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 TI{E REFLECTING ETE
SEEII{G DOI'BI.E N DE PALMA,S S'SIERS
by Kier-La Janisse

Though Brian De Palma has long been hailed as a master in the eyes of European
critics, it's important to remember the vitriol with which many of his films have been
met from scholars, feminists and critics, who have debated his semiotics endlessly and
often unfairly. Many of De Palma's stateside fans and detractors alike tend to ignore
his early output altogether, characterising him purely as a director of Hitchcock-ritfing
thrillers. They forget that Slsfers (1973) marked a transition from overtly political
Godardian lilmmaking to a means of attacking from the inside, from within the
familiar constraints of genre. Sristers continues De Palma's alignment with
the anti-authoritarian outsider seen in his early films Greetings (1968)
and Hi, Mom!(1970), extending that consideration to feminist,
racial, linguistic and mentally ill 'outsiders' in a narrative of
manipulation that explores De Palma's own trauma at having
been'outsmarted' by the Hollywood studio system.

After being ousted from his first 'big' picture, Warner

Brothers' Get to Know Your Rabbit (1970), De Palma
emerged with the independently-financed Slsfers,
as tonally removed from its political predecessors
as one could imagine. lnstead he channelled the
tropes of the disturbed/medicated woman thriller
that had already been a staple 0f the ltalian g,a/o
for several years. He adopted genre to couch the
political in a popular framework, citing his turn
to an to "work on my own
asa Chris Dumas, author
of game-changing De Palma sludy Un-American

1 - Richard P Rubinstein, "The Making olgirrers'in Brian De hlma:

lnteruiews ed.lavence E Knapp. University press of Mississipd, aXR
Psycho: Brian De Palma and the Political lnvisible (20121sees Srsfers and Phantom of the
Paradise (1974) as "twin allegories" for De Palma's experience with the studio system
on Get to Know Your Rabbit. Both are deeply cynical films about authoritarian exploitation
and the compromise of identity.

ln Slsfers, a young actress named Danielle Breton (Margot Kidder) takes home Philip
Woode (Lisle Wilson), a man she meets on a game show.The next morning her neighbour
sees Philip being savagely murdered through the window. While Danielle's creepy ex-
husband Emil (De Palma regular William Finley) shows up to clean up the mess, the
neighbour -a leftist reporter tor The Staten lsland Panorama named Grace Collier
(Jennifer Salt)- summons the police, but has her claims discredited and dismissed as a
result of her past criticism of local law enforcement in the paper. The fact that Philip was
a black man is cited by Grace as proof that the police's disinterest in the case is racially-
motivated. Embarking on her own investigation, Grace finds out that Danielle is one half
of famous French-Canadian conjoined twins Danielle and Dominique Blanchion. The two
of them - one sweet, one sinister - were raised by nuns and doctors in ouebec's Loisel
lnstitute, where they were studied, prodded, and documented all ol their lives - until their
separation. A separation that unleashed a long-repressed psychosis.

Sr3terC seemingly simplistic text -

which was dismissed by many critics as overtly
derivative of Hitchcock's Psycfa (1 960) - explores various traumas indicative of the era,
including the revelations of the Anti-Psychiatry movement and antagonism coming from
(and directed back at) the burgeoning feminist movement, as well as De Palma's own
traumatic experience working for the Hollywood establishment. But at the film's core is
the rich concept of'doubling'.

According to 0tto Rank's 1914 study Der Doppelgdnger, "all instincts and desires that
don'tfitthe'ideal' image are rejected and cast out ofthe self, repressed internally, and
inevitably return personified in the double, where they can be at once vicariously satisfied
and punished." This is a key text, not only for Srsfers, but for the horror genre itself.

Sisters'titular siblings act as the two sides of a single, split personality. The intersection
of these potent images -
the conjoined twins and the doppelganger reinforces the -
medieval belief of twins as a harbinger of evil. ln the middle ages, twins were often seen
as the result of female adultery or sexual overstimulation - in other words, 'sin'2. While

2 - Viney, William. "The Significance 0f Twins in Medieval and Modem Europe" in lhe Wbnder of Twins blog, July 23,
2013, accessed onfine March 9, 2014. http://thew0nderoftwins.wordpress.conl2flA0Tn3he-significance-oftwins-
in-medieval-and-early-modem-europei

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the film's definition of monstrosity is certainly more complex than this, these associations
assured its footing in the genre. Even the film's tagline proclaimed: "What he devil hath
joined together, let no man cut asunder!"This twinship, bolstered by the linguistic banier
of Danielle's broken English, are important cultural signifiers that tie into the film's overall
empathy with the marginalized, from Grace's feminism to Philip's race.

While Grace initially assumes Danielle to be covering up for her violent sister, she soon
discovers that Dominique died long ago in the botched separation attempt. Dominique
lives on only in the guilt-stricken mind of her sister, whose sexual desire for Emil - her
doctor, lover and manipulator - prompted the doomed operation. The Loisel lnstitute's Dr.
Milius predicted it years earlier: while most of his colleagues maintained that "Dominique
isthetruly disturbed one,lthinktheywillfindthat Danielle,who issosweelso resrynsive,
so nwmal as opposed to her sister, can only be so because of her sister."This wouldn't
be De Palma's first film to use split screen, but here it appears as a poignant semiotic tool
that underlines the text rather than merely decorating it.

The film begins with the meta-cinematic wink ol lne Peeping Ioms television show, De
Palma's habitual positioning of the audience as parallel to the film's intemal voyeu(s).
Here, voyeurism is not only a game, but a battle of the sexes. The concept of the male
gaze is offered on a plate from the opening scene, when Danielle takes up the role of
a blind woman in a changing room, and Philip is tilned Candid Camer*slyle deciding
whether or not to make his presence known. Philip proves himself a gentleman, and is
a good sport about the deception. Their prizes lor participating are telling: Philip wins a
free dinner for two at "African Room" and Danielle wins the knives she will use to kill him.

ln her essay Between Hysteria and Death: Exploring Spaces for Feminine Subjectivity
in De Palma's Sisters andBody Double (1992), Sagri Dhairyam suggests that because
women's sense of the erotic is tactile rather than scopophilic, women are automatically
marginalized in the visual economy of film, that the type of eroticism that can be
'shown' innately caters to men. While revelling in the excesses of the visual, De Palma
recognizes the complicity of the technology itself in marginalizing the female audience
- and creates a layered text that is self-aware to combat this, which is mirrored by his
frequent use of split screens and split identities3. Within the phony construct of "Afiican
Room", Danielle proceeds to get roaring drunk and coerces Philip into accompanying her
home, subverting the film s opening sequence that positions Philip as a potential sexual

3 - Dluiryam &gd. "Between l@ria And Deah - Apbring Spaces for Feminine - Sutiectivity ln Brian De Palma's
Siffi,siln My htbe in New Oleans BeuiaflVolume: 19lssie:3-4 hges: 183{91 Fal-Wn 1992, Pg 183

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predator. Slsfers may be about voyeurism, but it is about the danger of looking more than
the pleasure of looking.

