Diane Arnaud's 'Changements de têtes' Explores Cinematic Multiplicity

Diane Arnaud's book 'Changements de têtes' (Rouge profond) traces a cinematic journey through conflicts, dissociations, and figural deviations. The study links identity disruption to the multiplication of heads in cinema, using examples from Méliès to Dario Argento's 'Trauma' and the duplication of Agent Smith in 'The Matrix Revolutions'. Arnaud's analysis avoids technical a priori, focusing instead on how an actor's physical performance interacts with image fabrication. The book confronts figures of duality, from the two interpreters of Conchita in Buñuel's 'That Obscure Object of Desire' to Lynch's transitory subjectivities. Lynch's early work 'Six Men Getting Sick' (1967) reveals characters with a 'plastic-controlled inner life' that convey sensations of lived experience rather than lived experience itself. Elsa Boyer contributes a striking analysis.