Chapter 4: The Doubles and Mirrors
Chapter 4: The Doubles and Mirrors

Summary/Abstract: At the turn of the 19th century the concept of identity was analyzed and put into question by psychoanalysis, physics and philosophy. There appeared different models of shared identity (Pesic 2002), some of them based on old schemata of mythological thinking, e.g. the archaic metaphors of “double” or “shadow” re-interpreted by Freud and his pupils. The rich semiotic potential of the screen as “mirror” has been activated in film art. The three-dimensionality of the film space seems to be deceitful: “Nevertheless, we are never deceived; we are fully conscious of the depth and yet we do not take it for real depth”; “we have reality with all its true dimensions; and yet it keeps the fleeting, passing surface suggestion without true depth and fullness, as different from a mere picture as from a mere stage performance” (Münsterberg 1970: 23). The same conflict of perception is typical of mirror images, which are seen on the plate surface but perceived as being at a distance behind the glass.

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