And maybe the production design that David Crank did has similar aims, even though it’s gone in a completely different direction.ĭoppelgangers aren’t uncommon in cinema. I guess, in a way, has similar aims to that film. It felt like a real place, and the technology wasn’t important, in a way it just provided a great context for you to go into the story and this interesting relationship. I felt completely… I didn’t really question it. I recently saw Her, and I really liked the design of that. You have to accept it as an alternate world, almost like science fiction in a way. And that it shouldn’t have too much realistic detail, so you can go, “Oh, that’s the office I work in”. Because there’s something mythological about doppelgangers, and also that it needed to be at night all the way through, because there should be something nightmarish or dreamy about it. There might be some people who can think of it and then it’s just a matter of getting to the precise thing they had in their head, but I feel I took so much from the people who worked on it.įrom the story we had a sense that it should be in a specific world. All these people bring their abilities to it. It always changes, and changes so much when everyone becomes involved, like the costume designer and makeup and cinematographer and the editor. So when it came to the way The Double looks and sounds – which is incredibly distinctive and powerful – did you have those things in your mind from the beginning, or did those visual and aural ideas come later? A lot of times, people talk about their films as though it’s a selling point that they’re relatable, as if you want to see a film about someone like you. Emotionally, you feel completely engaged with it. It’s the same in The Godfather – you’re completely following that character, even though it’s not the kind of behaviour where you might do the exact same thing. I sort of felt, when I first read Avi’s script – and then we were working together on it – and the book, is that when something’s really well-written, you feel completely engaged and immersed in what that character’s going through. I like very subjective films, like Taxi Driver, that have a strong point of view from one character.ĭoes The Double reflect your own worldview, or maybe your feelings when you’re in public? You’re emotionally taken to places that aren’t very rational, and you almost can’t work out where you are in reality – but trying not to do it in a way that was annoying or confusing, where you’re in no-man’s land. It was trying to be very subjective and not to present it as objective reality. I thought of it as a kind of dystopia of the mind. Superbly shot and brilliantly acted, it’s an assured film from this still relatively new director – yet in person, Ayoade is softly-spoken, self-effacing, and always ready with a thoughtful answer. But where that story of a lonely outsider was an exterior, rhythmic film, The Double is all claustrophobic interiors and jagged sound effects and edits. It’s Ayaode’s second project as director, and follows his stunning debut, Submarine. Unfolding like a science fiction nightmare, The Double is like a visual representation of anxiety and awkwardness, a portrait of a man who feels utterly out of step and unable to connect with the world around him. Adapted from the novel of the same name by Fyodor Dostoevsky, it’s about a painfully shy young office worker (Eisenberg) and his polar opposite (also Eisenberg), who’s outgoing and confident. “Maybe Brad Pitt doesn’t know what it’s like to be unpopular,” actor, writer and director Richard Ayoade tells me, his voice quiet and reflective, “but most people know what it’s like to have no one interested, or to be lonely, or to be knocked back, or to regret.”Īyoade’s referring to his new film, The Double, a brilliantly surreal and poignant drama starring Jesse Eisenberg.
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