Gregory J. Markopoulos
(March 12, 1928 – November 12, 1992) was an American
experimental film
Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explores non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many experimental films, parti ...
maker.
Biography
Born in
Toledo, Ohio
Toledo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, United States. A major Midwestern United States port city, Toledo is the fourth-most populous city in the state of Ohio, after Columbus, Ohio, Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnat ...
in 1928 to Greek immigrant parents, Markopoulos began making
8 mm film
8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9.
In mathematics
8 is:
* a composite number, its proper divisors being , , and . It is twice 4 or four times 2.
* a power of two, being 2 (two cubed), and is the first number of t ...
s at an early age. He attended
USC Film School
The University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts (SCA) houses seven academic divisions: Film & Television Production; Cinema & Media Studies; John C. Hench Division of Animation + Digital Arts; John Wells Division of Writing for Sc ...
in the late 1940s, and went on to become a co-founder — with
Jonas Mekas
Jonas Mekas (; December 24, 1922 – January 23, 2019) was a Lithuanian-American filmmaker, poet, and artist who has been called "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema". Mekas' work has been exhibited in museums and at festivals worldwi ...
,
Shirley Clarke
Shirley Clarke (née Brimberg; October 2, 1919 – September 23, 1997) was an American filmmaker.
Life
Born Shirley Brimberg in New York City, she was the daughter of a Polish-immigrant father who made his fortune in manufacturing. Her mother w ...
,
Stan Brakhage
James Stanley Brakhage ( ; January 14, 1933 – March 9, 2003) was an American filmmaker. He is considered to be one of the most important figures in 20th-century experimental film.
Over the course of five decades, Brakhage created a larg ...
and others — of the
New American Cinema movement. He was as well a contributor to ''
Film Culture
''Film Culture'' was an American film magazine started by Adolfas Mekas and his brother Jonas Mekas in 1954. The publication's headquarters were in New York City. Best known for exploring the avant-garde cinema in depth, it also published artic ...
'' magazine, and an instructor at the
Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
.
In 1967, he and his partner
Robert Beavers
Robert Beavers (born 1949) is an American experimental filmmaker. Born and raised in Massachusetts, he attended Deerfield Academy which he left before graduating to move to New York in 1965 to pursue filmmaking. He lived in New York until 1967 whe ...
left the United States for permanent residence in Europe. Once ensconced in self-imposed exile, Markopoulos withdrew his films from circulation, refused any interviews, and insisted that a chapter about him be removed from the second edition of ''
Visionary Film'',
P. Adams Sitney's seminal study of American
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretica ...
cinema. While he continued to make films, his work went largely unseen for almost 30 years.
Markopoulos dedicated his film ''(A)lter (A)ction'' to
Rosa von Praunheim
Holger Bernhard Bruno Mischwitzky (born Holger Radtke; 25 November 1942), known professionally as Rosa von Praunheim, is a German film director, author, painter and one of the most famous gay rights activists in the German-speaking world. In ov ...
. Before von Praunheim became famous, he worked as an assistant-director for Markopoulos.
He died in 1992 in
Freiburg im Breisgau
Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...
.
Selected filmography
* ''Du sang, de la volupté et de la mort'' (1947–48); 3 parts: ''Psyche'', ''Lysis'', ''Charmides''
* ''The Dead Ones'' (1949, unfinished)
*''Christmas, U.S.A.'' (1949); 13 min.
[''Avant Garde 2: Experimental Cinema 1928-1954'', Disc One, Kino International DVD, 2007]
* ''Swain'' (1950)
* ''Flowers of Asphalt'' (1951)
* ''Serenity'' (1961)
* ''Twice a Man'' (1963)
* ''Galaxie'' (1966)
* ''Ming Green'' (1966)
* ''Bliss'' (1967)
* ''Eros, O Basileus'' (1967)
* ''Himself As Herself'' (1967)
* ''The Illiac Passion'' (1964–67)
* ''Through a Lens Brightly: Mark Turbyfill'' (1967)
* ''The Divine Damnation'' (1968)
* ''Gammelion'' (1968)
* ''The Mysteries'' (1968)
* ''Index - Hans Richter'' (1969)
* ''The Olympian'' (1969)
* ''Political Portraits'' (1969)
* ''Sorrows'' (1969)
* ''Alph'' (1970)
* ''Genius'' (1970)
* ''Hagiographia'' (1970, first version)
* ''Moment'' (1970)
* ''Cimabue! Cimabue!'' (1971)
* ''Doldertal 7'' (1971)
* ''Saint Actaeon'' (1971)
* ''35, Boulevard General Koenig'' (1971)
* ''Hagiographia'' (1973, second version)
* ''Heracles'' (1973)
* ''Meta'' (1973)
* ''Prosopographia'' (1976)
* ''Eniaios'' (1948-c.1990, 22 film cycles)
Preservation
Markopoulos' film ''Galaxie'' was preserved by the
Academy Film Archive
The Academy Film Archive is part of the Academy Foundation, established in 1944 with the purpose of organizing and overseeing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ educational and cultural activities, including the preservation of m ...
in 2001.
Bibliography
Selected articles:
* Jones, Kristen M
''Gregory J. Markopoulos - film exhibition at Whitney Museum of American Art''Artforum Summer 1996.
* Sitney, P. Adams
''Idyll Worship''Artforum November 2004: 187–191.
DF* Stout, Jeffrey and Noah Stout
''Cinema Arcadia''Film Comment September/October 2004: 64–65.
DF
References
External links
BiographyArcadians - Arcades esmenThe Temenos AssociationMillennium Film Journal no. 32/33
Devoted to Markopoulos and Robert Beavers
from Bright Lights Film Journal
{{DEFAULTSORT:Markopoulos, Gregory
1928 births
1992 deaths
American experimental filmmakers
American film directors
USC School of Cinematic Arts alumni
American people of Greek descent
LGBT film directors
LGBT people from Ohio
20th-century LGBT people