Early Work

EARLY WORK
Monday 24 November 2014, at 6pm
Vienna Austrian Filmmuseum

In the presence of Robert Beavers

Gregory J. Markopoulos, A Christmas Carol, 1940, 5 min
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Christmas USA, 1949, 13 min
Gregory J. Markopoulos, The Dead Ones, 1949, 29 min
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Flowers of Asphalt, 1949-51, 7 min
Gregory J. Markopoulos & Robert C. Freeman, Swain, 1950, 20 min

Seinen ersten Film A Christmas Carol dreht er im Alter von zwölf. Mit The Dead Onesund Flowers of Asphalt begibt er sich auf die Spuren Cocteaus. Er liebt Stroheim, studiert bei Sternberg und schreibt, Jahre später, eine huldigende Botschaft an D.W. Griffith, seinen Wahlverwandten. Er glaubt jedoch, dass im Tonfilm der Ton das Bild zu ersticken droht und der Ton selbst nur der naturalistische Schatten des Bildes ist. Sein Traum von der Errettung des Bildes und Befreiung des Tons im Film lässt ihn ein Film-Universum aus Einzelbildern und Tonauslöschungen entwerfen. „Meine Liebe zum Film ist stärker als jede Moral.” Er ist ein Einsamer und einer der Wenigen. Er ist einer der free radicals des Films. (Harry Tomicek)

The Illiac Passion

THE ILLIAC PASSION
Tuesday 6 January 2015, at 9:15pm
Amsterdam EYE Filmmuseum 

Throughout his life, Markopoulos remained closely connected to his heritage and made many works that connected with ancient Greek culture. 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 cast includes Jack Smith, Taylor Mead, Beverly Grant, Gregory Battcock and Gerard Malanga, and Andy Warhol appears as Poseidon riding an exercycle, The extraordinary soundtrack of this re-imagining of the classical realm features a fractured reading of Henry Thoreau’s translation of the Aeschylus text and excerpts from Bartók’s Cantata Profana. Writing about this erotic odyssey, Markopoulos asserted that “the players become but the molecules of the nude protagonist, gyrating and struggling, all in love, bound and unbound, from situation to situation in the vast sea of emotion.”

Gregory J. Markopoulos, The Illiac Passion, 1964-67, USA, 16mm, colour, sound 91 min

“Metamorphosis of the filmmaker. Passions of the filmmaker. Out of his breast the free flowing blood of the creation of a motion picture which depicts the passions of mankind and of everyman in general. The filmmaker selecting and offering to his actors the inheritance of themselves, transforming them through themselves, their own life’s scenario, onto the motion picture screen. A screen in which everything is both transfixed and changed. Not only the filmmaker undergoes changes, i.e. the creative endeavour, but his actors or non-actors, and everyone who associates himself with the very moments during which the filmmaker is working. In this case the greatest alteration taking place towards the film spectator. The new film spectator of the new cinema.” (Gregory J. Markopoulos, 1967)

Introduced by Mark Webber.

Film as Film: las películas de Gregory J. Markopoulos

FILM AS FILM: LAS PELÍCULAS DE GREGORY J. MARKOPOULOS
3—20 February 2015
Spanish touring programme

“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) was one of the most original filmmakers to emerge in post-war American cinema. His films, which often translated literary or mythological sources to a contemporary context, are celebrated for their extraordinary creativity, the sensuous use of colour and innovations in cinematic form. A contemporary of Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger and Jonas Mekas, Markopoulos was amongst those at the forefront of a generation that liberated cinema by developing new modes of expression. Having made his first 16mm film (Psyche) in 1947, as a student at USC, he went on to produce several key works of the avant-garde such as Twice a Man (1963) and The Illiac Passion (1964-67).

At the end of the 1960s, he moved to Europe to pursue a very individual path, withdrawing his films from distribution and making them almost impossible to see. Firmly believing that a filmmaker should be responsible for all aspects of his work, he conceived the Temenos, a monographic archive for the presentation, preservation and study of his films. Late in life he chose to re-edit his entire oeuvre into a monumental 80-hour long film to be shown only at a remote location near to his ancestral home in Greece. This speculative project is being realised posthumously by an open-air screening event that has taken place every four years since 2004.

Markopoulos’ films encompass mythic themes, portraiture and studies of landscape and architecture. By employing complex editing techniques and spontaneous in-camera superimposition, he sought to unlock the mystery and energy contained within the single frame. This rare opportunity to experience the work of a true pioneer of independent filmmaking celebrates the publication of Film as Film: The Collected Writings of Gregory J. Markopoulos.

—Mark Webber

Presented in collaboration with Revista Lumière and The Visible Press, with thanks to Robert Beavers and Temenos.

