About

Sorrows 1969

A study of the exterior and interior of Richard Wagner’s chateau in Triebschen, Switzerland. The chateau was a gift to Wagner from King Ludwig of Bavaria. Sorrows was edited in-camera and is set to an excerpt from Beethoven’s third symphony.

8 minutes | Ages 15+

The Illiac Passion 1964-1967

After Twice a Man 1963, Markopoulos again brings life to Greek myth in the energetic metropolis of 1960s New York City. In this case, his sources include Aeschylus’s 'Prometheus Bound', and the myths of Narcissus and Echo, Icarus and Daedalus, Orpheus and Eurydice.

Several New York artists take part, including Andy Warhol as Poseidon, entering on an exercycle, the underground poet Taylor Mead as a demon, and the filmmaker Jack Smith as Orpheus. Besides Poseidon, the other characters from Aeschylus’s play who appear are the protagonist Prometheus (the perpetually naked Richard Beauvais) and Io (Clara Hoover, to whom Twice a Man was dedicated). These several East Village personalities are accompanied by “the swinging skyscrapers of New York City”—the film’s Greek chorus.

Markopoulos is distinctly present in the film. He can be heard on the soundtrack reading from Henry David Thoreau’s translation of Aeschylus. He called the film— which tracks Prometheus’s journey through New York; through colour, light, and sound, the world of film itself—“the spoken and visual Odyssean journey of the filmmaker.”

92 minutes | Ages 15+