It is because of De Palma's recurring obsession with the mechanics of voyeurism that he

was often seen as "a committed enemy of feminism"4 , but there is significant room for
feminlne resistance in Slsters. The film aligns too readily with the outspoken, ambitious
journalist Grace Collier for the film's feminist potential to be completely dismissed. But
the film also situates that feminism in a world that is openly hostile to it. Grace is accused
of being hysterical, a loudmouth, a meddling crusader, a bleeding heart liberal. She is the
kind of "uppity" woman about whom men might say "she needs to get laid" to "fix" her
problem. Her own mother (played by Jennifer Salt's real-life mother, Mary Davenpoft)
pressures her to get married, accuses her of not being able to keep her apartment
clean, dismisses her profession as a phase. When Grace expresses agitation over being
discredited as a witness by the police, her mother's only response is "Are you on your
diet pills again?"

Like Dominique, the sullen, antisocial twin, Grace provides a sharp contrast to the
coquettish Danielle. The way the police engage with each of the women shows their
preference in 'womanly' behaviour: when questioned, Danielle's version of events is
given more credence because she is demure, and mildly fliftatious. Danielle herself buys
into the role ascribed t0 women by society at large; she tells Philip at dinner that she's
not a feminist because she "doesn't hate men", and pretends to empathize with Grace's
solitude, insinuating that Grace imagined seeing the murder out of loneliness. Through
positive reinforcement at the Loisel lnstitute, Danielle has been conditioned to play the
traditional role of the submissive woman. Which gives extra punch to the fact that when
Dominique is let loose from her subconscious, she aims for the crotch.

A mistrust of the medical and psychiatric professions is propagated through the film,
specifically as it relates to power dynamics between male doctors and female patients.
The Anti-Psychiatry movement that had appeared in the late 60s, influenced by the
writings of Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing (who nevertheless distanced himself from
the label), was critical of the manipulative potential of the doctor-patient relationship in
traditional modes of therapy.The feminist movement was supportive of Anti-Psychiatry, as
the profession was seen as another, dangerous tool in reinforcing patriarchal oppression,

4 - Dumas, Chris. "De Palma and the Death of the Lefl" in Cinema Journal 51, No 3., University of Texas Press,
Spring 20'12, Pg 2

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Emil, who has taken over Danielle's 'treatment' since leaving the Loisel lnstitute, is in a
privileged position to medicate and subdue her.

Grace follows the two of them t0 a large house in the country, which she discovers to be
a private mental institution run by Emil himself. when Grace makes a move to phone the
police, Emil convinces his staff that she is a delusional new patient named "Margaret".
0nce again she is stripped of her credibility, but this time she is stripped of her identity
as well.

As scholar Paul corupe has frequenfly pointed out, this anxiety concerning medical
terror is central to canadian honor cinema, and while sisters itself is not a canadian
productions, there are a pair of chilling historical events that Dominique and Danielle's
upbringing in 0uebec (unknowingly) addresses. Born in 1 948 and orphaned at less than
a year old, the twins are raised in the Loisel lnstitute. Although Dominique and Danielle's
Ouebecois background was not initially part of the script (the characters were supposed
to be swedish), it was an accent that the canadian-born Kidder could pull off. The Loisel
lnstitute is fictional, but its geographical location and timeline are significant. From the
1940s through the 1960s,Ouebec's Premiere Maurice Duplessis, in conjunction with
the catholic church, had initiated a programme whereby orphanages were rebranded
as mental institutions in order to access Federal funding. As a result of this rebranding,
several thousand orphaned children were subjected to medical and psychological
experimentation -
including electroshock and lobotomies - as well as sexual abuse.
Many children died as a result of these experiments, buried in unmarked mass graves
throughout the province that are still being discovered. The children came to be known
as the Duplessis 0rphans.6

Simultaneously, from 1957-1964, McGill University's Allan Memorial lnstitute in

Montreal, 0uebec was conducting experiments of its own. ln Dhairyam,s essay on De
Palma, she refers to William Finley's character Emil Breton as ,,svengalian', - a term also
used to describe Dr. Ewen cameron, the then-director of the Allan Memorial lnstitute
who oversaw a regimen of inhumane psychological experimentation as part of the
ClAs Project MKULTRA, using a combination of LSD, electroshock, sleep deprivation
alternating with prolonged periods of induced sleep, isolation and repeated messages,

5 - The 2006 remake by director Douglas Buck is Canadian, but ib sislers are lrom kance, lo accommodate he accent
ol actress Lou ooillon.
6 - ht$//www.cbc.calnews/canada/duplessis-0rphans-acceplquebec-s{inal-0ffer1.279029

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as paft of a programme he called "psychic driving". Many of Cameron's patients were
women who had sought treatment for mild depression, often specifically post-partum
depression (Danielle herself is suffering from post-partum depression of a ditferent
kind), and were certainly not consenting to be used as guinea pigs for CIA experiments.
lronically Cameron had been an expert witness at Nuremberg, even though he himself
would cbme to be known for experiments that violated the Nuremberg Code.7 And like
Emil, Cameron would die before being brought to legal justice.

It is an eerie coincidence, but a coincidence it most certainly is; public knowledge of the
MKULTRA experiments did not exist until 1975, two years after Ststerswas released.
Similarly, knowledge of the Duplessis 0rphans did not become public until survivors
started to speak out in the 1990s. But where these historical cases align with the
fictional case of Slsfers is not only in location, but in the marginalization of the witness,
either by their age or their gender, which makes them vulnerable to being infantilized
and incapacitated further. Through hypnosis, Grace is invited to share in Danielle and
Dominique'terrifying past, but she is left without agency to act on what she sees.

