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GREGORY J. MARKOPOULOS: EARLY FILMS OF THE 40s & 50s<\/strong>
\nSunday 24 May 2015
\nZurich Videoex Festival<\/p>\nPSYCHE<\/strong>
\n Gregory J. Markopoulos, 1947, USA, 16mm, color, sound, 24 min<\/strong>
\nPsyche<\/em>, which takes as its source an unfinished novella of the same name by Pierre Lou\u00ffs, is a remarkably ambitious and sensual work for a 19-year old to have made in the late 1940s \u2013 addressing themes of eros and lesbianism, and containing sequences of montage that presage the techniques of rapid editing that advance in later works. Psyche<\/em> can stand alone, but was also shown together with Lysis<\/em> and Charmides <\/em>(both made in Toledo the following year, inspired by Platonic dialogues) in the trilogy Du sang de la volupte et de la mort<\/em> (1947-48).<\/p>\n\u201cThe first thing which I did was to delete the novelette of its lush rhetoric and retain only its symbolic color. In Psyche<\/em>, color plays an important role, similar to the role which color plays in the paintings of Toulouse Lautrec. Color reflects the true character of the individual before us, whether it be on the screen, in a painting, or in the street. Color is Eros.\u201d (Gregory J. Markopoulos, Psyche\u2019s Search for the Herb of Invulnerability<\/em>, 1955)<\/p>\nCHRISTMAS-USA-1949<\/strong>
\n Gregory J. Markopoulos, 1950, USA, 16mm, b\/w, sound, 13 min<\/strong>
\nHaving abandoned his studies at USC, Markopoulos returned to Ohio and completed some half dozen films before shooting the feature film Serenity<\/em> in Greece. Christmas-USA-1949<\/em> (aka Christmas USA<\/em>) weaves together documentary and fiction to convey a moment of awakening, and was shot at the \u2018Cavalcade of Amusements\u2019 travelling fairground, and in the Markopoulos family home and local surrounds.\u201d Its closing credits declare \u201cthe end of a period.\u201d<\/p>\nELDORA<\/strong>
\n Gregory J. Markopoulos, 1953, USA, 16mm, color, silent, 11 min<\/strong>
\n\u201cThe dreamlike Eldora<\/em> describes love\u2019s fragmenting effects on the consciousness of an adolescent girl.\u201d (Kristin M. Jones). Eldora<\/em> was shot on 8mm stock given to the filmmaker by the LA-based exhibitor and collector Raymond Rohauer, and is dedicated to Robert C. Freeman, his collaborator on Swain<\/em>. In his writings, Markopoulos refers to the film\u2019s \u201ccautious and excruciatingly slow movement\u201d and describes its heroine \u201cproceeding as if with lunar strides across the wet, soft, earthly shore matter of the Maumee River.\u201d<\/p>\nSWAIN<\/strong>
\n Gregory J. Markopoulos & Robert C. Freeman, 1950, USA, 16mm, color, sound, 20 min<\/strong>
\n\u201cAn exquisite early psychodramatic trance film reminiscent of Maya Deren\u2019s films, Swain<\/em> is loosely inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne\u2019s Fanshawe<\/em> and is rich in metaphor. Starring Markopoulos, Swain<\/em> is an evocation in gentle images and visual symbols of a subconscious rejection of the stereotyped masculine role that both society and women insist upon. This rejection takes the form of escape \u2013 a flight in fantasy from what is visually perceived as crude, repelling sexuality into the purity of creative activity, of nature, and of the individual personality left inviolate.\u201d (Donald Weinstein, Swain: Flowers and Flight<\/em>, 1963)<\/p>\nBack to top<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[158],"tags":[136],"class_list":["post-5652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gregory-markopoulos-film-as-film","tag-gregory-markopoulos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5652\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markwebber.org.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}