Sight and Sound (1999) - Under the spin
Details
- newspaper article: Under the spin
- author(s):
- journal: Sight and Sound (01/Apr/1999)
- issue: volume 9, issue 4, page 4
- journal ISSN: 0037-4806
- publisher: British Film Institute
- keywords: 24 Hour Psycho (1993), Alfred Hitchcock, Bernard Herrmann, Douglas Gordon, James Stewart, Kim Novak, Psycho (1960), Saul Bass, Vertigo (1958)
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Abstract
All things Hitchcock will be coming out throughout 1999, his centenary year, but none is likely to outdo artist Douglas Gordon's new work "Feature Film" for audacious deconstruction of the master. This film removes Hitchcock's images from "Vertigo" and substitutes Gordon's film of James Conton conducting a 100-piece orchestra in a new recording of Bernard Herrmann's magnificent and dizzying soundtrack score.
Article
All things Hitchcock will be coming our way throughout this, his centenary year, but none is likely to outdo artist Douglas Gordon's new work 'Feature Film' for audacious deconstruction of the master. This film work to some extent reverses the process that led to Gordon's well-known "filmic sculpture" '24 Hour Psycho', in which 'Psycho' is projected in a gallery space at such a speed that it lasts a whole day and night. Where that work isolates individual frames of 'Psycho' and tests their separate iconic power soundlessly, 'Feature Film' removes Hitchcock's images from 'Vertigo' and substitutes Gordon's film of James Conlon conducting a 100-piece orchestra in a new recording of Bernard Herrmann's magnificent and dizzying soundtrack score.
The camera concentrates on Conlon's hands and face (above), at one point closing in on his eyes, echoing Saul Bass' opening credits sequence for Hitchcock's film (right). 'Feature Film' is nothing like a music video, however, for the orchestra is playing to an unseen monitor showing 'Vertigo' and in the often considerable gaps between the music, faint dialogue can be heard while Gordon's camera explores the shifting hues of the red backdrop in front of which Conlon is conducting.
Memory is what 'Feature Film' is all about. Those who are very familiar with 'Vertigo' will find it impossible not to recall Hitchcock's images, especially in the pauses in the music, and force them into a relation with Gordon's footage, in mu...