As with the women at the Allan Memorial lnstitute, the women in Slsters have their
nanatives manipulated. The 'mad doctor' may be out of the picture, but as Dhairyam
suggests, "his narrative continues". Now Grace is prodded and questioned as Danielle
once was, but she is no longer the questioner. And she only has one answer, repeated
ad infinitum: "lt was all a ridiculous mistake. There was no body, because there was no
murder." As with Dominique and Danielle, Grace is finally infantilized by being returned
to her childhood bedroom, surrounded by her dolls. While the film allows for feminine
resistance, it ultimately, and nihilistically, decides that resistance is futile.

Kier-La Janisse is a yognmmu lu Fana,stic Fcst and tt/F. authot ol House of Psych0tic Women: An
Aut0biographical Topography ol Female t{eurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films. Sre also runs
SpectaculatopticalPublications,launchingibli,s[anthologyKidPower! insumnetof 2014.

Special thank to Christopher Hallock and Naben Ruthnum.

7 - See Anne Collins' /n the Sleep Boom: The Story of the CIA Brainwashing Exwiments in Canada (1988). and
Naomi Klein's lhe Shock Doctrine: The Bise 0f Disaster Capitalism (2007llor more on these experiments.

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*
 TI{EMAKING OF S'S7ERS
AN INTERVIEW wlTH BRIAI{ DE PALMA
by Richard P Rubinstein

originally printed in Filmmakets tlewsletteLseptember 1973: 25-m. Reprinted by permission ol the

author and University of Mississippi Press

Bichard P Bubinstein: How did you get the idea forSislers?

Brian De Palma: ln 1966 I saw an article in Lifemagazine about a pair of Russian Siamese
twins named Masha and Dasha. At the end of the afticle there was a picture of the two
girls sitting on a couch and the caption said that apaft from the fact they were joined at
the hip both girls were physiologically normal, but as they were getting older they were
developing psychological problems. One of the twins had a very surly, disturbing look on
her face and the other looked perfectly healthy and smiling. And this strong visual image
stafted the whole idea off in my mind.

I am also a great admirer of Hitchcock and Psycho, and there are a great many cultural
elements here that are in all Hitchcock's movies: introducing a character and then having
him killed off early in the film; switching points of view: taking the person who sees the
murder and then involving him in the crime.

But the exposition - the history of the twins growing up in the lnstitute and their separation
- is via a sort of dream imagery which I think makes it interesting. The idea derives
from Polanski. lhave always liked the dream sequencein Rosemary's EaDywhere the
devil makes love to her. lt was a good idea because you never really know whether 0r
not it happened, and the imagery is terrific. lt also avoids the scene in Psycho where
the psychiatrist sits down and explains evefihing. An expository scene can be a kind of
boring scene, but you need it because the audience doesn't know what's happening and
you've got to explain it to them. By placing it in a dream I think you get a sort of visceral
feeling for what went on rather than specific information.

BPB: I see Bernard Herrmann did the music. How did you get him?

BDP: The idea for using Bernard Herrmann came from the editor, Paul Hirsch. When he
was assembling the material he put a lot of Henmann's music on it. We used the violins

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from the Psycho murder scene; Mamie ouer some of the love stuff on the boat; the whole
vertigo dream score over our dream sequence. And suddenly all this stuff we'd been
looking at silently took on a very ominous dimension; it became scary and disturbing.

I didn't know what had happened to Herrmann. (Lots of people think he is dead. After all,
his lirst score was citizen Kane, and that's a long time ago.) But we found out through
another director's uncleb brother's dentist's cousin that he was indeed alive and residing
in London. we sent him the script and he liked it, and then we flew him over here to look
at the movie.

we found out that he's a very temperamental conductor. He's in his late 60s or 70s and
he's gruff and kind of scary. Our first meeting was pretty tenifying. He had just gotten off
the plane and was still suffering from jet lag and we took him to see the movie. There
wasn't a sound out of him as to whether or not he liked it; he only seemed interested in
when lunch was. But after he saw the movie he said it reminded him of when he first saw
Psycho.And that really made me feel good.

Apparently when Psychowas first screened for Herrmann, Hitchcock was very depressed
about it because he thought he'd made a tawdry television picture: he had shot it with a
television crew in about 6 or 8 weeks with his own money and he thought it looked as if it
had been thrown together and that they should just slap it on television and lorget about
it. But when Herrmann saw it he said, "Wait a minute. I think I can do something here.,,
And he said the same thing about slsters. I don't think my picture is anywhere near as
greatas Psycho(andldothink Psychoisagreatmovie),butitencouragedmet0seethat
he was indeed interested in it.

But it was really something working with him! I wanted to start the movie with just white
credits over the first scene as Danielle/Dominique is getting undressed. That was the first
cue I discussed with Herrmann, and he said, "That's TERRIBLEI!" (And he talks in a very
gruff, deliberate way.) So I said, "What's wrong with it?" And he said, ,.Nothing happens
-
in this movie for forty minutes!" And I said yes that's the idea. There is a slow beginning
you know, like Psycho,where the murder doesn't happen until about 40 minutes into the
picture." And he shouted at me, "Y0u are not Hitchcock; lor Hitchcock they will wAlr!"
and that is of course very lrue. Because it's a Hitchcock movie you KN0w something is
going to happen.

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BPR: Does Hitchcock Rnow about the movie?

BDP:There have been so many different Hitchcock imitators that I would guess he doesn't
pay much attention to them anymore. Actually though, I have found that people who like
and are knowledgeable about Hitchcock also like Slsfers- they know the references I am
making to his films and they seem t0 appreciate it all the more for that. Which is good,
because you could so easily be attacked as a tawdry Hitchcock rip-off.

There are only a few directors who are masters of this genre - Hitchcock and Polanksi for
instance - and they are all by themselves. lt is an extremely difficult genre to work with
because it is so unreal and you can get into big trouble with people for not following your
vision and getting lost in understanding what you are doing.

The reason I like the genre is because you can work in a sort of pure cinema form. That is
why Hitchcock likes it too. lt's all images, and your story-telling is entirely through images
and not people talking to each other.

BPB: Last year at Cannes Hitchcock made the comment that there is too much talk in
movies.

BDP: Heb absolutely right. Films with endless jabber make me sleepy. How you deal with
a genre in America after you have seen a lot of European movies is to make it slower. Then
it seems like an Antonioni. So instead of, say, lust making a bank-robber movie, you're
making a comment on American society because everyone moves so slowly. Directors
who do this seem to be embarrassed by the genre they are working in - they really don't
want to be known for making detective pictures. They feel they are important directors and
they can't be accused of making, say, a Raymond Chandler movie.

lf you are making genre movies you cannot refuse to shoot the obligatory scenes: how do
we get from A to B to C to D. But some directors feel that they are just boring pafts because
-
they are plot and who wants to hear about that let's get on with stylistic business. lt's
great to be a stylist, and I really like that, but on the other hand you cannot refuse to pay
attention to the conventions you are working with. Make a new form and be Fellini, but
then don't try to be Don Siegel.

