A Meta-analysis of Meta-film: Issues of film and memory in the work of Douglas Gordon
Melissa Rourke Theories of Media Undergraduate mrourke@uchicago.edu
“Any picture that is used to reflect on the nature of pictures is a metapicture” (Mitchell 57). Douglas Gordon is a Scottish artist who has been producing revolutionary work in film for the past twenty years. His meta-films comment on, break apart, and recreate the conventions of filmic technology and spectatorship. Clement Greenberg claims that “in turning his attention away from subject matter of common experience, the poet or artist turns it in upon the medium of his own craft” (Greenberg 9); Gordon does just that. Instead of using film to investigate and portray reality, he uses it to investigate the very nature of film itself. In his work Gordon appropriates Hollywood film, using it as raw material for the exploration of the film medium (specifically the exploration of film speed, film immortality, and film exhibition). Following hand in hand with film technology, is film’s affect on the spectator. Gordon’s film works to make spectators aware of film as a medium, while simultaneously making them self-aware and selfcritical viewers. “If self-reference is elicited by the multistable1 image, then, it has much to do with the self of the observer as with the metapicture itself…If the multistable image always asks, “what am I?” or “how do I look?” the answer depends on the observer asking the same questions” (Mitchell 48). Thus, at the same time that Gordon is exploring the limits of film technology he is simultaneously exploring the conventions (and limits of) film spectatorship, specifically with respect to spectator memory. One technique Gordon uses to explore the limits of film is slowing down the normal film speed (which is 24 frames per second). In viewing films in slow motion, the spectator is presented with work which breaks typical film conventions, thereby opening up new ways of viewing and new possibilities for meaning. The conventional rhythm
and pacing of a film are thus altered. “With slow motion, movement is extended…slow motion not only presents familiar qualities of movement but reveals in them entirely unknown ones” (Benjamin 236). Two examples of Gordon’s work which slow down film speed are 24 Hour Psycho (1993) and 5 Year Drive-By (1995). In 24 Hour Psycho Gordon takes Alfred Hitchcock’s film Psycho and slows down the film speed, so that it takes twenty-four hours to view the whole film. Similarly, in 5 Year Drive-By Gordon slows down John Ford’s film The Searchers so that it would take five years to watch the film in its entirety. Thus, “on any given encounter, viewers would never see more than a few frames of Ford’s film [The Searchers], since each individual frame would be visible for approximately fifteen minutes” (Ferguson 35). In slowing down these Hollywood films, Gordon plays with the conventions and limits of film. Hollywood films are entirely dependent upon narrative continuity, but through his work Gordon undermines this dependency. Gordon breaks apart any sense of narrative importance; instead, narrative is rendered absurd and disposable, as it is only possible to watch a few frames at a random point/moment within the course of the whole Hollywood film. “Realistically, no one can watch the whole [film]…While we can experience the narrative elements in it…the crushing slowness of their unfolding constantly undercuts our expectations, even as it ratchets up the idea of suspense to a level approaching absurdity” (Ferguson 16). Although narrative is lost in Gordon’s slow-motion work, what is gained is an enhanced ability to see the details of the film; slight movements, gestures, words, and facial expressions, which in the normal Hollywood version would go relatively unnoticed, gain enhanced significance and beauty. The spectator is therefore able to
observe the film as if it were a type of painting (or a photograph); more specifically the work could be described as a moving painting/photograph, with slowly changing details. Thus, Gordon has, in essence, solved one of the problems that Walter Benjamin posits about the medium of film: “The painting invites the spectator to contemplation; before it the spectator can abandon himself to his associations. Before the movie frame he cannot do so. No sooner has his eye grasped a scene than it is already changed. It cannot be arrested. Duhamel, who detests the film and knows nothing of its significance, though something of its structure, notes this circumstance as follows: “I can no longer think what I want to think. My thoughts have been replaced by moving images.” The spectator’s process of association in view of these images is indeed interrupted by their constant, sudden change” (Benjamin 238). While watching Hollywood film, spectators do not have the time to contemplate what they are viewing, but are dominated by the fast-paced, often easily-understandable film. In Gordon’s work however, through the breakdown of Hollywood film conventions, the spectator has regained the ability to contemplate and reflect on the image. Gordon helps the spectator to shift from considering sets of images as a collective whole (as film convention espouses), to viewing them individually as a collection of separate images. He is, in essence, creating a new way to view and understand film, a type of film which is paintingesque in character. In addition to slowing down film speed, another way Gordon explores the limits of film is through exposing the medium’s particular quality of immortality. Unlike reality which has beginnings and ends, mortality, and is momentary (situated in a specific timeframe), film is endless, immortal, and can be recalled and repeated at any time. Kittler describes film’s immortal quality perfectly by claiming that, “What the machine gun annihilated the camera made immortal” (Kittler 124). “Once the filming is done, the
