Gregory Markopoulos

Date: 16 April 2004 | Season: Gregory Markopoulos 2004 | Tags: ,

GREGORY J. MARKOPOULOS
16-21 April 2004
London National Film Theatre

GREGORY J. MARKOPOULOS
Towards The Temenos: Myth, Portraiture and Films of Place

Gregory Markopoulos was the archetypal personal filmmaker: an accomplished technician, masterful editor and consummate perfectionist, who created great works of art with a minimum of means. A contemporary of Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage and Maya Deren, he was a major figure of the New American Cinema, the post-war movement that developed a new, visionary approach to film.

Markopoulos regarded cinema as “a supreme art in a dark age”. His films illuminate literature, portraiture and architecture, shaping a modern mythology that owes more to European traditions of art-making than the Hollywood culture of commercial cinema. As a formal innovator, he developed rapid editing techniques which cut through time and space, shaping new narrative forms through a “fusion of classic montage with a more abstract system”.

Such a progressive approach to cinema, and the belief in its ability to convey thought and emotion, was grounded in an appreciation of early masters such as von Stroheim and von Sternberg, and a strong, personal commitment to developing the medium beyond its basic use in the narrative sense. Driven by a purity of vision that transcended cinematic conventions, Markopoulos’ sensual and poetic films shimmer with colour and resonate with passion.

This NFT retrospective, centred on key works of the 60s, is the first opportunity in decades to see a selection of Markopoulos’ work in the UK, and shows the filmmaker during his most visible and influential period. After moving to Europe in 1967, he withdrew all of his films from distribution, citing frustration with inadequate projection facilities and unappreciative audiences. Many subsequent films were completed but never shown, as Markopoulos conceived of the Temenos as the ideal site for a spectator’s quest. In this chosen place, the films may elevate the audience’s sense of time while emotionally and physically connecting them to the mythic themes and locations.

He died in 1992, shortly after final editing of the monumental Eniaios, which comprises of 22 cycles totalling over 80 hours of viewing time. This epic work combines radically re-edited versions of all his previous works, and many unseen films, into a single, unified whole. Filmmaker Robert Beavers has established the Temenos Association for the preservation, study and promotion of Markopoulos’ total vision, including his films, journals, letters and collected writings. This NFT season precedes the premiere of the first cycles of Eniaios, to be projected outdoors in the Greek countryside in late June.

www.the-temenos.org

LITERATURE AND MYTH: Fri 16 & Sun 18 Apr 2004
Swain and Twice a Man, two interpretations of classic literature that show a unique command of film language.

FILMS OF PLACE: Sat 17 & Mon 19 Apr 2004
Ming Green, Sorrows and Gammelion. Elegant portraits of architecture and interiors.

THE ILLIAC PASSION: Sat 17 & Tue 20 Apr 2004
The Illiac Passion, an underground interpretation of ‘Prometheus Unbound’, plus Bliss, a study of a small Greek church.

PORTRAITURE: Sun 18 & Wed 21 Apr 2004
Galaxie and Saint Actaeon. Portraits of the artistic community forming a who’s who of the 60s art world.

Markopoulos season curated by Mark Webber for NFT and LUX, in collaboration with Temenos Association. Supported by Greece In London 2004 / The Hellenic Foundation for Culture, UK. With thanks to Robert Beavers, Dr Victoria Solomides and Österreichisches Filmmuseum.

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Literature and Myth

Date: 16 April 2004 | Season: Gregory Markopoulos 2004 | Tags: ,

LITERATURE AND MYTH
Friday 16 April 2004, at 6.20pm
London National Film Theatre NFT2

Two contemporary, personal interpretations of classical literature. In Swain, an early psychodrama based on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel ‘Fanshawe’, a young man flees from a woman who represents an oppressive sexual identity. Twice A Man is a modern adaptation of the myth of Hippolytus, in which a chaste youth rejects the advances of his mother and is saved from death by a caring physician. This film demonstrates a great stylistic leap as Markopoulos introduces single-frame montage and a more elliptical narrative process.

Gregory Markopoulos, Swain, USA, 1950, 25 min
Gregory Markopoulos, Twice A Man, USA, 1963, 49 min

The programme will be introduced by Robert Beavers, filmmaker and director of Temenos Inc.

