Motifs
The doppelgänger or double is a recurring motif of Apartment Zero. Adrian and Jack bear a physical resemblance (which Jack planned to exploit to escape the country). A character comments that Jack is a double of someone from his past. Jack and "Michael Weller" are a doubled pair, as are Jack and the murdered gay man. By film's end, instead of Jack becoming Adrian, Adrian instead has become Jack.
Another motif is classic films, especially films which have some connection to gay culture. Adrian runs a revival house. He and Jack play a movie game together frequently. Adrian's apartment is decorated with framed portraits of movie stars, including a number who were, or are perceived as being, gay or bisexual (including James Dean and Montgomery Clift). Adrian's choice of films also reflects a gay interest, including a Dean film festival and Compulsion, based on the Leopold and Loeb murder case.
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Famous quotes containing the word motifs:
“The poetic act consists of suddenly seeing that an idea splits up into a number of equal motifs and of grouping them; they rhyme.”
—Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–1898)
“Myths, as compared with folk tales, are usually in a special category of seriousness: they are believed to have “really happened,” or to have some exceptional significance in explaining certain features of life, such as ritual. Again, whereas folk tales simply interchange motifs and develop variants, myths show an odd tendency to stick together and build up bigger structures. We have creation myths, fall and flood myths, metamorphose and dying-god myths.”
—Northrop Frye (1912–1991)