Film as Film 1: Du Sang, de la volupté et de la Mort
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Psyche, 1947, USA, 16mm, colour, sound, 24 min
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Lysis, 1948, USA, 16mm, colour, sound, 25 min
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Charmides, 1948, USA, 16mm, colour, sound, 11min
Tuesday 3 February 2015 at Barcelona Filmoteca de Catalunya – Introduced by Mark Webber 
Saturday 7 February 2015 at Madrid La Casa Encendida – Introduced by Mark Webber
Wednesday 18 February 2015 at A Coruña CGAI

Film as Film 2: Gammelion
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Bliss, 1967, Greece, 16mm, colour, sound, 6 min
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Gammelion, 1968, Italy, 16mm, colour, sound, 54 min
Wednesday 4 February 2015 at Barcelona Filmoteca de Catalunya  – Introduced by Mark Webber
Sunday 8 February 2015 at Madrid La Casa Encendida – Introduced by Mark Webber
Thursday 19 February 2015 at A Coruña CGAI – Introduced by Mark Webber

Film as Film 3: Portraits
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Through a Lens Brightly: Mark Turbyfill, 1967, USA, 16mm, colour, sound, 14 min
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Political Portraits, 1969, Switzerland, 16mm, colour, silent, 12 min (excerpt)
Gregory J. Markopoulos, The Olympian, 1969, Italy, 16mm, colour, silent, 23 min
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Gilbert and George, 1975, France, 16mm, colour, silent, 12 min
Thursday 5 February 2015 at Barcelona Filmoteca de Catalunya – Introduced by Mark Webber
Monday 9 February 2015 at Madrid Museo Reina Sofia – Introduced by Arnau Vilaró
Friday 20 February 2015 at A Coruña CGAI – Introduced by Mark Webber

Film as Film 4: The Illiac Passion
Gregory J. Markopoulos, The Illiac Passion, 1964-67, USA, 16mm, colour, sound, 91 min
Sunday 8 February 2015 at Barcelona CCCB Xcentric – Introduced by Revista Lumière
Tuesday 10 February 2015 at Madrid Museo Reina Sofia
Friday 20 February 2015 at A Coruña CGAI

The Illiac Passion

THE ILLIAC PASSION
Sunday 22 March 2015, at 7:30pm
Los Angeles Filmforum

Throughout his life, Markopoulos remained closely connected to his heritage and made many works that connected with ancient Greek culture. 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 cast includes Jack Smith, Taylor Mead, Beverly Grant, Gregory Battcock and Gerard Malanga, and Andy Warhol appears as Poseidon riding an exercise bike. The extraordinary soundtrack of this re-imagining of the classical realm features a fractured reading (by the filmmaker) of Henry Thoreau’s translation of the Aeschylus text and excerpts from Bartók’s Cantata Profana. Writing about this erotic odyssey, Markopoulos asserted that, “the players become but the molecules of the nude protagonist, gyrating and struggling, all in love, bound and unbound, from situation to situation in the vast sea of emotion.”

Gregory J. Markopoulos, The Illiac Passion, 1964-67, USA, 16mm, color, sound, 91 min

Gregory J. Markopoulos: Early Films of the 40s & 50s

GREGORY J. MARKOPOULOS: EARLY FILMS OF THE 40S & 50S
Sunday 12 April 2015, at 7:30pm
Los Angeles Filmforum

Having made 8mm films as a child, Markopoulos sought to advance his knowledge of filmmaking by enrolling at the USC Film School, where he attended lectures by Joseph von Sternberg and observed productions of Fritz Lang, Alfred Hitchcock and Alexander Korda. His first 16mm film, Psyche, was made in Los Angeles at this time, concurrent with the first films by Curtis Harrington and Kenneth Anger. Abandoning his studies after only three semesters, he returned to his hometown of Toledo, Ohio, and completed some half dozen films. These early works often explore themes of sexual awakening and the anxiety of coming to terms with homosexuality in an age of repression. In the mid-1950s, the filmmaker embarked on the ill-fated feature Serenity in Greece before re-emerging with Twice a Man (1963), the work that secured Markopoulos’ position as one of independent cinema’s leading figures.

Gregory J. Markopoulos, Psyche, 1947, 24 min
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Christmas-USA-1949, 1950, 13 min
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Eldora, 1953, 11 min
Gregory J. Markopoulos & Robert C. Freeman, Swain, 1950, 20 min

The Illiac Passion

THE ILLIAC PASSION
Saturday 23 May 2015, at 8:15pm
Zurich Videoex Festival

Throughout his life, Markopoulos remained closely connected to his heritage and made many works that connected with ancient Greek culture. 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 cast includes Jack Smith, Taylor Mead, Beverly Grant, Gregory Battcock and Gerard Malanga, and Andy Warhol appears as Poseidon riding an exercise bike. The extraordinary soundtrack of this re-imagining of the classical realm features a fractured reading (by the filmmaker) of Henry Thoreau’s translation of the Aeschylus text and excerpts from Bartók’s Cantata Profana. Writing about this erotic odyssey, Markopoulos asserted that, “the players become but the molecules of the nude protagonist, gyrating and struggling, all in love, bound and unbound, from situation to situation in the vast sea of emotion.”