Also Screening: Sunday 18 April 2004, at 8.40pm, NFT2

PROGRAMME NOTES

Films of Place

Date: 17 April 2004 | Season: Gregory Markopoulos 2004 | Tags: ,

FILMS OF PLACE
Sat 17 April 2004, at 6.20pm
London National Film Theatre NFT2

Markopoulos created many impressions of buildings and places, making in-camera dissolves and superimpositions without any subsequent editing. Ming Green, a portrait of his humble apartment, painted the colour of the title, was made shortly before his departure from New York, while Sorrows was shot at the house in Switzerland built for Wagner by King Ludwig II. Gammelion is a measured and romantic portrayal of an Italian castle, extending seven minutes of photographed ‘film phrases’ with hundreds of fades in and out.

Gregory Markopoulos, Ming Green, USA, 1966, 7 min
Gregory Markopoulos, Gammelion, Italy, 1968, 54 min
Gregory Markopoulos, Sorrows, Switzerland, 1969, 6 min

The programme will be introduced by Robert Beavers, filmmaker and director of Temenos Inc.

Also Screening: Monday 19 April 2004, at 8.40pm, NFT2

PROGRAMME NOTES

The Illiac Passion

Date: 17 April 2004 | Season: Gregory Markopoulos 2004 | Tags: ,

THE ILLIAC PASSION
Sat 17 April 2004, at 8.40pm
London National Film Theatre NFT2

Throughout his life, Markopoulos remained closely connected to his family background, and ultimately saw the Greek landscape as the ideal setting for viewing his films. The Illiac Passion, one of his most highly acclaimed works, is a visionary interpretation of ‘Prometheus Bound’ starring mythical beings from the 60s underground including Andy Warhol, Jack Smith and Taylor Mead. The soundtrack of this contemporary re-imagining of the classical realm features a reading of Thoreau’s translation of the Aeschylus text and excerpts from Bartók. The preceding film, Bliss,is a brief study of a church on the island of Hydra.

Gregory Markopoulos, Bliss, Greece, 1967, 6 min
Gregory Markopoulos, The Illiac Passion, USA, 1967, 92 min

The programme will be introduced by Robert Beavers, filmmaker and director of Temenos Inc.

Also Screening: Tuesday 20 April 2004, at 6.20pm, NFT2

PROGRAMME NOTES

Portraiture

Date: 18 April 2004 | Season: Gregory Markopoulos 2004 | Tags: ,

PORTRAITURE
Sunday 18 April 2004, at 6.20pm
London National Film Theatre NFT2

Galaxie consists of thirty-three portraits of important figures from the art world, including painters, poets, critics, filmmakers, and choreographers. Each is shot with a single roll of 16mm film and though edited entirely in-camera, often comprises of many layers of dense superimposition. The subjects were invited to pose in their home, together with objects chosen by them as symbolic extensions of their personality. Saint Actaeon is a rhythmic portrait of historian and aesthete Sir Harold Acton, shot in the gardens of his family villa.

Gregory Markopoulos, Galaxie, USA, 1966, 92 min
Gregory Markopoulos, Saint Actaeon, Italy, 1971, 12 min

The programme will be introduced by Robert Beavers, filmmaker and director of Temenos Inc.

Also Screening: Wednesday 21 April 2004, at 6.20pm, NFT2

PROGRAMME NOTES

Gregory Markopoulos

Date: 7 March 2008 | Season: Gregory Markopoulos 2008 | Tags: ,

GREGORY J. MARKOPOULOS
7—8 March 2008
London Tate Modern

Gregory J. Markopoulos (1928–1992) was a key figure in the evolution of the New American Cinema of the 1960s, an archetypal personal filmmaker who counted Jack Smith, Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage and Maya Deren amongst his contemporaries. His ravishing films are a complex combination of masterful camerawork and editing with a strong vision rooted in myth and poetry.

As his reputation reach its peak, Markopoulos rejected the independent film movement and relocated from New York to Europe in 1967. There, he planned the construction of an archive and projection space – The Temenos – on a remote site in the Greek countryside, a setting that would be in harmony with his extraordinary films.

