Kaja Silverman and Brian Conley will join us on the 11th of November, Veterans Day, for a conversation about this work and more broadly about the visual culture of contemporary conflicts and the continuing relevance of photography in new social media.

For details see the Slought calendar listing.

Download a pdf of the catalog.

John and Jane aren’t the first to try this experiment and see it more as a research tool and experimental remix than a work à la Douglas Gordon.  If treated this way, as a visual palindrome, the film offers odd and oddly serendipitous overlaps, repetitions, and juxtapositions.  For example, the first time we’re shown the pantry corresponds to the last time, approximately 27 minutes from the beginning and 27 minutes from the end: see the still below.  If Kubrick structured the film to be reversible, or even if he didn’t do so intentionally, but was merely working according to narrative principles, then these principles have spatial features: narratives don’t simply move “forward” but fold and repeat.  The film of a maze, of a deadly maze, is itself maze; the past repeats itself, and all work and no play makes for even more play.

Below is a clip and stills of key moments of overlap.  Note that the timecode for each still is in the title of the still.  The center of the film, half-way through, puts us in room 237, a room that is at the temporal, spatial, and conceptual center of the film.

The figures of Blacky, Tippy, Mama, and Papa and their environs are rendered in mirror, which has been etched in relief on the back of the panels; the text of the Blacky diagnostic questions have been etched onto the front.

Pat still has them, tucked safely away in a flat file.  We pulled them out for a quick look last week.