Gregory J. Markopoulos
Gregory J. Markopoulos (March 12, 1928 - November 12, 1992) was an American experimental filmmaker. Born in Toledo, Ohio to Greek immigrant parents, Markopoulos began making 8 mm films at an early age. He attended USC Film School in the late 1940s, and went on to become a co-founder — with Jonas Mekas, Shirley Clarke, Stan Brakhage and others — of the New American Cinema movement. He was as well a contributor to Film Culture magazine, and an instructor at the Art Institute of Chicago.
In 1967, he and his partner Robert Beavers 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 cinema. While he continued to make films, his work went largely unseen for almost 30 years.
| Known For | Directing |
|---|---|
| Most Rating | 0.235 |
| Birthday | 1928-03-12 |
| Place of Birth | Toledo, Ohio |
| Also Known As | Gregory Markopoulos, |
Of Blood, of Pleasure and of Death
0/0
The trilogy 'Of Blood, of Pleasure and of Death' (1947-1948), which began with Psyche (1947), the first film, produced by Gregory Markopoulos in 16mm,...
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Of Blood, of Pleasure and of Death
2002
The Hedge Theater
6.4/9
Filmed in Rome in the 1980s, the work draws on Borromini’s Baroque architecture and Il Sassetta’s St. Martin and the Beggar. Beavers contrasts winter’...
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The Hedge Theater
2003
Early Monthly Segments
0/0
Filmed when Beavers was 18–19, this self-portrait depicts him and Gregory J. Markopoulos in their Swiss apartment. A diary of domestic life, it transf...
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Early Monthly Segments
1967
Winged Dialogue
0/0
An early exploration of intimacy and perception, the film portrays the body’s beauty and sexuality as animated by the soul. Through dissolving and van...
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Winged Dialogue
1972
The Painting
7/1
Beavers intercuts scenes of traffic in Bern with details from the 15th-century altarpiece The Martyrdom of St. Hippolytus. In its revised form, the fi...
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The Painting
1969
Heads
0/0
Includes 'portraits' of Marianne Faithfull, Thelonious Monk and 28 others, some known, some less so.
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Heads
1967
The Illiac Passion
4.286/7
Prometheus, on an Odyssean journey, crosses the Brooklyn Bridge in search of the characters of his imagination. After meeting the Muse, he proceeds to...
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The Illiac Passion
1950
Swain
7/4
Swain is inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Fanshawe, features a dreamlike narrative of a young man’s ritualized rejection of heterosexuality, as a mys...
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Swain
1940
A Christmas Carol
10/1
Miser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his yout...
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A Christmas Carol
1967
The Dead Ones
8/1
Markopoulos’ first attempt at making a 35mm feature film, clearly inspired by the cinema of Jean Cocteau, was left unfinished and the materials were l...
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The Dead Ones
1997
Birth of a Nation
7/4
Jonas Mekas assembles 160 portraits, appearances, and fleeting sketches of underground and independent filmmakers captured between 1955 and 1996. Fast...
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Birth of a Nation
1964
Dionysus
7/2
In 1963 Boultenhouse wrote, produced, and directed Dionysius,which he described as a “free treatment of Euripides' The Bacchae.”It starred the dancers...
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Dionysus
1972
From the Notebook of...
6.286/14
Shot in Florence, the film draws on Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks and Paul Valéry’s essay on da Vinci’s creative process to explore parallels between...
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From the Notebook of...
1969
Political Portraits
0/0
Dedicated to Dieter Meier. voice-over by Gregory Markopoulos, reading an excerpt in English translation of Paul Valéry’s L’Homme et la nuit (Man and t...
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Political Portraits
1965
The Death of Hemingway (An Obituary Fantasy)
8/1
Shot in thirty-two hours at the abandoned Baybridge Theater in Brooklyn, in cinemascope and Eastman color. The film was based on the one-act play of t...
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The Death of Hemingway (An Obituary Fantasy)
1964
Award Presentation to Andy Warhol
7.5/2
In 1964 Film Culture magazine chose Andy Warhol for its annual Independent Film award. The plan was to show some of Andy's films and have Andy come on...
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Award Presentation to Andy Warhol
1968
Diaries, Notes, and Sketches
7.2/30
Also known as Walden, Jonas Mekas’s first diary film is a six-reel chronicle of his life in 1960s New York, interweaving moments with family, friends,...
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Diaries, Notes, and Sketches
1967
Spiracle
0/0
Portrait studies of Mrs. Hodges, Gail Beavers (the filmmaker’s sister) and Gregory J. Markopoulos.
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Spiracle
2000
Sotiros
6.667/3
Distilled in 1996 from an earlier 50-minute trilogy, this 26-minute film was shot in Greece and Austria and structured around two recurring intertitle...
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Sotiros
1987
Due film-maker in giardino - Robert Beavers & Gregory J.Markopoulos
0/0
Short film shot in Rapallo, 1987.
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