Re: One Step Beyond, Dead Ringer…

Kay's Film Analysis: One Step Beyond, Dead Ringer - 3rd revision…

Last night someone engaged me in conversation about this and I used the word translocation.   It came to me after hearing the word bi-location near the end of the film which was used to refer to the location of Esther’s soul in a place outside herself.   Translocation would be the same as projective identification, which is a putting of something from the psyche or mind into another without disclosing the entirety of what is being put in, for instance Esther might have mentioned to some friend that she was in a fire in her youth and maybe even mentioned her sister was there but was living elsewhere.   While she never mentions setting fire to the school killing her sister, it is there in her mind and without speaking she transfers it to this other person.  This is the translocation and transference.   She has put into the other her emotional state as well as her thoughts about having set the fire, which never really leave her, they are merely separated from her consciousness.   The recipient of this translocation of trauma may not be aware this is happening to them and may even be rendered unconscious after it has occurred.  They may then begin to re-enact the events sometimes even in a kind of reverse order.  Esther fell ill and fainted each time the other person set a fire and as was mentioned, fires were reported in several places.   Because the person setting the fires was unaware of the cause in order to stop it they kept repeating it and would keep repeating it until a resolution was reached.

This brought to light in my mind that most cases of trauma did not originate in every individual although one might be harmed by the re-enactment, which is a repeating of the trauma until the cause has been uncovered and resolved.   This repeating does not have to lay with one person but many people could have been subjected to Esther’s accident before the truth would be discovered.

It is that which is unknown that causes the most problems.

Ordeal on Locust Street - YouTube

I think this is a bit far-fetched for running to your local hypnotist.

Angel Heart (1986) Trailer - YouTube

Durer Hand – I did a sketch of my own as well acting out at the time, did not know it was Durer.  The herb gallery is in this film, part of the Old Operating Theater – later found tuzigoot…

Rourke and Deniro great actors.

One Step Beyond, Dead Ringer - 3rd revision…

Bi-location?   This is now termed splitting and dissociation I think.   This seems another case of dissociation in this film, due to an accident committed by Esther in which her twin sister supposedly died.  Fearful of severe punishment and distraught over the loss of her sister, Esther dissociates this act from her consciousness.   It is then projected from herself onto some unknown who may have possessed a part of Emily’s soul released to the unknown person by Emily’s death.  Esther being unable to cope with the death of her sister but wishing she had been the one to die, assumes Emily’s part of the personality.   Esther’s fevers are re-enactments of  her sister’s death.  The unknown person is now possessed of Esther, the weaker personality.  The unknown person being unable to cope with the content of Esther’s personality, acts out the incident over and over.   She too, has been rendered unconscious by the possession and is unable to recall the original trauma.   This is termed repetition compulsion  or the compulsion to repeat the trauma.

These possessions are achieved when one soul, say the one possessed by a mother, is split into two parts by two daughters, not necessarily twins.   The original personality might have been subjected to transferences and memories of some event in the past which has come to possess two offspring.  The stronger personality has split off the negative content and it is now possessed by the weaker sister.  The weaker sister, unable to manage the content, begins to act out that content, revealing the cause of a potentially criminal event, acting out a film the mother has seen, or simply the personality contains scenes of a farmer burning his field customary in farming communities.  Thus the cause of the fire setting lies with the original personality, not the twins in this film who are victims of unresolved issues within the original personality.

Another possible scenario;  Emily’s part of the original personality, I consider to be the masculine, became nothing more than an hallucination after Emily’s death, in which the dissociated part of the original trauma was still active in Esther’s mind and she now possessed both parts of the personality rather than one part.  This is why we are shown her burned body at the end of the film.  Esther was entrained to dissociate and project a part of the original personality onto her sister.  She wanted to believe Emily was still alive.

Did she really intend killing her sister to possess the whole personality?

I was particularly interested in this film as I was a victim of such an incident, having set fire to the woods behind our home in Chesapeake, VA in 1964.  This film also had me believing I killed my sister.

Pynoos, 1992a – “Associated features of post traumatic stress reactions include, guilt, grief, worry, about a significant other, and reactivation of symptoms associated with a previous life expectancy (Pynoos Nader, 1993)”.  Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, A Clinical Review, Distress, pg 79.  Sidran Press.

I personally think some compulsions to repeat occur not just from our own personal infantile traumas but from the unresolved traumas of those of whom we are possessed such as our parents.   It is true we are not all given a clean slate with which to start life.   

Compulsion to Repeat

The Borderline Personality, Schwartz-Salant

Transference, Countertransference, Heinrich Racker.

One Step Beyond- The Dead Part of The House…revised

Contains Spoilers – If you have not seen this film I suggest seeing it first then reading the analysis below.

This film depicts the case of a child’s depersonalization and repression after the loss of her mother.   Depersonalization and repression are all aspects of a dissociative disorder.  The disorder manifests in the child due to the psychic trauma brought on by her mother’s death and her father’s reaction to her during his grief stricken state.  The aunt, divorced with no children of her own having repressed feelings about her own needs, tries to get both of them to forget her altogether and “move on” as if to take the mother’s place which I think triggers regressive behavior as the child has a new mother figure to whom she is becoming attached and so regresses to an earlier state of mind as shown in her choosing to stay in the room that was once a nursery.   In this process the child has to adapt herself to her aunt as the dominant female figure in her life while she is still grieving the loss of her real mother.   