I strongly believe there are reasons for genre forms and there are reasons that make them
work. And if you ignore all the tenets of the form you are going to have something else
which isn't going t0 be that genre. But if you are going to avoid telling stories, then you had

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better come up with another way to make a movie last g0 minutes because it becomes
difficult any other way. Granted there are some genius directors who can get away with it,
but by and large it makes me angry to see a good, major director subordinate thecontent
of an expository scene to style so that you can't tell what's going on and who's doing what
to whom.

BIB: Usually in this genre the expository scene, which is requisite foi the understanding
of the plot, is done in a much more straight-forward, unambiguous form than your dream
sequence.

BDP: Granted. When you ty to get complicated solutions to normal, simplistic problems
you sometimes run into trouble. 0f course there is an easy way to do that scene: I could
just have the doctor sit there and talk to the girl and exptain evilryttring. You know, a nice
close-up while he says, "Rememberwhen you were a litile girl backatthe lnstitute...,,
Everything in focus and nice and clear and loud. You would have gotten all the information
and known exactly what was going on - just like with the psychiatrist in psycho.Bull
tried to find a different way to do it. And I think that while image-wise it is fascinating,
exposition-wise it is probably only 50% effective. lf I had had more money lwould have
shot it a little differently because I can see some of the things that are unclear and that I
should have made clearer. But then I am no Hitchcock - I don't have the resources or the
time or the skill to do that yet.

BPB: What was the budget?

BDP: About a half a million and $250,000 in deferred. I got it financed independenfly. lt
took me a long time, and it was very difficult and I don't recommend it to anybody. We
started with $200,000 and the producer just kept going out and raising more mbney until
we ended up with a half million cash. But that was as far as he could go.

RPB: And you feel that the budget constrained you and that you could have or would have
done things differently with more money?

BDP:With another $100,000 I could have re-shot a few things that ldidn't tike and it
would have been better. But most directors feel that. I would also have liked to increase its
size a little bit it's always three characters in closed spaces. But to open it up more and
add more people takes money.

One of the scenes which I would have completely re-shot had I had the money (and it's
no longer in the picture because I couldn't re-shoot it) is one that I had thought about for

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years and years where the body is in the couch and it's bleeding through the bottom of
the couch. The whole search scene is a Max 0phuls-type tracking shot about six minutes
long, and while they are searching through the apartment the camera keeps coming back
to the couch and the spot is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I shot it, but because
the camera could only get down so low and still go up high enough to shoot the rest
of the scene we couldn't get down to the bottom of the couch and when we saw the
rushes it looked ridiculous because it looked like the guy was bleeding up through the
arm of the couch. So I had to throw out the whole tracking shot, and I was forced to use
close-ups and television-type coverage-which bothered me a lot because it was a great
conception forthat kind of material. (ln fact, the whole set had been constructed s0 that I
could track through the entire length and back and around, just like Hitchcock did in Rope.\
But those are the kinds of things that make an immense amount of difference in this form.

Whenever I approach a scene I try to do it with a very strong visual concept where the
camera is placed is, to me, as important as the material itself. When I see a scene that
someone else has done with, for instance, two people walking across a park shot through
a panning long lens, I can just see dialogue written on the paper. All that is happening is
that the director is covering-and to me, covering is the lowest form of direction. You hand
a guy a script and he says, "Well, l'll take a master shot as the car pulls up and then a
medium shot. . ." Well, that's television; that's not directing. lt's sloppy and it's terrible and
it doesn't say much for our art as directors.

0n the other hand, I do try to stay within the limitations of what I have to work with. I don't
write a scene where, for instance, someone is walking through Grand Central Station and
then say, "Now how are we going to do that? Well, we can only afford five extras and we
only have six lights so we can only light the one ticket counter near the 0TB." A good
director doesn't even conceive of things like that because they are impossible to shoot.

Also with Srsters, if I had had more money lwould have gotten a big star, like Sidney Poitier
or someone you can't even imagine getting killed, and I would have had him bumped off
early in the picture. 0r if I had had a star in the Grace Collier role - someone like Marlo
Thomas whom you would immediately identify with - and she sees the murder, you would
have had hundreds of thousands of people hanging in there for Marlo.

That's what Hitchcock did all the time: he got big stars that people could identily with. And
it makes a difference in this genre. But when you don't have that, well, what have you got?
You've got to carry it off with good actors - which is fine, but for this kind of form you really
need that kind of star thrust. Screen stardom is a very real thing. Some people on film

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*f
.lI/
tc
:i
carry a kind of strength and power that merely good actors don't, and there is no getting
around it. You watch good screen personalities and you are fascinated by everything they
do. Sometimes they can even carry the worst turkeys.

0n the other hand, we have reached a whole new level of reality ws-ii-rs acting because
of television. You can't have people pretending they are Gene McCarthy when you can
watch the real Gene McCarthy. lt also affects the style of acting a lot. You can't have the
kind of naturalism that you had in the thirties (like the Kazan school): it looks too stylized
and too overdramatic, and you just don't buy it anymore.

BPB: Since this movie is so tightly scripted and structured lwould doubt that you allowed
your actors much in the way of improvisation. lt would seem that, like Hrtchcock, you used
them more as props to be moved about as you wanted them.

BDP: ln this movie, yes. But you can get into a lot of trouble like that once you start
wheeling them around like props you don't believe it anymore because they are so unreal.
And that is one of Hitchcock's big problems. Hitchcock needs really good actors, but I hear
that he has gotten so big he doesn't think he needs anybody anymore. Megalomania is a
very real problem for the successful director - you think it's me, me, me and I don't need
anybody. And consequently your work suffers for it.

Ithink Hitchcock's break-up with Herrmann, for instance, has affected his work. He threw
out Herrmann's score for Torn Cuftain and used someone else's and they got into a big
fight and don't speak anymore. And that makes Hitchcock weaker. When your ego gets
so big tnat you get into fights it's not conducive to good work. And that can happen with
writers and actors and directOrs and cameramen. But a director especially needs to use
the best people he can because it ultimately only makes him better.

Actually I tend to work very well with actors because I depend on them a lot. An actor
brings reality to your fantasy and grounds it so that it doesn't get too far away.