In his later years, he meticulously edited his life’s work, incorporating over 100 individual titles, into an 80-hour long silent film for presentation only at his chosen location in Arcadia. Since Markopoulos’ death in 1992, the filmmaker Robert Beavers (himself the subject of a Tate Modern retrospective in February 2007) has been working towards the final printing and exhibition of this unique work. The screenings of the first two sections (“orders”) of ENIAIOS took place in 2004 and were commemorated in articles in Artforum, Frieze and Film Comment.

PORTRAITS OF ARTISTS: Friday 7 March 2008
THE ILLIAC PASSION: Saturday 8 March 2008

This rare opportunity to view a selection of Markopoulos’ films in London anticipates TEMENOS 2008; the free, open-air premieres of ENIAIOS III-V that will take place close to the village of Lyssaraia on 27-29 June 2008. 

The Tate Modern screenings are curated by Stuart Comer and Mark Webber, and will be introduced by Robert Beavers.

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Markopoulos: Portraits of Artists

Date: 7 March 2008 | Season: Gregory Markopoulos 2008 | Tags: ,

MARKOPOULOS: PORTRAITS OF ARTISTS
Friday 7 March 2008, at 7pm
London Tate Modern

Markopoulos made many extraordinary film portraits, which often incorporate an activity or object that has personal significance to the subject. This programme presents a selection of poetic and sensuous portraits of cultural and art world luminaries such as Gilbert & George, Alberto Moravia, Giorgio di Chirico and Rudolph Nureyev.

Gregory J. Markopoulos, Through A Lens Brightly: Mark Turbyfill, USA, 1967, 15 min
Portrait of Mark Turbyfill

Gregory J. Markopoulos, Eniaios (Order III, Reel 1) (Gibraltar), Switzerland, 1975, 15 min
Portrait of Gilbert & George

Gregory J. Markopoulos, Eniaios (Order IV, Reel 6) (The Olympian), Italy, 1969, 23 min
Portrait of Alberto Moravia

Political Portraits (excerpt)
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Europe, 1969, 15 min
Portraits of Ulrich Herzog, Marcia Haydee, Rudolph Nureyev, Giorgio di Chirico

Gregory J. Markopoulos, Eniaios (Order II, Reel 2), Europe, undated, 23 min
Portraits of Hans-Jakob Siber, Franco Quadri, Giorgio Frapoli, Klaus Schönherr and family

“The films preserve the myriad flights of isolated, spectrally splintered and itinerant spirit, lost in yearning, in search of intuitive wholeness while negotiating mazes of desire, seeking sanctuary in the reflection of countless identities. The works hold a shimmering mirror up to the contradictory compulsions of an era, set to register, for a few instants, shocks of recognition.” (Kirk Winslow, Millennium Film Journal)

The screening will be introduced by Robert Beavers.

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Markopoulos: The Illiac Passion

Date: 8 March 2008 | Season: Gregory Markopoulos 2008 | Tags: ,

MARKOPOULOS: THE ILLIAC PASSION
Saturday 8 March 2008, at 7pm
London Tate Modern

Throughout his life, Markopoulos remained closely connected to his heritage and ultimately saw the Greek landscape as the ideal setting for viewing his films. THE ILLIAC PASSION, one of his most highly acclaimed films, is a visionary interpretation of ‘Prometheus Bound’ starring mythical beings from the 1960s underground. The soundtrack of this contemporary re-imagining of the classical realm features a reading of Thoreau’s translation of the Aeschylus text and excerpts from Bartok.

Gregory J. Markopoulos, The Illiac Passion, USA, 1967, 92 min

The Illiac Passion, which features chiaroscuro passages reminiscent of Anger’s Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome of 1954, and incorporates 25 characters, is loosely based on Aeschylus’ ‘Prometheus Bound’. For a viewer seeing this extravagant ode to creation some thirty years after its making, the film’s most plangent moments involve Markopoulos’ affectionate casting of friends as mythical figures – Andy Warhol’s Poseidon pumping on an Exercycle above a sea of plastic, Taylor Mead’s Demon leaping, grimacing, and streaming vermilion fringes, and Jack Smith’s bohemian Orpheus, spending a quiet afternoon at home with Eurydice.” (Kristin M. Jones, Artforum)

The screening will be introduced by Robert Beavers.

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