| runtime = 92 minutes

| country = United States

| language =

| budget = $500,000

| gross = $1 million (US/Canada rentals)

Sisters (released as Blood Sisters in the United Kingdom) is a 1972 American neo-noir psychological horror film directed by Brian De Palma and starring Margot Kidder, Jennifer Salt, and Charles Durning. It follows Dominique Blanchion, the separated conjoined twin of a French Canadian model, Danielle Breton, who is suspected of having committed a brutal murder witnessed by Grace Collier, a newspaper reporter in Staten Island, New York City.

Co-written by De Palma and Louisa Rose, the screenplay for the film was inspired by the Soviet conjoined twins Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapova and features narrative and visual references to several films by Alfred Hitchcock. Filmed on location in Staten Island, the film prominently features split-screen compositions (also present in subsequent De Palma films such as Carrie), and was scored by frequent Hitchcock collaborator Bernard Herrmann.

Released in the spring of 1973, Sisters was praised by critics, who noted its adept performances and use of homage. It was the first of a series of shocking thrillers for De Palma, and, in the years after its release, became a cult film. as well as long tracking shots, some in excess of six minutes in length. The extended tracking shot in Danielle Breton (Margot Kidder)'s apartment following the murder of Phillip Woode (Lisle Wilson) was influenced by Max Ophüls and directly references Hitchcock's Rope. The theme of voyeurism is represented in the alternating points-of-view and distortions of perspective within the narrative diegesis; De Palma commented: "I really got the idea from watching the Vietnam war on television watching a war that nobody really knew about except that we watched it every night on the 7 o'clock news. It was really a very voyeuristic war, and I think it says a lot about the way we perceive things. We are very much controlled by the media which present things to us. And those can be manipulated."

In order to accomplish the image of both twins conjoined onscreen in the film's finale (both played by Kidder), De Palma had Kidder photographed seated in two different positions, and then joined the images together via optical editing.

Musical score

While editing the film in post-production, editor Paul Hirsch and De Palma listened to musical scores by Bernard Herrmann (particularly for Psycho, Marnie, and Vertigo) and played them along with the film's key scenes. This led to De Palma inquiring about Herrmann composing the film's musical score. At the time Herrmann was semi-retired, but admired the screenplay enough to agree to score the film.

Release

Sisters had its world premiere at Filmex in Los Angeles, California on November 18, 1972. It would later expand, opening in New York City on September 26, 1973, It was also selected for the 33rd Venice International Film Festival in 1975.

Critical response

Contemporaneous

The film was met with critical praise; Roger Ebert noted that the film was "made more or less consciously as an homage to Alfred Hitchcock", but said it "has a life of its own" and praised the performances of both Kidder and Jennifer Salt. Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it "a good, substantial horror film" and stated "De Palma reveals himself here to be a first-rate director of more or less conventional material", also noting the film's references to Repulsion (1965) and Psycho (1960). Meanwhile, Variety, while stating it was "a good psychological murder melo-drama", said that "Brian De Palma's direction emphasizes exploitation values which do not fully mask script weakness." The Los Angeles Timess Kevin Thomas praised it as a "witty homage to Hitchcock" and a "low budget but high style scare show," as well as praising the performances and musical score. George McKinnon of The Boston Globe was less laudatory, writing: "It is difficult to determine what De Palma had in mind in this morbid horror film. Did he intend it all as a parody or a straightforward Psycho-type movie? ... If it is to be taken as a tongue-in-cheek romp, it doesn't work and if meant as a horror film it is run-of-the-mill."

The film received honors from the U.S. Film Festival in Dallas, Texas on April 13, 1973. Kidder also received an award for Best Actress at the Atlanta International Film Festival.

Retrospective

Critical reassessment of the film in the 21st century has largely been favorable, with critic Robin Wood writing in 2003 that Sisters was "one of the great American films of the '70s," while G. Allen Johnson of the San Francisco Chronicle considers it a key film in Kidder's career. Richard Brody wrote of the film in The New Yorker in 2016:

In 2016, Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times ranked the film as De Palma's most underrated of the 1970s, writing that "for all its low-budget creakiness, [it] feels fully formed—from its sly opening bit of misdirection to its adroit use of split-screen to its memorably churning Bernard Herrmann score. De Palma's choice of subject matter couldn't have been more appropriate: With this film he effectively conjoined himself to Hitchcock, announcing himself as a skillful mimic with a mischievous side all his own."

Home media

Sisters was released on VHS and Betamax videocassettes by Warner Home Video in the 1980s, and again in 2000 by Homevision. The film was released on DVD by The Criterion Collection on October 3, 2000 in a new widescreen digital transfer. On July 16, 2018, Criterion announced a Blu-ray release of the film featuring a new 4K transfer scheduled for October 23, 2018.

Remake

The film was remade in 2006 under the same title, with Lou Doillon, Stephen Rea, and Chloë Sevigny in the leading roles.

See also

  • List of American films of 1973

References

Bibliography

  • Sisters – an essay by Bruce Kerwin at The Criterion Collection