BPB: To return to the subject of genre, what about comedy as an aspect of this particular
form? The detective, for instance, is a comic figure and you made him so intentionally'

BDP: The suspense genre usually has comic relief sheerly to reduce the audience tension
by giving them a chance to laugh and relax. Then you start again with the tension. And
Hitchcock also talks about how you emotionally involve an audience. You can't sustain
tension for too long; you have to drop it out occasionally, and comedy helps to do that. 0n

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the other hand, it is a very hard line to walk, and you have to be careful not to go too far
over to the other side and make fun of the genre. lt is also very difficult because you can
fall into a kind of macabre humour and then you are really getting into questionable areas.

BPB: I think some of your uses of split screen ranks with the best I've ever seen. For
instance, when the police get off the elevator and barely miss Emil but you see how they
miss him via split screen instead of cutting. 0r ceftain real-time aspects tike Danielle and
Emil cleaning up after the nurder and Grace waiting for and then delayed by the potice,
which gives the others time to clean up after the murder - but you are watching both
simultaneously.

BDP: First of all, I am interested in the medium of film itself, and I am constanfly standing
outside and making people aware that they are always watching a film. At the same time
I am evolving il.ln Hi, Mom!, for instance, there is a sequence where you are obviously
watching a ridiculous documentary and you are told that and you are aware of it, but it stiil
sucks you in. There is a kind of Brechtian alienation idea here: you are aware of what you
are watching at the same time that you are emotionally involved in it.

Actually I think the protogpe for split-screen is Woodstock, which has got every
sophisticated documentary split-screen technique there is. And all the films which have
come out of that are still using those basic concepts which were set up a long time ago.
But that form - lne Woodstock multiple-screen rock form - has always just been used as
a documentary form; no one has ever thought to use it as a dramatic form, and it's just
virgin territory!

My next prqect iscalled Phantom of the Fillmorefsicl, and it's a horror/rock musical which
will hopefully combine the genres of horror and rock in one Faustian fantasmagoria. And
in this film I want to take that whole split-screen rock concert form and really lie with it. I
love to deal with the medium of film and bend it all the time!

RPB: What are some examples in Sislers of devices which "bend" the medium of film and
make people aware that they are watching a movie?

BDP: The opening scene is one example. The audience thinks they are voyeuristically
watching people in a bath-house, but then they are suddenly made aware that those
people are on a television show and they are watching a television screen. lt is also a very
unique way of introducing characters, because instead of having them meet on the street
and say, "Hi, let's go have a drink together," suddenly you have set up the whole image

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of the movie: the audience as voyeur which then transforms into what is essentially the
character of Grace Collier who sees the murder. And it ends with the detective watching
the couch with binoculars, so there is a voyeuristic image at the beginning and at the end.
Then there is the TV show, the Peeping Ioms show, which is an idea derived lrom Candid
Camera. Also, all the images in the dream scene are very voyeuristic.

ln otherwords, all of this is just a way oI making an image forthe movie which is essentially
candid camera - that is, peering into other people's lives. And that is what Grace does: she
is a newspaper reporter and she is the observer of the murder and the one who attempts
to unravel it.

-
And that is what we all do especially when we watch TV. I really got the idea from
watching the Vietnam War on television - watching a war that nobody really knew about
except that we watched it every night on the 7 o'clock news. lt was really a very voyeuristic
war, and I think it says a lot about the way we perceive things. We are very much controlled
by the media which present things to us. And those media can be manipulated and they
can be manipulated in any way: they can make what is seemingly real false and what is
seemingly false real. And that is what has always fascinated me about film - the ability to
lie and twist it any way you want.

RPfr: Would you say something about the technical aspects of the production?

BDP: Srsfers was shot in 8 weeks. We used a Nabet crew. They're not like a Hollywood
crew, but they work hard and God knows they're earnest. We used a Mitchell BNC with
Panavision lenses, an Eclair for the 16mm, and an Am and two Mitchells for some ol the
double shots. The film was shot entirely on location on Staten lsland except for the stuff
0n the apartment set and at the Time-Life building. The film was very tightly shot. Our
shooting ratio was 8 to l , and only a couple of scenes were re-shot and only one scene
was dropped. Each scene was preconceived and carefully planned beforehand.

The film was very carefully lit in a truly classical style, and it took a lot of time - which is
most unusual in a low-budget movie. But that is why it looks so different. The cameraman
sometimes took as long as 45 minutes to light close-ups, which is especially rare in a low-
budget movie, but it makes a big difference because the girls looked good!

The typical low-budget film uses bounced light, gets it up as fast as possible, and then
moves on to the next setup. But bounced light, live locations, and moving fast are for a
different kind of film with different values. A certain kind of detail is essential in a movie

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like mine, and it's not essential in something like, say, Save the Tiger.Ihe important thing
in that film was to get the reality of the places the people were in. ssfers, on the other
hand, is an atmospheric movie, and we spent time to build a set to create an atmosphere.
We even constructed a special cutaway icebox.

RPB: What about special effects?

BDP: The Siamese twins sitting next to each other is a special effect. We photographed
Margo as she sat once in the chair and made a mark and photographed one sid-e of the
screen, and then we moved her over and photographed on the other side of the screen
and made another mark Ior where we placed her in the frame, and then the optical house
joined them together so that she was one piece, just like a siamese twin. That same sort
of thing was done a long time ago in old Bette Davis movies, so it's nothing new; but it's
never been done before with a Siamese twin.

0n the other hand, the television game show was not an optical but a mask with
superimposed lines to give that w scanline look. And the history of the twins as screened
at the Time-Life Building was just old black and white photographs, but they picked up so
much grain that it wasn't necessary to go through another optical.

The multiple split-screens were done with setups. For instance, in the elevator-hallway
sequence we used three set-ups: a pan at the window, one coming around the doonruay
when they come out ol the elevator and the Doctor is hiding in the back, and the two
people at the door (when the detective comes in she opens the door and you see it from
both sides).

BPR: Had you planned at the lutset to use split-screen, or was that something that
evolved as you faced the problem of cufting?

BDP: I get strong visual ideas and then I try to develop the story around them. Hitchcock
makes drawings for all his films before he shoots them, and that is why his movies are so
precise: he has incredible visual ideas and everything is worked out like a swiss watch.
Unfortunately most movies derive from a literary rather than a visual intent. But I always
think in terms ol what is on the screen, not what is on paper. I am not primarily a writer,
and I always have very precise visual ideas and then try to construct a story around them
as opposed to writing a story and then trying to figure out how I'm going to shoot it. But
most people write stories and forget how they are going to shoot it.

