Emanuel Almborg

Projected onto three screens, this video presents the life and thoughts of an unnamed ordinary man, singled out by sole virtue of his uncanny resemblance to the actor Robert De Niro. “The Other Man” is constructed through the calculated juxtaposition of documentary fragments offering a glimpse into the commonplace existence of the central protagonist, images of the latter’s native city of Blackpool, UK, old photographs of Robert De Niro, and staged shots of our everyman silently posing for the camera or reciting scripted monologues, based on De Niro’s celebrated repertoire or on the experience of this unlikely doubling. The video also includes footage of what initially appears as behind-the-scenes out-takes of The Godfather, proving to be, upon closer observation, amateur documentation of a budget commercial shoot in which the ordinary man impersonates Robert De Niro.

The video opens with a candid shot of the protagonist looking straight at the camera and stating: “My mother always told me that imposters are so common that the one who speaks the truth often gets taken for the liar”. Coupled with two different views of Blackpool, this opening sequence lays the foundations for the work’s recurring themes: the notion of doubling – the one and the other – formalized through the use of mirrors and repetition, the dichotomy of the authentic versus the copy, as well as the idea of quotation, alluded to through the use of his mother’s words. Serving as a backdrop for the unfolding drama, the desolated shots of Blackpool further underscore these themes. Once a thriving beach-resort for the working class on the British north coast, Blackpool is a city in imminent decline, scrambling to hold onto its waning tourism industry by launching itself into the dazzling artificiality of the casino business.

The unnamed character is credibly portrayed as an honest ordinary man through documentary techniques, interviews and behind-the-scenes footage. His uncanny resemblance inspires a misplaced disbelief, for this doubling is a decoy for a greater illusion: the documentary mode’s redeeming power to elevate an ordinary man to the heroic status of the leading man. As the protagonist stoically poses standing in front of a casino halfway through the video, his voice is heard rehearsing lines from the script of Taxi Driver: “here is a man who would not take it anymore. A man who stood up to the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit. Here is someone who stood up.” Yet, as is well know, the closing sequence of this movie positions Robert De Niro’s ordinary but psychopathic character as a sham, mistakenly declared a hero by the media.

Accordingly, the title “The Other Man” does not only refer to the lone protagonist’s visual counterpart Robert De Niro. It designates the video’s ordinary actor not only by virtue of his resemblance to the better-known public persona, but on account of his commonness as a working class man. Nameless, he could easily be substituted by another equally ordinary man, were it not for his fated and anti-heroic likeness.

Michel de Certeau writes: “Called Everyman (a name that betrays the absence of a name), this anti-hero is thus also Nobody (…) He is always the other, without his own responsibilities (“It’s not my fault, it’s the other: destiny”) (…) Rather than being merely represented in it, the ordinary man acts out the text itself, in and by the text, and in addition he makes plausible the universal character of the particular place in which the mad discourse of a knowing wisdom is pronounced.” Engaged in an existential quest for a missing part, the leading character of this video utters the script of his own otherness as an everyman: “What if he were to kill me, step into my clothes to replace me. (…) He would be me. Would anyone notice? Would I notice?” The unnamed man is expendable; he can be substituted not only by his double, but more generally, by any one else. This everyman is as much an actor as Robert De Niro, rehearsing for the camera the script of his unique personal existence as well as the greater text of his fate as the necessary other.

De Certeau, Michel, The Practice of Everyday Life (trans. Steven Rendall) Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002 p. 2.