Cinematic Siblings

Films are frequently in dialogue with one another. Connections, from unmistakable to the unexpected, exist between works based on the same story or films with similar thematic or aesthetic concerns. Our Cinematic Siblings invite audiences to discover how no film stands alone.

Ascenseur pour l'échafaud & Double Indemnity

Wilder’s film noir and Malle’s French drama share a very similar story: an adulterous couple plots murder, only for their perfect crime to unravel. Yet Malle transforms the conventions of the American noir into something distinctly European as the tightly controlled mechanics of Hollywood give way to chance and existential unease. With this film, Malle showed how European auteur filmmaking could be inspired by American genre cinema yet become completely its own thing.