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As far as I am concerned, you are dealing with pure cinema - that is, with what is right
on the screen - and you should try to think what it will look like. For instance, I had the
image of the guy writing "Help" on the window from two points of view years ago, so the
problem was how to turn the story s0 that you could get to lhat scene. Hitchcock is also
constantly trying to find new ways to use original visual ideas. North by Northwestwas
constructed basically from the idea of great locations: how can we have a chase around
Mount Rushmore? 0r you take the idea of how to kill someone differently and say, well,
instead of a dark alley let's try an open field.

BPR: You mentioned that you shot slme of the film in 16mm.

BDP: lused 16mm to photograph the doctor when he is talking directly to the camera
during the hypnosis scene. I operated the camera myself there because he was looking
directly into the camera and there was no other way to see how he was playing it. Also the
first dream, where they are going through the clinic with all the freaks, was shot in 16mm.

I happen to like grain if you can use it properly. lt has a tenific feel about it. But you have
got to put it in the right place so that it doesn't look like a tawdry 16mm exploitation
picture. However in this film I was looking for a classical Hitchcock-type look, and when
you spend that much time on sets and lighting you have to use Panavision lenses and the
sharpest photography you can get - and it's not feasible on 1 6mm.

But 16mm for other kinds of films is fine. lt's the medium that you need, and y0u need
that medium precisely for what you are doing. I always choose mediums for the form lam
using and not vice versa.

RPB: How do you rise from being an "underground" filmmaker?

BDP: Make a movie that makes money. That's the easiest way. The reason I got financed
by a major studio for Get to l/aow Your Rabbitwas because Greetings made money. The
reason that I wasn't financed by a major studio for Sisfers was because Rabbit sal on
the shelf for six months. After all, it's a commercial industry. Granted BabDlt isn't a great
movie, but it certainly isn't that bad. The point is that people have a very precise memory
about where you stand on the Vuiety chart, and the big problem is getting people to
believe in you so that they'll finance you. Money you always need, whether you raise it
from a studio or from your relatives.

BPB: What is your feeling about the "you don't have to know how a camera works to be
a filmmaker" theory?

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BDP: I can only speak for myself, but I've done everything involved with making films
I've shot them, edited, taken sound, handled almost every technical aspect. plus the fact
-
that I come from a good technical background. lwas designing computers when lwas in
high school; I majored in physics and won science fairs. So I am very technically oriented.

But knowing the technical aspects can only help you.That is why I have such an obsession
with precision of vision. I can't stand sloppy direction or conception. lt disturbs me in my
own work and in other people's. The other thing is that once you've made a mistake or
been sloppy you will forever see that in your work. I'm not the kind of director who doesn,t
look at my own films. I'll see them again and again and again, just to remind myself what
was wrong with them, where I made a compromise, when I didn't take enough time, what
didn't work with the characters or their development or with a shot. lt makes me very
aware of what I have to do to grow as a director.

I have scrupulously tried to evolve my style organically - I can see what I am weak at
and what I need to work on and when I need to bring in a collaborator to strengthen the
weakness of whatever I'm working on, whether it be the script, photography, or editing. My
first movies were very loose and fragmented, so I've tried to get very tight and contrblbd
recently. I've also tried to take things step by step, but it's very hard to do that in the film
industry. fhey don't believe in developing talent like that; it's all very hit or miss, get-ttre-
deal-together. lt's hard to develop in a system like ilrat, and very few directors do.

BPB: How would you sum up your aims in making Sisters2

BDP: The whole idea of making a tightly constructed film was for my own development
as a director. My earlier films had been very loose and all over the place, and as happens
in that kind of situation, the parts had been better than the whole. So Slsters was a very
conscious attempt at making something which was unilorm by trying to work within a
very tight story form and doing certain stylistic things within that structure.

Basically I wanted to make a movie in the Hitchcock mode in order to work on my own
problems as a story{eller. lt was also a study in the realisation of precise visualization.
I was trying to work in a pure cinematic style -
doing everything with drawn shots and
figuring out how all the pieces of film were going to fit together, then writing the story
and making the story evolve from the images. Then shooting it that precisely and putting
it together that precisely and seeing that it worked. lt's a great process - and there is no
greater craft than that.

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 MURDERBY MOOG:
SCORll,lG TI{ECHILL
by Brian De Palma

This artide originally appeared in lhe VillW Voice,Oclobf,/r illrt tg73

It had been a "freaky" day. The actors standing around the set of the suspense movie
I was directing, called Srsfers, were Eddie the giant, Sealo the flipper man, Cathy the
lobster child, the alligator woman, six sets of twins, and one set of tap-dancing triplets.
They were assembled for the film's dream sequence, in which the Siamese sisters (the
movie's heroines) recall their childhood in a Californian institute for the malformed.

With these strange images still in my mind, I entered the cutting room late that night.

The editor, Paul Hirsch, had been cufting the film during the shooting and wanted to show
me the murder scene, accompanied by some music of an old record. I had seen the scene
in rough cut before but had been unsatisfied. The aesthetic problem ol slashing a victim
-
to death had been effectively solved only once in the shower murder in Hitchcock's
Psycho.My murder paled in comparison, and having once failed at the same problem in
an earlier feature (an ice pick in the eye - a blatant compromise for shock rather than
craft), I was determined not to fail again.

Paul threaded up the viewer, turned off the lights, and switched on the machine. As
-
Dominique the mad sister -
raised her knife and jerked it down into the victim's
groin, I was jolted to hear that extraordinary shriek of violins from the Psycfo shower
murder. Suddenly a scene I had viewed tweng times before took on new visceral
dimensions. Bernard Herrmann's music had breathed a new emotional force into my
film. lt immediately brought back the twisted faces of the freaks. Just as they presented
a disfigurement of human form, Herrmann's massed violins played a chilling distortion
of a human cry. I inhaled sharply and thirty seconds later realised I hadn't exhaled. My
stomach muscles tightened and my skin prickled with fear.

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"You've got to get Herrmann to do the score," said Paul triumphantly. "See the difference
it makes?"

I nodded. Herrmann is part of film history. His first feature was Citizen Kane. He was
scoring the greatest film ever made the year I was born.

"Sure," I said cynically, "but he's probably dead."

"Are you sure?" Paul asked.

