In May John, prompted by Jane Holloway, created and staged a dual projection version of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining at Haverford College.

The 2 hour 23 minute and 30 second diptych features the film running forward on the left and running backwards on the right.  The Shining was taken to begin with the dissolve into the Warner Brother’s Pictures logo and to end with the last frame of the “The End” slate.  For the sake of relative clarity the forward stereo audio was set -10dB on the right; the backwards, -30dB on the left and -15dB on the right.   The two SD clips were embedded in an HD frame, rendered, but projected using an SD projector. 

We look forward to an HD projection on another occasion.

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 are stills of key moments of overlap and two clips.  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.