Gregory J. Markopoulos: Film as Film

Date: 8 September 2014 | Season: Gregory Markopoulos: Film as Film | Tags:

GM-EditingInChicago-1967

GREGORY J. MARKOPOULOS: FILM AS FILM
8—13 September 2014
New York Anthology Film Archives

“There is no language. There is no art. There is no knowledge. There is but film as film: the beginning and the eternal moment.” (The Intuition Space, 1973)

Gregory J. Markopoulos (1928-92) is one of the most original filmmakers to emerge from the post-war avant-garde. His films, which often translated literary or mythological sources to a contemporary context, are celebrated for their extraordinary creativity, the sensuous use of color and innovations in cinematic form. A co-founder of the New American Cinema Group, Markopoulos was actively involved in nurturing New York’s film community before moving to Europe at the end of the 1960s to pursue a more individual path. Firmly believing that a filmmaker should be responsibility for all aspects of his work, he developed the idea of Temenos, a monographic archive for the preservation, presentation and study of his films.

In parallel to his filmmaking, Markopoulos was a prolific writer whose articles were circulated in journals, self-published editions or program notes. This screening series celebrates the publication of Film as Film: The Collected Writings of Gregory J. Markopoulos, a new book that gathers together some ninety out-of-print or previously unavailable texts by the filmmaker. See www.thevisiblepress.com for more information on the book, and for details of additional events at Light Industry, The Kitchen, Harvard Film Archive and elsewhere this fall.

This is an extremely rare opportunity to see Markopoulos’ earliest works, shown alongside some of the first films made in Europe following his departure from the US in 1967. Robert Beavers and Mark Webber (the editor of “Film as Film”) will be present and the book will be available for purchase at the programmes.