Vienna Retrospective, 19-24 November 2014

The upcoming retrospective at the Vienna Filmmuseum, within the context of Vienna Art Week, will include almost all of the available films by Markopoulos. Outside of Temenos, the Österreichisches Filmmuseum has the largest collection of Markopoulos films, including some unique prints, as a result of the close relationship between the filmmaker and the Filmmuseum’s founders Peter Kubelka and Peter Konlechner. The following introductory text is taken from the Filmmuseum website.

Gregory J. Markopoulos was twenty (and still a student at the University of Southern California) when he completed his first masterpiece, the one-hour Du sang, de la volupté et de la mort (1947-48). Influenced by surrealism and literary modernism, and along with Mara Deren and Kenneth Anger, he was one of the founders of the New American Cinema, the most significant movement in independent cinema after 1945. At the same time, that film marks the beginning of an individual course, as Markopoulos became one of the greatest formal inventors and innovators in the history of film: “A work formed in serious, radical creativity, employing what the Greeks called thrasos – fire, self-confidence, enthusiasm.” (Harry Tomicek)

Born in Toledo, Ohio in 1928, and raised with the Greek language and traditions (he didn’t speak English until he was seven years old), Markopoulos would follow his artistic goals with unprecedented rigor until his death in November 1992. Against any pigeonholing by generic terms such as “narrative”, ”underground”, “avant-garde” or ”art” film, he always vehemently upheld one motto: Film as Film.

Markopoulos was no stranger to cinematic storytelling – he attended lectures by Josef von Sternberg, observed Hitchcock and Lang at work and had contact with Cocteau and Godard during the fifties. But his own practice taught him that the deepest experiences available in cinema were to be found elsewhere: “Who can dare to imagine what a single frame might contain?” More and more, he realized the shape of his films directly during the filming process: composition, sequencing, montage, dissolves, multiple exposures – all of these processes (which the film industry usually delegates to an entire team), he accomplished himself, during the moments of filming.

The result is a cinema of true poetry, containing trance-like narratives such as Swain (1950) and Twice a Man (1963), as well as iridescent portraits of people (Galaxie) and spaces or structures (Ming Green, Gammelion, Sorrows), all made and released in the late 1960s when Markopoulos separated himself from the New York underground scene. His oeuvre of that period is characterized by an almost eerie sense of color and rhythm, and by ecstatic “chords” and clusters made of the shortest visual elements. At the same time, he searched for a utopian unity – a non-alienated relationship between life, filmmaking and film viewing.

Starting in 1967 and together with his partner, Robert Beavers (now the keeper of his estate), Gregory Markopoulos led a nomadic life marked by poverty, traveling between Italy, Belgium, Greece and Switzerland. He continued filming ceaselessly, but released no work after 1971. Instead he concentrated fully on that approximately 80-hour work which would sum up his artistic existence: Eniaios (“unity”, “uniqueness”), created for a special performance in nature, at the “Temenos” near the village of Lyssaraia in Greece.

22 years after Gregory Markopoulos’ death, the opportunities to see his films are still rare; the restoration and preservation of Eniaios is in progress, but far from complete. The Austrian Film Museum, with whom the artist had a long (and complicated) relationship, has collected his works for almost 50 years – and is proud to offer its international audience this retrospective of 26 works, the most comprehensive examination of Markopoulos’ cinema to date.

The retrospective takes place in conjunction with the Vienna Art Week and was organized with the help of Robert Beavers who will attend all screenings. At the opening, curator Mark Webber will present his new book, “Film as Film: The Collected Writings of Gregory J. Markopoulos.” On November 21, Beavers will present four restored reels from ”Eniaios IV” and will speak about the ongoing Temenos project.

Visit the calendar for details of each screening, or view the programme on the Filmmuseum website.

Following the successful launch of Film as Film on the US East Coast in September, The Visible Press is pleased to announce a series of events that will take place in Europe before the close of 2014. These include four programmes at the Brussels Cinematek, and a large-scale restrospective at the Vienna Filmmuseum that includes almost all of the available films by Gregory J. Markopoulos. Full details are available on the Events calendar.

