Double Take (2009 film)

This article is about the 2009 film. For the 1998 film, see Double Take (1998 film). For the 2001 film, see Double Take (2001 film).

Double Take
Directed by	Johan Grimonprez
Produced by	Nicole Gerhards Emmy Oost Hanneke M. van der Tas Denis Vaslin
Written by	Johan Grimonprez Tom McCarthy
Music by	Christian Halten
Cinematography	Martin Testar
Editing by	Dieter Diependaele Tyler Hubby
Studio	Zap-O-Matik
Release date(s)	10 February 2009 (2009-02-10) (Berlinale)
Running time	80 minutes
Country	Belgium Germany Netherlands
Language	English

Double Take is a 2009 essay film by Belgian director Johan Grimonprez, which intercuts clips and interviews featuring Alfred Hitchcock with archive footage of cold war news coverage, and tells the story of the rise of "fear as a commodity". Impersonating Hitchcock, impressionist Mark Perry narrates a monologue provided by novelist Tom McCarthy describing a fictional meeting between Hitchcock and his double on the 1962 set of The Birds.

Production

Double Take is a Belgian-Dutch-German coproduction. It premiered at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival in the 'Forum expanded' section and was selected for the 2010 Sundance Film Festival in the 'New Frontier' section. Exploring the boundaries of documentary as well as art, the film is most commonly referred to as an essay film.

Double Take is a further development from Grimonprez' short film Looking for Alfred (2005).

The film contains a lot of stock footage, ranging from Alfred Hitchcock's introductory links in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents television series to archival newsreel footage on the Cold War period. The film investigates the theme of "doubles" (a subject often covered in Hitchcock's work) by combining new film material on Ron Burrage, professional Hitchcock double, with a story written by novelist Tom McCarthy, inspired by the short story "25 August 1983" by Jorge Luis Borges.

External links

• Official website
• Double Take at the Internet Movie Database