Parallel Plots

[GordonCole]

Not that they have to correspond in all ways, just like Craven's, Last House on the Left was shall we say, a wee bit different from Bergman's, The Virgin Spring, which was also slightly unique from its 13th century predecessor, but it's interesting to see how many similar themes can be the basis for very different movies.

One fun example would be 1962's British film, All Night Long which starred Patrick McGoohan [not No. 6 or a Prisoner this time] but the film was based on Shakespeare's, Othello in the palimpsest version with much rubbed out, from the original. Still it made a great film with wonderful jazz sequences by people like Dave Brubeck, though I heard no Take 6 or even 7 from the soundtrack.

Got another, please post it.

[cigarjoe]

1 hour ago, GordonCole said:

Not that they have to correspond in all ways, just like Craven's, Last House on the Left was shall we say, a wee bit different from Bergman's, The Virgin Spring, which was also slightly unique from its 13th century predecessor, but it's interesting to see how many similar themes can be the basis for very different movies.

One fun example would be 1962's British film, All Night Long which starred Patrick McGoohan [not No. 6 or a Prisoner this time] but the film was based on Shakespeare's, Othello in the palimpsest version with much rubbed out, from the original. Still it made a great film with wonderful jazz sequences by people like Dave Brubeck, though I heard no Take 6 or even 7 from the soundtrack.

Got another, please post it.

I'm sure Sarge will have one for ya.

[Sgt_Markoff]

Without really mulling it over at length, I might really only cite 'the Wizard of Oz' as the great-grandmother of all double narratives. It is so boilerplate to this kind of storytelling; so fundamental that its hard to avoid repeating it in any new story concept.

'The Great Gatsby' or 'The Fugitive Kind'--'East of Eden'...many great works, are deeply founded in symbol, allegory, and allusion to the point where knowing the trick gives the story a double-reading.

Outright double-narrative strands..'doppelgangers'...probably popular in the fantasy genre but I'm hard put to list very many. I generally don't rack my brain like this on cinema topics anymore.

[Sukhov]

5 hours ago, cigarjoe said:

I'm sure Sarge will have one for ya.

Well you certainly called it!  

[EricJ]

5 minutes ago, Gershwin fan said:

Well you certainly called it!  

Well, sort of--He couldn't figure out what the topic was either.

Like 99% of the Internet population, he heard "Remake", and his fingers were already typing the W-word.

(So...is it..."Re-interpretations of classic stories", or "Frequently filmed source material, in different forms", or "Most frequent remake", or...?  If it's "Re-interpretations", can I mention Steve Martin's versions of "Cyrano" and "Silas Marner"?)

[Sgt_Markoff]

Oh aye. I should have 'avoided this topic' ...to pander to his conspiracy theory, yes...

[Sukhov]

10 minutes ago, Sgt_Markoff said:

Oh aye. I should have 'avoided this topic' ...to pander to his conspiracy theory, yes...

Hey no one said anything about any "conspiracy theories." It's just a bit funny how he predicted exactly what would happen.  

[TopBilled]

When I saw the thread topic, my first thought was Hitchcock's FAMILY PLOT, where two separate (parallel?) plots suddenly intersect midway. 

I also think THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE has an interesting parallel or double plot.

[Dargo]

Okay, for one, my dearly departed mother and father have parallel plots. 

(...well okay, actually adjoining niches, if ya wanna be specific about it)

[Sgt_Markoff]

I've seen an indie film of this sort, on the Sundance Channel once--but I never was able to determine the title. Not great acting, but the writing was clever enough. Four sets of strangers with intersecting storylines:

(A) two boys playing hooky from school wander around the Bronx; they witness a drug-store hold up and the discarded pistol used in the robbery is tossed at their feet

(B) a Wall St day-trader has to get to his office to cover up a bad stock deal he dabbled in; he will put the money back in the account from his own pocket even though it means selling one of his real-estate properties and turning a young couple out on the street, however on his way to work with his mistress he crashes into another car and while he is sitting there dazed his car is heisted by a ghetto hood and he is thrown unconscious into the trunk of his own vehicle;

(C) the hood uses the stolen car to make the rounds of the neighborhood transacting his usual drug deals; he needs to collect a certain amount of $$ to pay off his source who has sent a hulking White Supremacist thug out looking for him;

(D) the mom of the two truant boys is the woman who's car is struck by the day-trader goes home that day instead of making it to her job; but it so happens that her apartment was being burgled by the young couple the day-trader had evicted