Thur 9 Oct – Gent Courtisane / UGent
Twice a Man / illustrated lecture by Mark Webber

Fri 10 Oct – Brussels Cinematek
Twice a Man / Through a Lens Brightly: Mark Turbyfill
 
Sun 12 Oct – Brussels Cinematek
Bliss / The Illiac Passion
 
Mon 13 & Tue 14 Oct – Brussels Cinematek
Du sang de la volupté et de la mort
 
Mon 13 & Tue 14 Oct – Brussels Cinematek
Gammelion / The Olympian
 
Mon 27 Oct – Braunschweig HBK Filmforum
Lysis / Bliss / Sorrows / reel from Eniaios
 
Fri 31 Oct – London Tate Modern
Psyche / Bliss / Gammelion
 
Wed 19 Nov – Vienna Filmmuseum
Du sang de la volupté et de la mort
 
Wed 19 Nov – Vienna Filmmuseum
Ming Green / Galaxie
 
Thur 20 Nov – Vienna Filmmuseum
Twice a Man / The Filming of Twice a Man (Charles I. Levine) / Through a Lens Brightly: Mark Turbyfill
 
Thur 20 Nov – Vienna Filmmuseum
The Illiac Passion / Rushes for The Illiac Passion / Test with Masques for The Illiac Passion
 
Fri 21 Nov – Vienna Filmmuseum
Bliss / Gammelion
 
Fri 21 Nov – Vienna Filmmuseum
Starry Night: Markopoulos and the Temenos
(presentation including 4 reels from Eniaios IV)
 
Sat 22 Nov – Vienna Filmmuseum
Sorrows / The Mysteries
 
Sun 23 Nov – Vienna Filmmuseum
Eros, O Basileus / Himself as Herself
 
Mon 24 Nov – Vienna Filmmuseum
A Christmas Carol / Christmas USA / The Dead Ones / Flowers of Asphalt / Swain

Mon 24 Nov – Vienna Filmmuseum
Political Portraits (excerpt) / Index – Hans Richter / Moment / Saint Actaeon   

Sat 29 Nov – Brighton Cinecity
Ming Green / Through a Lens Brightly: Mark Turbyfill / Twice a Man

Wed 10 Dec – Paris Centre Pompidou
Du sang de la volupté et de la mort

Robert Beavers or Mark Webber will be present to introduce the screenings.
“Film as Film” will be on sale at most venues priced £20 / €25.

Further events to be announced.
Check www.thevisiblepress.com/events for the latest details.

Markopoulos in Belgium, 9-14 October 2014

In 1963 Markopoulos won the Prix Baron Lambert (an award of $2000) at EXPRMNTL 3 for his film Twice a Man, and in 1967 Belgian patrons made it possible for the filmmaker to finish his epic The Illiac Passion. Jacques Ledoux was a faithful supporter who brought many Markopoulos films into the Royal Belgian Film Archive.

Almost 50 years later, a series of events in October 2014 will celebrate the special connection between Markopoulos and Belgium. Courtisane and the University of Gent will present an illustrated lecture by Mark Webber, to be followed by a projection of Twice a Man. In Brussels, the Cinematek’s newly inaugurated festival L’Âge d’or will screen four programmes based on the Markopoulos films in their collection.

The following introduction text is from the L’Âge d’or catalogue :-

“Gregory Markopoulos is one of the most important American independent filmmakers. From 1950-1960 he was one of the central figures of the New American Cinema Group along- side Jonas Mekas, Robert Frank and Shirley Clarke. Contemporary of Anger, Brakhage, Deren and Warhol, he significantly contributed to the establishment of cinema as an independent art form. During his career, Markopoulos developed his own filmmaking language, based on a musical conception of editing and a symbolic use of colour. Son of Greek immigrants, mythology shaped his imagination. Psyche or Twice a Man – a film that won an award at the EXPRMNTL Festival in Knokke-le-Zoute in 1963 – are all based on the idea of integrating myth in a contemporary setting. Markopoulos is also one of the first filmmakers to explicitly address the topic of homosexual identity. In 1967, total devotion to his vision of cinema leads him with his companion filmmaker Robert Beavers, to leave the United States and settle in Greece. This exile is accompanied by the decision to withdraw all his films from circulation. Markopoulos then brings them all together in a major and ultimate work: Eniaios, previewed to last 80 hours. The screening could only take place on the site of Temenos, near the birthplace of his father. Although Eniaios was never completed during his lifetime, the project of an ideal site where Markopoulos’ work can be seen in harmony with the landscape is maintained by Robert Beavers who strives to make this a reality since the death of his companion by organising every four years, screenings of new segments of Eniaios that he has been able to process and print. This programme coincides with the publication of the book Film as Film: The Collected Writings of Gregory J. Markopoulos. Edited by curator Mark Webber and published by The Visible Press (London), the book compiles nearly a hundred rare and unpublished texts, in which Markopoulos reflects on his filmmaking as well as that of authors like Dreyer, Bresson and Mizoguchi.” (Xavier Garcia Bardon)

Visit the calendar for details of each screening, or view the programmes on the Courtisane and Cinematek websites.