"Look, ldon't have dates, butthe last movie lremember him doing was lfe Birdsand
that was ten years ago."

Paul was not to be swayed. While I completed shooting Ststers, he researched Herrmann
and discovered that he was very much alive and living in London. ln fact, Herrmann
had just recently completed a score for a Hayley Mills film called Twisted Nerve.Finally
Ed Pressman, Sr3terd producer, contacted his agent through a friend's optometrist's
brother. ln a phone conversation, Ed explained the story of Srsters and was instructed by
Herrmann's agent to send the script. A few weeks later, Ed was informed that Herrmann
was interested and the financial arrangements were negotiated. (Herrmann's score was
the most expensive item in Slsters' budget.) Ed came down to the set late one afternoon
and told us that the rumours were true: Bernard was going to write the Srsters score and
planned to come to New York when the film was cut. I could hardly believe that the genius
who had scored Veftigo, North by Northwestand Psychowas really going to write our
music. I held my excitement and waited to see.

That day finally came and still my faith that the mythical Herrmann would emerge from
an elevator at the Movielab screening room to see my movie was faint. I was right only
about one thing - he didn't emerge from the elevator. Rather, when we came off the
elevator at 10am, he was waiting for us. He was a short, stout man, with silver grey
hair plastered down his head, thick glasses, and he carried an ominous-looking walking
stick. Ed apologised for being late (we weren't) and asked how his flight had been.
Herrmann impatiently mumbled, oh, all right, but I'm staying on London time and all I
want to do is see the film, have dinner, and go to bed. I got the impression there was
something unpleasant about New York time and, in fact, about everything New York,
including ourselves. But I wasn't sure because I couldn't see Herrmann's face (he never

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looked up at us, keeping his head straight down, his eyes never leaving the floor) to
determine if he was kidding us or not. Undaunted, Ed launched into an apology for the
present rough state of the film.

Herrmann's impatience broke into anger.

"l flew here not to talk about the film but to see it!" he shouted, waving his cane like an
enraged Mr. Magoo. "For God's sake - let's get on with it."

As I came to learn later, no matter how loud or brutally frank Henmann was, he was
almost invariably right. And if you disagreed with him about anything, you'd have to
weather the blast. But then if you had a good point, he would subside and begrudgingly
come around to your point of view.

Here, of course, Herrmann was right, and without another word we filed into the darkened
screening room and started the picture.

For ten minutes the screening seemed to be going along all right (at least he wasn't
shouting at us), but then the first music cue arrived. 0n the screen, Danielle, the good
sister, and her black lover embraced on the deck oI the Staten lsland Ferry. As they
kissed, the room filled with Herrmann's own love theme from Marnie.ll was a beautiful
moment.

"What's that?" shrieked Herrmann with unbelievable horror.

"That's where the first music is," I frantically explained. "l just wanted to show you the
type of music I had in mind for this sequence. . . "

"Stop it," he cried, his cane thumping the floor in rage.

"But I thought

"You thought!" he rasped contemptuously. "That's Marnie,nolyour movie!"

"Bul Marnie's perfect," I argued

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"Turn it off," he ordered. "l don't want lo hear Marniewhen l'm looking at your movie.
How can I think about anything new with thatplaying?" By this time, his feet had joined
his drumming cane and I feared for his heart. But fortunately paul had raced around
to the projection booth and switched the accursed music off. Momentarily modilied,
Herrmann collapsed back into his chair to watch the rest of the film.

As I stole looks at Herrmann during the screening, I wondered if ours was a doomed
collaboration. I had thought that pre-scoring the film with Herrmann music (Marnie
for the love scenes, Psyclro for the murder, Veftigotor the dream sequence) would be
helpful to him. wrong! And in the process I had painfully learned that Herrmann's wrath
is unmerciful on bad judgement. lt reminded me ol working with 0rson welles (on 6et
to Know Your Rabbitl. He, too, berated you for what he considered bad judgement. But
the difference between Herrmann and welles was that Herrmann passionately cared that
what was decided was right and threw his whole being into it. welles knew just as well
as Herrmann what was right - he had just given up fighting Ior it.

when the film was over, silence ensued. After what seemed an eternal pause Herrmann
started to reminisce. He wasn't shouting now.

"l remember sitting in a screening room after seeing the rough cut of psycho. Hitch was
nervously pacing back and forth, saying it was awlul and that he was going to cut it down
for his television show. He was crazy. He didn't know what he had. wait a minute, I said.
I have some ideas. How about a score completely for strings? I used to be a violin player,
you know. . . Hitch was crazy then. You know he made psycho wilh his own money and
was afraid it was going to be a flop. He didn't even want any music in the shower scene.
Can you imagine that?"

lf Herrmann was comparing my film to Psycho, maybe he liked it.

"But let's talk about the music while the film is fresh in my mind," continued Herrmann.

Fine, I replied, and launched into an eager ten-minute explanation of why I didn,t want
any title music. The first scene in sr3ters is a long set-up shot lrom a hidden camera in
a bathroom changing room. The partition separating the women's room and the men's
room has been removed. 0ver the scene of a blind girl undressing I wanted to fade in and
lade out four titles with the primary screen credits... to make the credits short without

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any dramatic music. After I finished, Herrmann exploded.

"No title music? Nothing happens in your picture for the first half an hour. You need
something to scare them right away. The way you do it, they'll walk out."

"But in Psycilo the murder doesn't happen until forty. .. "

"You are not Hitchcock! He can make his movies as slow as he wants in the beginning!
And do you know why?"

I shook my head.

"Because he is Hitchcock and they will wait! They know something terrible is going t0
happen and they'll wait until it does. They'll watch your movie for ten minutes and then
they'll go home to their televisions."

Herrmann was brutal and, of course, right.

"What do you think we should do?" I asked.

"l will write you one title cue, one minute and twenty seconds long. lt will keep them in
their seats until your murder scene. I got an idea using two Moog synthesisers."

0h my God, I thought wildly. Herrmann, the 61-year-old master of suspense music, is

going to write his first pop title song. Gone with the old Herrmann and on with the new
Herrmann. Needless to say, I was wrong because, as I was to learn later, the reason
Herrmann music had gone out of lashion was precisely because he retused to write
songs.

