Double Take
Belgium, Germany, Netherlands
2009
80 Min
Color, Black and White
English
Synopsis
Part documentary, part conceptual art piece, Johan Grimonprez’ Double Take is a fascinating found-footage fabrication, an essay that envisions Alfred Hitchcock as an unwilling victim of the political and cultural shifts of the Cold War era, a time when television began to replace cinema, Nixon debated Khrushchev, and everybody was worried about the Bomb. Comprised of newsreel footage, period television programs, and clips of the master and his films, Double Take uses Hitchcock as a filter through which to study tense U.S.-Soviet relations, the rise of fear as a commodity, and the birth of media-driven paranoia. Using The Birds as a metaphor, and dwelling on Hitchcock’s obsession with doubles, Grimonprez traces the history of the catastrophe culture that invaded every American home in the 1950s, ushering in a fear of the “other” that remains to this day. As playful as it is political, Double Take is a masterwork that is better experienced than explained.
Director
Johan Grimonprez
Johan Grimonprez was born in Roeselare, Belgium in 1962. He studied at the School of Visual Arts and attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in New York.
Grimonprez achieved international acclaim with his film essay, Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y. With its premiere at Centre Pompidou and Documenta X in Kassel in 1997, it eerily foreshadowed the events of September 11th. The film tells the story of airplane hijackings since the 1970s and how these changed the course of news reporting. The movie consists of recycled images taken from news broadcasts, Hollywood movies, animated films and commercials. As a child of the first TV generation, the artist mixes reality and fiction in a new way and presents history as a multi-perspective dimension open to manipulation.
Grimonprez’s Looking for Alfred, 2005, plays with the theme of the double through simulations and reversals. The point of departure is the film director Alfred Hitchcock and his legendary guest appearances in his… read more
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Christopher Smith
24Dec10
It gets off to an uneasy start, trying to interweave conventions of the archival documentary with post-modern pontificating. But eventually does coalesce into a very engrossing experimental work, though some elements are more compelling than others. Flawed, but fascinating.
Garry Eunson
27Sep10
Just caught this on TV, Got say this film is not as good as it looked in the cinema.
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Our roundup of essays and articles on this film.
"Psycho" @ 50, "Tiffany's" and the "Modern Woman," "Reel Injun"
By David Hudson on June 14, 2010
Breathless turned 50 just once this year, but Psycho's celebrating its anniversary twice — first with a re-release in the UK back in April
"Double Take," "Visionaries," William A Fraker
By David Hudson on June 2, 2010
"Cinema is the art of appropriation — whether taking that which is before the camera or that which has already been filmed." J Hoberman
Sundance 2010: Alfred Hitchcock, Cold War Criminal?
By Twitchfilm.com on April 30, 2011
What’s that? You didn’t realize that Alfred Hitchcock was up to no good during the Cold War? Well, that’s because you have not yet witnessed Johan Grimonprez’s Double Take. Reality gets cut up into
Sundance 2010: Alfred Hitchcock, Cold War Criminal?
By Twitchfilm.net on July 16, 2010
What’s that? You didn’t realize that Alfred Hitchcock was up to no good during the Cold War? Well, that’s because you have not yet witnessed Johan Grimonprez’s Double Take. Reality gets cut up into
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