To many cinephiles, the thought of reworking Alfred Hitchcock films sounds like sacrilege. In many cases, I could imagine counting myself among those that shudder to think at the possibility, but ever since seeing Matthias Mller and Christoph Girardet’s incredible film Mirror (Which will screen when they are here on February 24.), I was intrigued and anxious to see what they would do.
Mller and Girardet edited clips taken from 40 films into six short sections that reveal Hitchcock’s droll, dark obsessions
and techniques. The offer a completely new, almost psychoanalytical perspective on Hitchcock and his work. The results are sometimes comical, sometimes disturbing, but intriguing throughout.
The result is an encyclopedic investigation of Hitchcock’s themes and preoccupations, which revolve around neuroses overshadowed by a foreboding threat. Mller describes this video as “a surreal, crude patchwork that suggests a narrative, then breaks it.”
Phoenix Tapes will be running in the Lecture Room, screening at the top of each hour from 12 noon during gallery hours for the month of February.
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