Louise Archambault Greaves (October 8, 1932 - March 4, 2023) was a filmmaker, director, producer, screenwriter, curator, and researcher. She is known for her work as a co-producer and director with

William Greaves William Greaves (October 8, 1926 – August 25, 2014) was an American documentary filmmaker and a pioneer of film-making. He produced more than two hundred documentary films, and wrote and directed more than half of these. Greaves garnered many ...

on films such as; ''

Ralph Bunche Ralph Johnson Bunche (; August 7, 1904 – December 9, 1971) was an American political scientist, diplomat, and leading actor in the mid-20th-century decolonization process and US civil rights movement, who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize f ...

: An American Odyssey'', ''Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2 1/2'', Wealth of a Nation, and ''The Deep North''.

Career

In 1964 Louise and William Greaves founded the William Greaves Production Company in New York City. The company is an independent film production and distribution company. The company distributes its work to libraries, schools, colleges, community and cultural institutions.

''Wealth of a Nation''

The documentary Wealth of a Nation was filmed in 1964. It introduces the revolutionary vision of four artists:

Bill Dixon William Robert “Bill” Dixon (October 5, 1925 – June 16, 2010) was an American composer, improviser, visual artist, activist, and educator. Dixon was one of the seminal figures in free jazz and late twentieth-century contemporary music. Hi ...

, trumpeter, artist, and professor of Black Music;

Lee Bontecou Lee Bontecou (January 15, 1931 – November 8, 2022) was an American sculptor and printmaker and a pioneer figure in the New York art world. She kept her work consistently in a recognizable style, and received broad recognition in the 1960s. Bont ...

, artist;

William Katavolos William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

, architect; and

Paolo Soleri Paolo Soleri (21 June 1919 – 9 April 2013) was an Italian-born American architect. He established the educational Cosanti Foundation and Arcosanti. Soleri was a lecturer in the College of Architecture at Arizona State University and a National ...

. Soleri was known as a visionary architect. His philosophy was called arcology. The basic concept that architecture and ecology are not separate.

''Symbiopsychotaxiplasm''

''Symbiopsychotaxiplasm'' is an experimental documentary hybrid film, using

cinéma vérité Cinéma vérité (, , ; "truthful cinema") is a style of documentary filmmaking developed by Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch, inspired by Dziga Vertov's theory about Kino-Pravda. It combines improvisation with use of the camera to unveil truth or high ...

style of filming.

Richard Brody Richard Brody (born 1958) is an American film critic who has written for ''The New Yorker'' since 1999. Education Brody grew up in Roslyn, New York, and attended Princeton University, receiving a B.A. in comparative literature in 1980. He first ...

is quoted in 2015 in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' as saying, "What if they made a revolution and nobody saw it? That's what happened in 1968, when William Greaves filmed one of the most daring and original movies of the time,'' 'Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One." In 1993, ''

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm ''Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One'' is a 1968 American experimental documentary film written, directed, co-produced and edited by filmmaker and documentarian William Greaves. The film is shot and presented in the style of a cinéma vérité docume ...

'' produced by Louise and William Greaves was shown at the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...

. In 2001 after years of post-development the film was reproduced as ''Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One''. In 2006 - A new sequel was produced called ''Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 21⁄2''. The film follows, and documents the process of making a film; as a group of actors participate in an audition. It filmed what was going on in front of the camera, filming the filming being made, what was going on between the actors, and the environment. The idea was to capture pure reality using

Cinéma vérité Cinéma vérité (, , ; "truthful cinema") is a style of documentary filmmaking developed by Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch, inspired by Dziga Vertov's theory about Kino-Pravda. It combines improvisation with use of the camera to unveil truth or high ...

style. In effect the documentary ''Symbiopsychotaxiplasm'' created a documentary inside a documentary inside of a documentary. The title of the film is related to the term symbiotaxiplasma. The term was coined by Social Philosopher Arthur F. Bentley. The term Symbiotaxiplasm sees

Art as Experience ''Art as Experience'' (1934) is John Dewey's major writing on aesthetics, originally delivered as the first William James Lecture at Harvard (1932). Dewey's aesthetics have been found useful in a number of disciplines, including new media. Dewe ...

and social interconnectedness.

Filmography & Video

* 2006 - ''Discovering William Greaves'' (Video) * 2005 - ''

: Take 2 1/2'' (Documentary) (co-producer). This film was an early form of

* 2001 - ''Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey'' (Documentary) (co-producer) (chief researcher). The documentary ''Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey'' directed by Louise and William Greaves documents the life of an African American that won a

Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Chemi ...

in 1950. The film documents Ralph Bunche's contribution to the founding of the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

. The documentary won the Gold Award for Documentary feature from the Houston International Film Festival * 1990 - ''The Deep North'' (TV Movie) (associate producer) * 1990 - ''

Ida B. Wells Ida B. Wells (full name: Ida Bell Wells-Barnett) (July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931) was an American investigative journalist, educator, and early leader in the civil rights movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for ...

: A Passion for Justice''.

Film Awards

* 2015 - ''Symbiopsychotaxiplasm''; winner of

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception i ...

National Film Preservation Board The United States National Film Preservation Board (NFPB) is the board selecting films for preservation in the Library of Congress' National Film Registry. It was established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988. The National Film Regi ...

, USA * 2006 - ''Symbiopsychotaxiplasm''; winner of Experimental Film Award,

National Society of Film Critics Awards The National Society of Film Critics (NSFC) is an American film critic organization. The organization is known for its highbrow tastes, and its annual awards are one of the most prestigious film critics awards in the United States. In January 2014, ...

, USA

External links

BIOGRAPHY OF LOUISE ARCHAMBAULT GREAVESSymbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take OneArticle about Symbiosychotaxiplasm

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Greaves, Louise American documentary film producers Women experimental filmmakers American documentary film directors American women documentary filmmakers 21st-century American women 1932 births 2023 deaths