In a fugue state the father moves himself and his daughter to a new town.  The child begins to act out her growing resentment at her deceased mother by dropping her mother’s picture on the floor after her father stops his sister from commenting about the child’s likeness to her mother and chastises her for not doing as she is told.    Further into the film, while in a dissociative trance, Ann discovers an empty room in an unused part of the house, from which she thinks voices are calling to her and where she seeks solace from her aunt and father with her dolls through fantasies in an attempt to console herself.  She repeatedly dissociates and projects her feminine consciousness onto her dolls and aunt which both the father and aunt fail to recognize.  The condition persists because of the father’s narcissism while still grieving the loss of his wife and his constant rejection of his daughter.  The child claims to hear the dolls speaking to her but it is her own voice she hears.  In a final dramatic scene near the end of the film, the aunt goes into the upstairs room to talk to Ann and in the process experiences a presence in the room which sends her screaming back down the stairs.   The aunt has identified with Ann’s fantasies she has transferred to the aunt, also as if there were a ghostly presence in the room rather than what they really are and this process is called projective identification.  In a more conscious state, the aunt would have recognized the origins of the presence and voices.  She could then have reoriented the child to her dissociated memories and her feminine self as a good and wanted little girl, rather than convincing the father another geographical change would cure the child’s problems which is really Ann’s desire anyway, even though the aunt was more supportive of the child’s needs than the father at the time.  

And in Lenin's Theory he states, "it is clear that where there is suppression there is also violence, there is no liberty, no democracy'", and this follows what Bohm and Peat state with regard to the suppression or oppression of one's creativity or the exploitation of one's creativity for monetary gain. So even Lenin recognized that oppression destroyed man's creative potential.

All in all, well acted and a fairly good story about the condition although I am not sure that was the intent and deserves more in depth treatment. 

Dissociative Disorder

Handbook For The Assessment of Dissociation, A Clinical Guide, Marlene Steinberg

Dissociative Trance

The Gift

This story is well written, with tight sequences and riveting special effects.   Sling Blade was the first Thornton film I viewed that left its impression on me as did his acting in that film.   Now he’s impressed me with his writing.

This was an exceptionally good film.  Some powerful acting by Blanchett, Reeves, Swank, Holmes and especially Ribisi.   A tight film and superb acting in supporting roles.  Cole was a familiar face from Lifetime Movies for Women and a well seasoned actor whose talent and experience shine in this film.    Kinnear’s role seemed underplayed at the end of the film to me but he is a fine actor and loved him in As Good As It Gets.     

End of Innocence…

I like Dyan Cannon, I think she’s a talented actress and seems to be an equally talented director.  Great acting by all (most I have seen before) focus stayed with story and characters, dodged the real issue.  Well thought out.  Some chopped up parts could have been smother such as scene where Stephanie makes it up the hill and gets taken in by the residents which could have been due to advertising.    I also think there could have been more transitioning from all the acting out to more serious one on one talk about the real problem, not just with each other but with the professionals.  For example, her parents’ constant bickering at her and each other, just like what was going on in some of the therapy sessions, which was making her really crazy in the brain so much so that she would act out their behavior.   That’s why she was taking the pills, why she was smoking pot, why she was overeating and why most of the people in her therapy group had their ills and most importantly why she thought she loved Michael.   What she loved was the end result of having sex with Michael when all the noise in her head went away,  oxytocin, the chemical they think builds up and is released after orgasm.   Though they did no just spell it out, they did an excellent job of showing the viewer what was going on in most of our lives.

Much of this film was rather poignant for me personally.

I skimmed through this film as I thought it pertinent to part of my story – story as in the souls of which I have been possessed (spoilers)…

What's In Kay's Mind?: Were these really made in 1972?

Is it a case of dissociation or possession and is Barbara sentient?

…at first you fall for Barbara as a victim of some hateful decisions not made in her best interest, why she is in the asylum.   As the plot thickens she leaves the hospital only to find herself being mothered by a nurse appointed guard by her brother who doesn’t really believe she is well.   Lucy enters the drama after Barbara takes a few pills and things get worse for Barbara.   In the end we are deceived by Barbara’s seeming innocence to find her brother lying in his chair where he was having tea with a pair of scissors in his chest.

My reaction in the end was one of anger at Barbara, she appeared to trick us into believing she was sane and we discover she is really a cold blooded murderer.  In reality I am angry with the writer and director because they made it appear Lucy was a totally different person (who in the film looks nothing like Barbara, played by Rampling), leading one to think there was a real collusion between two different people.   I would have approached this dissociative condition much differently while still keeping the viewer interested.   It only appears having the dissociated part portrayed by one who looks nothing like Rampling would give away the end of the story, it totally distorts the story.  Of course while you are trying to figure out what really happened the writer is off on the other adventure you are creating in your mind about Barbara and Lucy, which one may have no interest in anyway.

Not a bad film.  I have read about dissociation from various sources including Marlene Steinberg’s clinical analysis of the disorder.

A ground breaking film…

One of McClaine’s best films, powerful acting by all.