her die as he was more interesting in feeding his obsession that in helping (later when Scully discovers the truth, he calls the chief who taunts him by calling him “Hollywood’s busiest sex offender).

Afterwards, Scully watches an adult channel where he sees an actress called “Holly Body” perform a striptease in exactly the same manner as Gloria had earlier. Scully investigates by first visiting the studio that produced “Holly Does Hollywood” where the striptease was included and then getting Holly to converse with him on dance routine. She tells him that Sam Bouchard (she identifies him by voice) had paid her money and given her a wig so that she would dance near Gloria’s window for three nights, with the explanation that she had to arouse Sam’s friend who was a ‘peeper’.

In a flash, Scully recalls his association with Sam-about how he kept bumping into him in film auditions and how Sam had sized him up to be the perfect witness to a murder he was about to commit by noticing his weaknesses and flaws, especially his claustrophobia which caused Scully to completely become paralysed in fear. He also understands how Sam used him to provide an alibi for himself, by offering him the apartment and pretending to be out of town, even calling him a few times ostensibly from far away on the night of the murder. Holly was used as a bait to draw Scully into the game, by hooking him onto the telescope so that he would later watch the murder happen. He also figures that Sam is the estranged husband of Gloria who wanted to kill her and inherit her wealth. At this point, Sam realises that his game is up and abducts Holly in order to bury her next to the Hollywood reservoir. Jake follows and has a tussle with Sam in which he is pushed to the burial pit and experiences his claustrophobia again. As Sam taunts him from above, Jake tries to reconstruct the coffin scene of the movie from which he was fired and manages to recover from his catatonic state. He attacks Sam and meanwhile Sam’s dog rushes in and causes Sam to lose his balance and fall to his death in the reservoir nearby. When Holly gains consciousness, she rebuffs Jake’s offer of help, calling him a ‘sicko’ who deserves to be put away for life.

As the end credits roll however, it is obvious that Jake has more than managed to salvage his reputation by being re-hired as the vampire in “Vamire’s Kiss” and also becoming friendly with Holly who visits him on the movie sets.

Brian De Palma has cleverly drawn parallels between the web of lies and deceit in which Scully finds himself cornered, and in the superficial world of the film industry, be it the low budget productions or the pornographic film industry. In fact the name of the movie and its tagline also indicate the illusory order of things in the story where nothing that Scully witnesses or understands is the truth, as well as the ugly façade behind the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. One instance of the double standards is apparent when the director of “Vampire’s Kiss’ chucks Scully from the sets due to his claustrophobia and later re-hires him(probably due to the publicity he garners after he helps crack Gloria’s murder case) and comments that he was glad to have fired the other substitute, clearly displaying his absolute lack of commitment to actors. Also, when Holly is leaving Scully’s apartment in anger after being tricked by him, she mutters that the whole of Hollywood is full of freaky actors and masochistic directors.

Palma also builds the suspense around Scully’s failings on account of claustrophobia quite masterfully. In the scene where Jake recounts his earliest fear paralysis as a child and becomes agitated on remembering the time, his scenes are shown interchangeably with the intense face of Sam Bouchard as he is studying his weakness and “auditioning” him for a terrifying real life role. Also, in the tunnel scene where the Indian is running away with Gloria’s purse, Jake freezes halfway through while the camera zooms in and out slowly in a shaky and jarring angle so as to present the disorientation in Scully's mind and to further give the effect that it is drawing him inside and stretches on infinitely and thus that Scully has no means of escape from there.

Body Double blends irony and mystery/thriller in a commendable fashion- at one level it exposes the ugly world of the film industry where everyone indulges in back stabbing and bad mouthing the others at any given opportunity, where women are often objectified and where power equations between producers, directors and actors are highly unequal; at another level it stands out as a superb mystery with numerous red herrings and twists. Highly recommended watch !