THE DOUBLE HANNAH

Film 4 Interview extracts

I wanted to ask about Jordana from Submarine and Hannah from The Double, who are both girls or women that the males in
these films imagine to be a certain way, but who they find disillusioning in some way when they experience them acting as
people.
RA: They're sort of tough exteriors, which provides us with a form of either fear or excitement of some kind, but also allows an
emotional distance, which, when it drops away, is frightening. But I liked those characters and I guess theyre almost like film noir
characters - often the younger sister is really mean. There's something interesting about them that's fun to write, you know, rather
than writing the don't do that female characters of which there's a preponderance.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of that dynamic where the women are always the killjoy sensible ones and the men are like teenagers
trying to have the fun that drives the plot and makes things exciting.
RA: There's always quite bad female characters in teen dramas which is strange. Like in John Hughes films, the mum has
always got a slightly boring job. In Uncle Buck shes just perpetually worried about something. But I don't know. I think
that killjoy characters can be interesting, they're just not the character you wish to be yourself; they seem somewhat
functional. But then some characters are functional.
Theres a counterargument that Hannahs character is something of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, but the whole world of
this filmfrom the people to the subways to the malfunctioning elevatoris an expression of Simons psyche. So
Hannah, who isnt in the novella, serves a very explicit purpose in that regard.
RA: I think thats part of narrative. Point of view is very important; balance isnt. That would be a news report. And even
with those, youd be suspicious of the implication that a news report could even be balanced. And I think thats fine,
thats part of the experience. Theres an element in Taxi Driverand thats a perfect filmbut the scenes between Betsy
[Cybill Shepherds character] and Albert Brooks character, theres something where you just know that it isnt the meat
of the film. In some sense, you can almost feel that its like, We cant just have her be some girl that he looks at,
because thats But I think you can. I think that can be very interesting, that someone doesnt know someone else.
Like Turgenev in [the 1860 Russian novella] First Love, he just doesnt know that woman. Or in The Go-Between. Thats
just part of the function of the story, the unknowability. But theres a separate problem, which is unrounded female
characters in roles that should be rounded. But a rounded female character is not the specific lens of Vertigothats a
film about someone trying to mold someone to his own will, and not recognizing that she has a life separate to his
perspective. And if you lose that lens, you lose the story.
Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG) is a stock character type in films. Film critic Nathan Rabin, who coined the term after observing Kirsten Dunst's
character in Elizabethtown (2005), describes the MPDG as "that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered
imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures."
MPDGs are said to help their men without pursuing their own happiness, and such characters never grow up; thus, their men never grow up.

Simon is creating Hannah for himselfas he sees her, she only exists in his head, and with the scraps of her
shredded artwork, he literally puts her together. If she becomes a clich, its because hes transposing that onto
her. RA: Yeah, and its inhumane, and its not a genuine connection, and thats why Hannah doesnt respond. He
doesnt know her at all. And thats part of the problem. I think youre so used to films about a characters desires being
thwarted, and that essentially being a bad thing. You know the age-old question of Who do we relate to? Well, I always
think, Who is interesting? We relate to people in an advert because that person is specifically designed to represent
you, and its meant to make you feel like this person because you also do the same thing. But in a story I dont know,
do you want to relate to King Lear? [Laughs.] I mean, you have compassion for him, and youre fascinated by him, but the
idea of making him more re-late-able seems like such a modern, commercial concern.