"Three Identical Strangers" - fascinating doc! *spoilers, though...*

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Dillydipper, Aug 8, 2018.

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  1. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite Thread Starter

    Location:
    Central PA
    I dunno whether to give you a review, or just ask if anybody wants to talk about it. Chances are, even if you weren't paying attention at the time, perhaps you saw something about this in the early '80s, involving three young men who discovered they were brothers separated by their adoption agency.

    The new documentary by Ken Wardle, moves pretty much like a story, as it should, not like an overall survey of twins separated at birth. Starts out compelling, fascinating enough to hold the attention...and then slowly goes into the inevitable, "part you didn't hear about".

    If you've seen it, I'm interested in your views both as a documentary, and the events themselves. If you haven't, and you don't know the story, I'd rather not spoil the plot for you. But I found it a great example of documentary filmmaking, and my first thoughts as the credits rolled was, "Oscar nomination in 3...2...".

    Again, try not to spoil it for those who don't know anything about it without fair warning, m'kay...?
     
  2. JAuz

    JAuz Forum Resident

    Location:
    US
    I saw someone watching this on their iPad on a flight a few days ago and just seeing a few clips without any sound had me curious. Is it not available on any streaming sites yet?
     
  3. brownie61

    brownie61 Forum Resident

    I saw this and thought it was fascinating. Somehow the story of these triplets completely passed me by at the time, even though I have lived in the NYC area my entire life, am the same age as the triplets, and was an avid Phil Donohue watcher at the time. I don’t know how I missed it!

    There are so many ways of looking at this story and what constitutes right and wrong, but I can’t get into that without massive spoilers.

    My overall conclusion from watching the film is genes will give you your inherent characteristics (nature), but the type of parents you have really matter (nurture). And what constitutes “good parenting” is not the same for all individuals.
     
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  4. Porkpie

    Porkpie Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Watching this now, it’s an incredible story!
     
  5. Chris DeVoe

    Chris DeVoe RIP Vickie Mapes Williams (aka Equipoise)

    Knocked me out. Definitely one of the ten best films I've seen this year.
     
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  6. Chris DeVoe

    Chris DeVoe RIP Vickie Mapes Williams (aka Equipoise)

    I'll put a spoiler around the events in the latter half of the film:

    Where we find out that the brothers were part of a genetic experiment, and implications of Jewish children being experimented on in this way not a generation removed from Doctor Josef Mengele.
     
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  7. Porkpie

    Porkpie Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Just finished it. One of the documentaries I think I’ve seen. Not sure how to do the “spoiler alerts” so won’t discuss it anything specific but it made me me exhilarated and angry at the same time. I really felt for all those children who’d been subject to it.

    Have there been many articles since the film came out regarding other siblings that were a part of this?
     
  8. VU Master

    VU Master Senior Member

    Wife and I watched this last night. Outstanding! Thanks for the recommendation, OP.
     
  9. Very good film. Well worth checking out.
     
  10. Porkpie

    Porkpie Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    We did the same thing. I saw it reviewed in Empire and Esquire yesterday and that it was coming out at the cinema in the UK. But then a google search found it was released in the States back in the summer and hey presto! Watch if from our sofa. One that I’ll be recommending to friends.
     
  11. beccabear67

    beccabear67 Musical omnivore.

    Location:
    Victoria, Canada
    This just aired on CNN tonight... I just watched it and still ruminating. I remembered the early '80s coverage a bit and what became of one brother.
     
  12. dirwuf

    dirwuf Misplaced Chicagoan

    Location:
    Fairfield, CT
    The original New York Times story breaking this offhandedly mentions that there was a fourth brother who died at birth....can't believe this was totally left out of the film.

    [​IMG]
     
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  13. beccabear67

    beccabear67 Musical omnivore.

    Location:
    Victoria, Canada
    Wow, didn't know that. I suppose it didn't matter to the story as that brother never got into the adoption "service's" hands.
     
  14. beccabear67

    beccabear67 Musical omnivore.

    Location:
    Victoria, Canada
    Well, the nature or nurture thing is never settled, but that should be an 'of course', there's some of one and some of the other for everyone. If someone has a reason to say we are alike they will leave out the unalike parts, if they have a motive for an individual character they will leave out the similarities.

    One thought I had was that it was a bit of a saving grace that it was a specifically Jewish agency adopting out Jewish babies... in Canada there was a lot of our WASP agencies of government adopting out native babies to WASP families, a different level of ugliness compared to studying humans and formulating situations for their responses to be recorded and measured.