pictures are available for reproduction at any moment” (Kittler 145). Gordon makes this quality of immortality apparent in his film Déjà vu (2000). In Déjà vu (2000) Gordon appropriates Rudolph Mate’s film D.O.A. and projects it on three different screens at three different film speeds. “Déjà vu is a triple projection of the film noir D.O.A. (1950)…In Gordon’s version, the central projection shows the film at the normal speed of twenty-four frames per second, while those on either side of it proceed at twenty-three frames per second and twenty-five frames per second. The three projections thus begin in synchronization but increasingly separate from each other as the narrative advances. Our attention moves back and forth as images that are already flashbacks repeat themselves again” (Ferguson 48). As the spectator watches the three versions of the film all at once, the film-specific quality of endlessness and the capability of repetition become blaringly apparent. As the spectator watches, a specific image is seen in the left screen (25 fps), then again on the central screen (24 fps) and yet again on the right screen (23 fps), thus continually reinforcing film’s immortality. Gordon also experiments with the limits of how films can be experienced within specific contexts. Normally, when films are shown in public venues, the audience is seated in an auditorium facing a single screen for the entire duration of the film. In this type of viewing context, the spectator becomes glued to the screen, not aware of themselves or of their surroundings. As Roland Barthes puts it, this situation is problematic because the film images dominate and overwhelm the viewer: “The image captivates me, captures me: I am glued to the representation…How to come unglued from the mirror?” (Barthes 348). Barthes theorizes that this problem can be solved “by letting oneself be fascinated twice over, by the image and by its surroundings—as if I had
two bodies at the same time: a narcissistic body which gazes, lost, into the engulfing mirror, and a perverse body, ready to fetishize not the image but precisely what exceeds it: the texture of the sound, the hall, the darkness, the obscure mass of the other bodies” (Barthes 349). Gordon creates an ideal situation where this type of viewing is possible. He produces a context where spectators can become engulfed by a film, while simultaneously remaining cognizant of the filmic context (where the film is being shown). Gordon accomplishes this through a thorough restructuralization of the exhibition space. For one, Gordon exhibits all of his films in art galleries where spectators can move though the exhibition space while simultaneously viewing his work. The spectator is thus rendered not passive and stationary, but active and moving (and also thinking). Agency is thus given to the spectator who can decide when to leave one space (and thus stop watching one film) and move to another space (to watch another film). In addition to giving the spectator agency by exhibiting his films in gallery spaces, Gordon often uses techniques such as screen multiplicity and double projections on a single screen to give the spectator a new, contextually rooted experience for viewing film. These techniques are apparent in his works entitled through a looking glass (1999) which highlights screen multiplicity and Between Darkness and Light (After William Blake) (1997) which flaunts dual layered projections. In his work through a looking glass (1999), Gordon sets up two screens (each playing an excerpt from Martin Scorsese’s film Taxi Driver) situated on opposite walls and facing each other, so that the spectator can walk in between the two. “The seventyone second excerpt is duplicated and projected onto opposite walls of the space, filling
the room from floor to ceiling. One of the projected images is flipped from left to right to function as the mirror image of the original clip…The viewer stands between these two monumental projections” (Spector 139). In this way the spectator is recognized as an important component to the film, and is even, in a sense, positioned within the film. “In through a looking glass (1999) we are positioned between two images of Robert De Niro [as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976)] as he talks through us to his own mirror image” (Ferguson 39). Thus the use of multiple screens in the same viewing space creates a new, unique context for viewing film. In Between Darkness and Light (After William Blake) (1997) Gordon creates another distinct viewing context for the spectator, this time through a dual layered projection. In this work a screen is positioned in the middle of the gallery space and two different films are projected on this single screen from opposite sides. “In Between Darkness and Light (After William Blake) (1997), two films, The Song of Bernadette (1943) and The Exorcist (1973), play on the same screen…As the two sets of images flow in and out of each other, and as their soundtracks mingle, everything comes together” (Ferguson 39). As a result of this set-up, the spectator can move around the screen itself, viewing the film from many different angles and perspectives. Gordon thus creates a context where the spectator not only experiences a new way to conceptualize the screen (as a means of concurrently projecting two sets of images), but is also granted the ability to move around the screen itself. How do Gordon’s technological explorations and changes (in film speed, immortality, and exhibition) affect the spectator? One main way they affect the spectator is by complicating, manifesting themselves in, and altering the spectator’s memory.
