SECONDS OF ETERNITY: THE FILMS OF GREGORY J. MARKOPOULOS PROGRAM 1
Wednesday 1 April 2015, at 7:30pm
Berkeley Pacific Film Archive

BLISS
Gregory J. Markopoulos, US/Greece, 1967, 16mm, color, silent, 6 min
Consisting of images that were superimposed at the moment of filming, Bliss is the first film Markopoulos made after recolating to Europe. “There was a very beautiful little church which I found in Hydra, the island in Greece. I shot the film on two different days” (Markopoulos).

GAMMELION
Gregory J. Markopoulos, US/Italy, 1967, 16mm, color, sound, 54 min
The elegantly spare Gammelion was filmed in and around the castle of Roccasinibalda in Italy, where Markopoulos shot approximately seven minutes of imagery. “The film is structured by a thousand slow fades in and out of black-and-white leader, which extend its running time . . . As the screen winks from light to dark and the reverse, tiny shots, sometimes just single frames—are interjected of the landscape around the castle. We gradually move closer and closer to it, view the corridors, glimpse a nude couple in the frescoes, and then move outside again. On the soundtrack there are snatches of Roussel, the sound of horses’ hooves over pavement, and the voice of the filmmaker reading Rilke’s lines: ‘To be loved means to be consumed. To love means to radiate with inexhaustible light. To be loved is to pass away, to love is to endure’” (P. Adams Sitney, Visionary Film).

The radical form of Gammelion was the first step towards Markopoulos’ final film, the 80-hour long Eniaios, for which the filmmaker re-edited his entire body of work.

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