If you want to be me be me?

July 4, 2011 11:08 AM

What do you know about "identity transference"? I'd like to find more materials on it, be it films like Ingar Bergman's Persona, songs ("I'm slowing turning into you" by the white stripes?), or fiction/nonfiction writings.
posted by neil pierce to religion & philosophy (17 answers total)

Hitchcock's Vertigo is all about this, although it's one man trying to turn a woman into someone else.

Pratchett's Making Money has a character trying to become a copy of the city's ruler.

TVTropes Identity Tropes - I Just Want To Be You
posted by The Whelk at 11:27 AM on July 4, 2011

Alfred Bester's Fondly Farenheit.
posted by griphus at 11:28 AM on July 4, 2011

Being John Malkovich?
posted by synecdoche at 11:42 AM on July 4, 2011

Woody Allens Zelig
posted by monocultured at 11:49 AM on July 4, 2011

Single White Female
posted by tomswift at 12:28 PM on July 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

John Frankenheimer's 1966 film SECONDS.
posted by theartandsound at 12:54 PM on July 4, 2011

Orhan Pamuk's The White Castle.
posted by cog_nate at 2:17 PM on July 4, 2011

The Talented Mr. Ripley is a good read (hey, there's a film too!).

I also recently saw an ad for The Roommate, but can't personally vouch for it.
posted by segfault at 4:03 PM on July 4, 2011

Shirley Jackson's stories Like Mother Used to Make and The Villager, both from her collection The Lottery and Other Stories.
posted by hot soup girl at 7:46 PM on July 4, 2011

"Running Up That Hill" by Kate Bush (covered by Placebo) is an example of this: "If I only could make a deal with god, get him to swap our places"; The Hold Steady's "Hornets! Hornets!" mentions it, "She mouthed the words along to 'Running Up That Hill' ... He's never heard that song before but he still gets the metaphor; he knows some people who've switched places before."
posted by NoraReed at 7:53 PM on July 4, 2011

I didn't quite like it.. or, arguably, understand it, but PERHAPS Performance is worth watching. Or maybe not. I really don't know. ??
posted by Mael Oui at 8:11 PM on July 4, 2011

I'm not sure that I understand it, but does 'A Separate Peace' by John Knowles count?
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 8:38 PM on July 4, 2011

Would My Sweet Audrina count?
posted by SisterHavana at 9:27 PM on July 4, 2011

Altman's Three Women was inspired by Persona and a dream Altman had and, in my humble opinion, is the better movie. Has the same theme.
posted by ifjuly at 10:12 AM on July 5, 2011

Altman's Three Women was inspired by Persona and a dream Altman had and, in my humble opinion, is the better movie. Has the same theme. And in In the Realm of the Senses at one point the male protagonist says he no longer knows if his, ahem male anatomy even belongs to him anymore, because him and his lover are so intertwined. Makes the ending a little more...conceptually feasible.
posted by ifjuly at 10:14 AM on July 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

oh, and Pale Fire in a way.
posted by ifjuly at 10:15 AM on July 5, 2011

Thanks, I'll check all these suggestions out. The Talented Mr. Ripley is one of my favorite movies, as well as its french counterpart "Plein Soleil" (Purple Noon). Anyway, thank you again
posted by neil pierce at 7:30 PM on July 7, 2011