When in the early '60s the record business became bigger than the film business, it
became a must for film scores to contain a hit single (The Graduate -'Mrs. Robinson';
Easy Rider- 'The Ballad of Easy Ride/; and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid-
'Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head' are some examples of this trend). Suddenly,
songwriters became sought-after film composers. But Henmann adamantly refused to
change to meet this new trend, and after a ferocious battle with a studio head ("1 don't
write songs! I write film music!"), he left Hollywood. He moved to England where he

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scored two Truffaut films - Fahrenheit 451 (1 966) and The Bride Wwe Btack(l967). After
that came one Holland/German co-production entitled 0Dsessions (1 g6g), an overblown
Yugoslavian-West German-ltalian period piece called The Batfle of the River Neretva
(1969), and two low-budget English suspense films - The Night Digger (19711 and
Endless Night(1971). But as far as Hollywood was concerned,afier psycho, Herrmann
was "washed up", "over the dead", "dead"!

A few monfis later, after our first meeting, we met again in a recording sfudio in London.
I was elated to see Bernard Herrmann was alive and well. For as I entered fie recording
booth and looked out onto the studio floo6 there he was on the podium, standing over a
full orchestra, berating fie two young men on his left who were frantically trying to get
the two Moog synthesisers in tune with the rest of the orchestra.

"We can't wait any longer. We'll play without them," Herrmann grumbled bitterly.

"Please, Mr. Henmann," pleaded one of the young men. "lt will just hke a second.,'

"You said that five minutes ago and still we wait! lt's an undisciplined instrument and
should not be allowed in the orchestra."

The room filled with unearfily squeals as the Moogs reeled through the scales in search
of fie dght key. Finally, the two young men managed to setfle them down into ttre shrill
sound.

"All right. That's good enough. Let's try it!"

Herrmann raised his baton and the orchestra sprang to attention. He looked up at the
large time clock overhead, counted eight beats, and jerked his baton down. The Moogs
wailed out and I got the same chill l'd had in the editing room a few months before.
Herrmann had done it again. He was right. lcouldn't leave my seat.

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 RARESTUDY OFSIATI,HE
TWINS IN SOVIET
ilA${A AlrD DAS}IA
lhis artide oilginaily appeared inLile magazine, April ath,19ffi.

Balancing themselves on shared legs, these sisters are bound to each other physically
- and permanently. This picture was taken nears years ago in the U.S.S.R., when Masha
and Dasha were 7; they are now 16. They are Siamese twins. Between them they have
four arms, but only three legs - two perfectly good ones plus a third vestigial leg, partly
visible behind Dasha's left arm.

Masha and Dasha were born Jan. 4, 1950, to normal parents who have other normal
children. Like all Siamese twins, most of whom are stillborn, they are the result 0f a
rare embryological accident. Their developing embryo began to split into identical twins
but somehow, tragically, stopped part way, and Masha and Dasha became parts of two
people joined together. Since the twins share some of their internal systems and organs,
Soviet scientists knew they had a unique opportunity to study human physiology. For
the past 16 years, under the supervision of an eminent physiologist, PyotrAnokhin the
girls have been cared for in Moscow medical clinics by doctors and nurses who lavished
attention on them - and also subjected them to scientific scrutiny.

The girls were five years old before they learned to walk. Their left leg is controlled by
Dasha and their right leg by Masha, and they had to do special exercises to learn how
to coordinate. But after a protracted struggle they learned to move together quite well.
Now they can ride a bicycle, dance, go up and down stairs and even climb a ladder. But
their personalities are entirely different, although they have identical genes and share the
same environment as fully as any two human beings ever can. Dasha - the one on the
-
right is quick, bright and serious. She loves to read. She is also more temperamental
and usually wins a sisterly argument. Masha has always been slower. "She is a light-
minded chatterbox," says Professor Anokhin, "and already flirts with boys." But a few
years ago when doctors planned an operation to remove their third leg, it was serious
Dasha who became so upset that the doctors dropped the idea.

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ln these pictures, taken when the twins were a year old, their third leg is at the top, on
the lar side of their body. lt has a cleft foot with eight ioes. Half of it is Masha's, half
Dasha's. Masha can feel pain in her half of the leg, but not in Dashab - and vice versa.
Their pelvic bones join and their spines meet at the coccyx their circulatory system is
interconnected: if one were bitten by a poisonous snake, the venom would quickly spread
to both. Although their spinal chords do not. Hence their nervous systems - e.g. sense of
touch - are totally distinct. They become ill separately, fall asleep separately. They have
two stomachs, and separate upper intestines which join into a single lower intestine and
rectum. They have four kidneys - but only one bladder, and they don't always agree on
when to urinate; sometimes one twin wants to and the other doesn't. soviet doctors say
there is no physiological reason why Masha and Dasha could not become a mother: they
have a common reproductive system.

At age 11, Masha and Dasha slouched on a couch, their third leg tucked behind them.
when they were younger they enjoyed special attention. As they matured ftey came
t0 comprehend the full meaning of their deformity. Doctors now predict they will need
psychiatric help.

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 ABOUTTIGTRA]SffiR
Srbters is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 with original mono audio.
The HD master for Sr.sters was prepared and delivered by Criterion, in cooperation with
Ed Pressman. Additional picture restoration work was carried out using a combination
ol software tools and techniques at Deluxe Digital - EMEA, London.

Film Restoration Supervisor: James White

Film Restoration by Deluxe Production: Mark Bonnici, Graham Jones, Tom Barrett,
Clayton Baker, Debra Bataller, David Burt, Anthony Cleasby, Lisa Copson, Donna 0'Reilly,
Tom Wiltshire

I
a t CREDITS
Discs and Booklet Produced by Francesco Simeoni & Anthony Nield
Production Assistant Louise Buckler
0G: Francesco Simeoni, Anthony Nield
Proofing: Francesco Simeoni, Anthony Nield
Authoring: David Mackenzie
Subtitling: IBF Digital
Artist Graham Humphreys
Design: Jack Pemberton

SPECNAL THAhKS
Alex Agran, Susan Arosteguy, Simon Ashley, MichaelAtkinson, Alison Balch,
Michael Brooke, Jennifer Cheatley, The Criterion Collection, Harvey Fenton,
The Finley Estate, Cynthia Foster, lan Froggatt, Steve Harradine, Jeffrey Hayes,
Paul Hirsch, Naomi Holwill, Justin Humphreys, Ari Kahan, Life Magazine,
Maitand McDonagh, Toby Melling, Kim Newman, Maria Palazola, Camilla Pines,
Ed Pressman. Louisa Rose, Richard Rubinstein, Jennifer Salt, Tom Stewart,
Mike Sutton, Fumiko Takagi, Calum Waddell, The Village Voice, Deborah Znaty

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