The Intuition Space
The Films and Writings of Gregory J. Markopoulos

Gregory J. Markopoulos, Lysis, 1948, 30 min
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Bliss, 1967, 6 min
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Sorrows, 1969, 6 min
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Eniaios, 1947-91, c.30 min (excerpt)
Introduced by Robert Beavers

Gregory J. Markopoulos (born 1928, died 1992) was the son of Greek immigrants from the Peloponnesus and spoke only Greek until the age of six. The ancient legends and orthodox spirituality of that tradition would prove a grounding matrix for the rest of his life. He was fascinated by the idea of synesthesia, the confusion and correspondence between impressions of different senses that had pre-occupied already many Romantic artists. In the last ten years of his life, Markopoulos toiled over Eniaios, another, and the ultimate, reworking of his entire earlier film output. A completely silent eighty-hour long, epic re-configuration of his previous works; it is to be seen ideally over several weeks, in a yearly summer festival held at the Temenos, a special open-air cinema theatre dedicated to Markopoulos’s works and those of Robert Beavers. (text based on an essay by Kirk Alan Winslow)

Markopoulos called Lysis “a study in stream-of-consciousness poetry of a lost, wandering, homosexual soul” and felt that the film foreshadowed his famous work The Illiac Passion.

Bliss is a portrait of the interior of a Byzantine church on the Greek island of Hydra, edited in-camera in the moment of filming.

The Swiss chateau built for Wagner by King Ludwig II is documented in Sorrows, an in-camera film composed through intricate layers of superimposition.

In his last years, working quietly in Europe, Markopoulos re-edited his whole body of earlier films and dozens of new ones he had shot and edited (but not printed) into one magnum opus, Eniaios. It is one of the longest films ever made: the complete film lasts approximately 80 hours and is divided into 22 cycles. Markopoulos toiled over Eniaios and completed it, but the film was never shown in his lifetime. At the time of his death in 1992, it remained unprinted. From the moment he began to construct it, it was Markopoulos’ intention that the film be projected only at the open-air site of the Temenos. After the filmmaker’s death, Robert Beavers set out to realize and properly showcase this epic work. He created the Temenos Archive and the not-for-profit organizations, Temenos Inc. and its Association. He has worked tirelessly to establish the screening events in Arcadia.

“In my film I suggest that there is no greater mystery than that of the protagonists. War and Love are simply equated for what they are; the aftermath is inevitable, and a normal human condition, for which like the ancients one can only have pity and understanding. In this lies the mystery. All else is irrelevant. That there are other sub-currents of equal power in The Mysteries goes without saying; and, those who are capable of the numerous visual visitations and annunciations which the film offers them will realize what is the Ultimate Mystery of my work.” (Markopoulos, Disclosed Knowledge, 1970)

Film as Film: las películas de Gregory J. Markopoulos
4: Portraits

Gregory J. Markopoulos, Through a Lens Brightly: Mark Turbyfill, 1967, 14 min
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Political Portraits, 1969, 12 min (excerpt)
Gregory J. Markopoulos, The Olympian, 1969, 23 min
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Gilbert and George, 1975, 12 min
Introduced by Mark Webber

During the elaborate production of The Illiac Passion, which took three years to complete, Markopoulos searched for a more economical and spontaneous form of filmmaking. Using techniques first explored in Ming Green (1966), he devised a style of cinematic portraiture whose pulsing, kinetic structure was built from layers of in-camera superimpositions. More complex and humanistic than Warhol’s Screen Tests, the early portraits such as Through a Lens Brightly depict the subject themselves, their immediate environment and objects of personal significance. As portraiture became an increasingly prevalent aspect of his filmmaking, he documented a remarkable constellation of characters from literature, performance and the visual arts. The Political Portraits, filmed in Europe, include Rudolph Nureyev and Giorgio de Chirico. Later studies of Alberto Moravia (The Olympian) and British artists Gilbert and George develop a new approach by placing short bursts of images between measures of black or clear leader.

Film as Film: las películas de Gregory J. Markopoulos
1: Du Sang, de la volupté et de la Mort

Gregory J. Markopoulos, Psyche, 1947, 24 min
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Lysis, 1948, 25 min
Gregory J. Markopoulos, Charmides, 1948, 11 min
Introduced by Mark Webber

Made as student at USC in Los Angeles, Markopoulos’ first 16mm film Psyche took as its source the unfinished novella of the same name by Pierre Louÿs. Shown together with Lysis and Charmides (made after returning to his hometown of Toledo, Ohio, and inspired by Platonic dialogues), it forms the trilogy titled Du sang de la volupté et de la mort (1947-48). By boldly addressing lesbian and homosexual themes, the trilogy gained unwelcome notices in Films in Review and Variety where, in the repressive atmosphere of the early 1950s, it was branded “degenerate” following a screening at New York University. Such a response is unimaginable today for lyrical works that express sensuality through the symbolic use of colour and composition. Writing about these early films, Markopoulos stated that “Colour is Eros”, and quoted a statement by philosopher Mircea Eliade that offers a clue to his entire body of work: “The whole man is engaged when he listens to myths and legends; consciously or not, their message is always deciphered and absorbed in the end.”