'A NEVER-ENDING FLASHBACK': time, space and narrative in Anne McGuire's 'Strain Andromeda The'

This paper revisits influential theorisations of narrative and narration in dominant film form via an exploration of video artist Anne McGuire's 'back-to-front' re-edit of the virus from outer space thriller The Andromeda Strain (original 1971, re-edit 1992). In the process I both apply theories of filmic narration and point to some of their limitations. I argue that the 're-versioning' of the original film derails and thus foregrounds habitual processes of spectatorship, in part by inverting the cause and effect logic of conventional narrative film. I also explore how McGuire's experiment draws attention to significant non-narrative elements and pleasures that are present in the original version, but risk being overlooked by modes of analysis that prioritise narrational mechanisms and procedures.