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 self-

critical 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 seventy-

one 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.