Tuesday Jan 6, 2009 (10am)
Back in the '80s, there were those lamentable Psycho sequels in which Anthony Perkins milked Norman Bates' dementia. Then, in 1998, came Gus van Sant's why-bother remake, which essentially ran the original through a color copier. But between the inferior spin-offs, Scottish artist Douglas Gordon masterfully transfigured Alfred Hitchcock's notorious classic into a heady, all-day endeavor with 24 Hour Psycho. In his conceptual screed, Gordon elongates — and, on one side of the split-screened presentation, reverses — Hitch's scenes to probe the time-tied relationship between memory and the image. Seen again at about 1/13 its recollected speed, Janet Leigh's iconic shower regains its white-knuckle shock factor.
– Jason Jude Chan