Gregory J. Markopoulos, The Illiac Passion, 1964-67, USA, 16mm, colour, sound, 91 min 

Gregory J. Markopoulos: Early Films of the 40s & 50s

GREGORY J. MARKOPOULOS: EARLY FILMS OF THE 40s & 50s
Sunday 24 May 2015, at 6:30pm
Zurich Videoex Festival

Having made 8mm films as a child, Markopoulos sought to advance his knowledge of filmmaking by enrolling at the USC Film School, where he attended lectures by Joseph von Sternberg and observed productions of Fritz Lang, Alfred Hitchcock and Alexander Korda. His first 16mm film, Psyche, was made in Los Angeles at this time, concurrent with the first films by Curtis Harrington and Kenneth Anger. Abandoning his studies after only three semesters, he returned to his hometown of Toledo, Ohio, and completed some half dozen films. These early works often explore themes of sexual awakening and the anxiety of coming to terms with homosexuality in an age of repression. In the mid-1950s, the filmmaker embarked on the ill-fated feature Serenity in Greece before re-emerging with Twice a Man (1963), the work that secured Markopoulos’ position as one of independent cinema’s leading figures.

Gregory J. Markopoulos, Psyche, 1947, 24 min
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Christmas-USA-1949, 1950, 13 min
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Eldora, 1953, 11 min
Gregory J. Markopoulos & Robert C. Freeman, Swain, 1950, 20 min

Gregory J. Markopoulos

GREGORY J. MARKOPOULOS
Sunday 25 October 2015, at 3:45pm
Lisbon Doclisboa at Culturgest

Figura ímpar na história do cinema, Markopoulos abandonou os Estados Unidos, depois de ter sido uma das figuras cimeiras do New American Cinema, vindo, inclusivamente, a retirar os seus filmes de circulação. Na última década da sua vida, dedicou-se a rever e a reeditar os seus filmes desde finais dos anos 1940, num projecto de 80 horas, Eniaios (palavra grega, significan- do “carácter único” e “unidade”), ciclo que, enquanto tal, e como um ritual, se destina a ser visto cada quatro anos, num sítio único, Temenos.

Gregory J. Markopoulos, Gilbert and George (ENIAIOS III – Reel 1), 1975/1989-91, 12 min
Markopoulos retratou artistas como Moravia, Nureyev ou De Chirico. Este retrato da dupla Gilbert & George é marcado pela ausência da imagem interrompida por fragmentos dos corpos destas duas esculturas vivas, e pela ausência de movimento.

Gregory J. Markopoulos, Genius (ENIAIOS – Reels 2, 3, 4), 1970/1989-91, 80 min
Um retrato triplo, inspirado na lenda de Fausto, do artista britânico David Hockney, do pintor surrealista argentino Leonor Fini e do comerciante de arte Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. Com uma estrutura calculada, Genius constitui a secção central de Eniaios III.

Projecção precedida da apresentação do livro Film as Film: The Collected Writings of Gregory J. Markopoulos, organizado por Mark Webber, com um prefácio de P. Adams Sitney e publicado por The Visible Press (2014).

Peter Gidal: Close Up at Close-Up

PETER GIDAL: CLOSE UP
Friday 20 May 2016, at 7:30pm
London Close-Up Film Centre

Peter Gidal and Mark Webber will introduce a screening of Gidal’s ‘feature length’ film Close Up (1983) to coincide with the publication of Flare Out: Aesthetics 1966–2016, a collection of essays by one of film’s great polemicists. Gidal was a central figure during the formative years of the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative and made some its most radical works. His cinema is anti-narrative, against representation, and fiercely materialist.

“Close Up is crystal hard, intransigent, and film in extremis. In short, one of the best ‘political’ films made in this country.” —Michael O’Pray, Monthly Film Bulletin

In Close Up, Peter Gidal’s political, ultra-leftist practice is augmented by the disembodied voices of two Nicaraguan revolutionaries heard of the soundtrack. These voices punctuate a film whose representation of a room, an inhabited space, is one in which the viewer must consciously search for recognition, for meaning-making. The image-content is muted and abstract, but fascinating, with moments of (no-doubt) inadvertent beauty.

Presented in association with LUX.

Peter Gidal: Flare Out – Paris Book Launch

PETER GIDAL: FLARE OUT — SCREENING AND BOOK LAUNCH
Wednesday 25 May 2016, at 7pm
Paris Centre Pompidou

For five decades, Peter Gidal has sought to problematise the film-viewing process by creating works that resist recognition and identification. His practice posits film as a durational experience and negates analysis on psychological grounds. This programme, featuring the seminal film Clouds (1969) and later works Flare Out (1992), Volcano (2002) and not far at all (2013), surveys his radical and unique approach.

Peter Gidal, Clouds, 1969, 10 min
Peter Gidal, Flare Out, 1992, 20 min
Peter Gidal, Volcano, 2002, 30 min
Peter Gidal, not far at all, 2013, 15 min

Gidal has been based in the UK since the late 1960s, and was a central figure during the formative years of the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative. He is a noted writer and polemicist, whose “Theory and Definition of Structural/Materialist Film” is a key text of avant-garde cinema. The screening celebrates the publication of Flare Out: Aesthetics 1966–2016, a collection of Gidal’s essays on film, art and aesthetics, and will be introduced by the filmmaker and editor/publisher Mark Webber.

“Mental activation toward material analysis is the process that is relevant, whether or not actual structure is ‘revealed’.” —Peter Gidal, 1969