Memory is defined by W. J. T. Mitchell as “an imagetext, a double-coded system of mental storage and retrieval that may be used to remember any sequence of items, from stories to set speeches to lists of quadrupeds” (Mitchell 192). This storage-retrieval system, which we take for granted today, was treated much differently in the past. Frances Yates describes how historically there were actually two types of memory: natural and artificial. “The natural memory is that which is engrafted in our minds, born simultaneously with thought, the artificial memory is a memory strengthened or confirmed by training” (Yates 5). While in the ancient world people rigorously trained their memory capabilities through an “intense visual memorization” of spatially-rooted, highly-ordered objects, today we have lost this “artificial memory” (Yates 4). In the modern world, unlike in the past, memory is easily distorted, imprecise, forgotten, compiled, and malleable. Through his meta-films, Gordon exploits these modern aspects of memory, forcing his spectators to partake in a critical meta-analysis of how their own memory functions. Since Gordon appropriates Hollywood film in the creation of his artwork, the spectator must negotiate between a primary (1st) memory of the original Hollywood film (assuming that the spectator has seen the film before or recognizes it in some way), and a secondary (2nd) memory of its presentation in Gordon’s artwork. Due to the malleability of memory, the two memories (first and second) have the potential of interacting with each other in numerous ways. Which experience will you remember and which will you forget? Will you mix the memories of both experiences together to create single memory? Will you remember both experiences distinctly and separately? Will one memory reinforce the other? By fragmenting Hollywood film (and film convention
itself), Gordon puts his spectator in a position of asking these questions and making decisions about how they will understand and negotiate between two distinct and fragmented memories (1st and 2nd). Spectators can make sense of their fragmented memories (1st and 2nd) in two main ways: either by doubling or by splitting.2 First and second memories of a particular film (the first memory being of the original Hollywood film and second of Gordon’s recreation) can either reinforce one another (doubling) or conflict one another (splitting). Doubling entails a combining, continuity, and reconciliation of memories while splitting signals the separation, discontinuity, and irreconcilability of memories. “Thematically Gordon’s art pivots on the semantic difference between splitting and doubling. While both words indicate a process of one becoming two, the former implies a rendering in half, the latter a multiplication in form…The psychological experience of splitting (and doubling) is structurally emulated in Gordon’s project through his physical manipulation of the moving image” (Spector 134). Indeed Gordon’s technological explorations of the limits of film mirror this very process (splitting and doubling) that takes place in the spectator’s memory. Therefore, with regards to Gordon’s specific technological explorations of film (film speed, immortality, and exhibition context), the same negotiation between doubling and splitting occurs. In the case of slowing down film speed, like in the works 24 Hour Psycho and 5 Year Drive-By: Is the spectator’s narrative memory (1st memory) reinforcing the clarity of the detailed, “photographic” frames (2nd memory) and vice versa (through doubling) or are they conflicting each other (through splitting)? With regard to exploiting film immortality, like in Déjà vu: Is repetition reinforcing the image clarity
(doubling 1st and 2nd memories) or distorting it (splitting 1st and 2nd memories)? With respect to changing film context, like in through a looking glass and Between Darkness and Light (After William Blake): Is spatial mobility enhancing film clarity (doubling 1st and 2nd memories) or distorting it (splitting 1st and 2nd memories)? How the spectators orient and make sense of their first and second memories depend upon their own personal creation of meaning. In addition to the interaction between first and second memories, there is another issue that is raised by Gordon’s work. Not only is there a first and a second memory, but there is a third memory as well: a potential future memory, when the past memories (1st and/or 2nd memories) are recalled or retrieved. “At the point where it has entered the subconscious, [the film] has become both a memory and a potential memory that will recur in the future” (Ferguson 35). This future memory may never even exist, if the spectator fails to recall his/her past memories (1st and/or 2nd). “As usual in Gordon’s work, a certain dichotomy is involved because the piece is as much about forgetting as it is about remembering. Many viewers will forget the [work] instantly and never recall it” (Ferguson 38). Therefore the future memory is even harder to characterize than the first and second memories; if it does exist for a certain spectator, the spectator might recall only the first memory, only the second memory, or both first and second memories. Mitchell describes this unreliability of memory by saying that “representation (in memory, in verbal descriptions, in images) not only mediates our knowledge…but obstructs, fragments, and negates that knowledge” (Mitchell 188). Gordon is thus playing with the strengths and weaknesses of a spectator’s “natural memory”. How does memory function, change, and degrade through time? What will be remembered and