    I hope those two remaining brothers can not succumb to what the other did... can realize what that does to those who do love them. Perhaps wanting to expose this history will give them purpose and be more immune to suicide, and the one who had the loving father did definitely seem the most strong and unlikely. So it was an Austrian refugee who cooked this whole study up in the first place... considering what he may have narrowly missed out on experiencing you'd think he'd have been less likely to take a science being divorced from human concerns approach. Those were different times, people bowed without thought to authority, and doctor's credentials were definitely authority in the '50s and early '60s for sure.

    Very poignant how the one woman described the separation anxiety of the six month olds, and that one would bang his head, it made you understand how they were deprived supposedly without knowing it. How we might measure things as fully adult people is not all there is under heaven and earth. Yes, babies know and feel and have personalities!
     
  15. bug2362

    bug2362 Forum Resident

    Location:
    West Seattle, WA
    Great film, and as an adoptee, especially poignant....
     
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  16. Nick Drake fan

    Nick Drake fan Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Orleans
    I saw this in the theatre in June 2018 and loved it. Blew me away. Examines Nature v Nurture in an amazing set of facts and circumstances. I'm a very big fan of documentaries and I thought Three Identical Strangers was one of the better docs I've seen in the last few years.
     
  17. Chris DeVoe

    Chris DeVoe RIP Vickie Mapes Williams (aka Equipoise)

    Sadly, that didn't happen.
     
  18. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite Thread Starter

    Location:
    Central PA
    Is it just me, or might it have gotten a nod if Andy Samberg had played all three parts...? :idea:
     
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  19. antoniod

    antoniod Forum Resident

    But giving siblings to different parents is par for the course in the history of adoption, even if it usually wasn't part of an experiment. Was this really "sinister"? The logic seems to be: This experiment involved twins(and triplets), Mengele's experiments involved twins, therefore the Jewish adoption agency was the same as Mengele(except for injecting the kids eyes with dye, operating on them, turning them into soap, etc). There must have been some subjects of this who came out okay! I hate to sound insensitive, but worse things have been done to people: look at all the kids who got beaten up and even murdered by Foster Parents!
     
  20. EddieMann

    EddieMann I used to be a king...

    Location:
    Geneva, IL. USA.
    We first saw the trailer for it early last summer. At that time I thought it was going to be simply a feel-good story about the three brothers. I watched it last night on CNN and although the first half was very cheerful the second half definitely was not. I strongly recommend this documentary to all. CNN will re-air it Saturday evening.
     
  21. MikeInFla

    MikeInFla Glad to be out of Florida

    Location:
    Kalamazoo, MI
    When I was searching for the trailer on YouTube I noticed the whole doc is there for 3.99. We DVR'd it and watched it last night. I had never heard this story, it is truly fascinating and sad at the same time. I myself am a twin who never met my brother (he was stillborn). So I am always interested in twin documentaries and I always wonder what if he had survived. My older brothers used to say that I wasn't me, that I was Matthew and not Mike and that I was the one that died. I guess that's what big brothers are for.
     
  22. Veltri

    Veltri ♪♫♫♪♪♫♫♪

    Location:
    Canada
    If it was an omission then it was purposeful since they show the triplets searching and finding their birth records. They would have mentioned it.
    Unless that wouldn't have been recorded at all or not in the same place. But if the adoption agency knew about it you would think there would be a record of it that was available to the documentarians.

    I would guess the Times story was not able to be corroborated.
     
  23. Chris from Chicago

    Chris from Chicago Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes

    This was fascinating.

    It started so hopeful. And optimistic. And then got dark.

    And it proceeded to get darker still until it ended.

    This was a great documentary. But it wasn't a fun watch.

    People experimenting on other people. Without regard to those being watched.

    This was a bummer.
     
  24. JAuz

    JAuz Forum Resident

    Location:
    US
    I watched this recently. Fascinating.

    A couple of questions that may or may not have been answered in the documentary:
    - At what age did the triplets stop being monitored? It was mentioned that the program went from 1960-80. Were the triplets monitored up until they met each other, around 1980?
    - Did their meeting and subsequent publicity stop the program, or is it a coincidence that both of those happened in 1980?
    - Is it known how many total sets of twin/triplets (others?) were part of the program? We only see the triplets and 1 set of twin girls.
    - I would guess that some of these sets of twins have started to find out about each other and have met as a collective group. That would be an interesting scene to view.
    - I didn't understand the reason that adoptive parents also had adopted an older sibling as well (older sister?). Can someone explain that?
     
  25. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite Thread Starter

    Location:
    Central PA
    Sometimes the best (and safest) way to get "the truth" out there, is to skirt around it in a documentary, and let the tinfoil-hatters assume the worst, then carry the story forward without corroboration, until some guy reads about it, and tells it again in a comic book. From there it goes into a series on FX, bounces around "the daylight innernetz" via promo pieces, and before you know it...Rush is telling dolts how it's all connected to OJ's Moon-Landing Hoax.

    "That's '30'"! :biglaugh:
     
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