what will be forgotten? “Gordon himself has described the process in terms of a slow pulling apart” between past (1st), present (2nd), and future memories (3rd) (Ferguson 16). Due to the fragmentation (of film and memory) inherent in Gordon’s work, the spectator has an increased capacity to create his/her own meaning. Although it is true that, “the information value of the various aspects of three-dimensional objects depends on the relation between the objects and those who ‘read’ and/or use them” (Van Leeuwen 213), Gordon’s films are of a particularly “cool” form of media, characterized as “high in participation or completion by the audience” (McLuhan 23). Due to his exploration and subsequent fragmentation of film and memory, Gordon opens up a whole new realm for the spectator to create meaning. The passive spectator of the Hollywood film is transformed into the active, critical, self-aware spectator of the meta-film. “The fragmentary nature of Gordon’s texts provides an ambiguous space in which the viewer can project their own experiences and interpolate their own meaning from the work. This levels the field between artist and viewer, and, in Gordon’s words “if there’s no difference between ‘artist’ and ‘people,’ then there are no barriers to art”” (Darling 80). Indeed the spectator is crucial to the functioning of Gordon’s work. The spectator’s memories (past, present, and future), interpretations, thoughts, personality, and reactions are essential for the creation of meaning around Gordon’s film. These characteristics are highly specific and individual; whether the spectator doubles or splits his/her first and second memories, for example, is totally dependent on his/her own personal disposition. Thus, a person who loves a good story might be more prone to splitting their first and second memories, due to a deeper understanding and affinity to continuous narrative and a subsequent confusion and crisis reaction at viewing the
destruction of that very same narrative. Even more generally, the time a spectator spends observing a specific work, before moving onto the next exhibit, depends entirely on that spectator’s personality. Someone who dislikes horror films (like The Exorcist) for example, might spend less time viewing, and also be more prone to dislike, Between Darkness and Light (After William Blake) than someone who enjoys them. Gordon’s work successfully investigates the medium of film along with the medium of memory. His meta-films serve two functions: to raise awareness of filmic possibility (outside of typical conventions) and also to raise spectator awareness of the functioning of their own memories. Technologically he plays with issues of film speed, immortality, and exhibition to create new experiences (and memories) for his viewers. With respect to memory, he creates a situation where the spectator must come to terms with their own memory. He puts the spectator in an active role; and as an active participant, the spectator must decide how to negotiate between 1st, 2nd, and even 3rd memories. Ultimately therefore, the control of the medium moves out of the hands of the artist (shaping and changing the film technology) into the hands of the spectators (negotiating memory and meaning). In the end, the spectator is the true architect of meaning.
Works Cited Barthes, Roland. The Rustle of Language. New York: Hill and Wang, 1986. Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” Illuminations. New York: Schocken Books, 1968. Darling, Michael. “Love Triangulations” Douglas Gordon. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2001. Ferguson, Russell. “Trust Me” Douglas Gordon. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2001. Kittler, Friedrich A. Gramophone, Film, Typewriter. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999. McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1994. Mitchell, W.J.T. Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. Spector, Nancy. “a.k.a.” Douglas Gordon. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2001. Van Leeuwen, Theo. Introducing Social Semiotics. New York: Routledge, 2005. Yates, Frances. “The Three Latin Sources for the Classical Art of Memory” The Art of Memory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966.
Footnotes 1
Mitchell defines “multistability” as “a class of pictures whose primary function is to illustrate the co-existence of contrary or simply different readings in the single image” (Mitchell 48). See Mitchell’s book Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representation for more details. 2
It is also important to note that if a spectator did not have a first memory of the Hollywood film (their first experience with it was through Gordon’s work), the same process would occur if they happened to see the Hollywood film later in life. In this scenario 1st and 2nd memories would be reversed, with the 1st memory being of Gordon’s version and the 2nd memory being of the Hollywood version. Also, if a spectator of Gordon’s work had never seen the Hollywood film version, and failed to do so in their lifetime (which is unlikely since Gordon chooses to work with famous, popular Hollywood films), then they would not experience any doubling or splitting of memory.