Gregory Markopoulos: Twice a Man Twice

Gregory J. Markopoulos (1928−1992) grew up in Toledo, Ohio, as the child of Greek immigrants, but returned to Greece in 1967. After twenty years of making films in the United States, he decided, based on his idealistic vision of artistic and professional independence, to bring his films together in the Temenos Film Project. He stubbornly guarded the release of his oeuvre together with his partner, filmmaker Robert Beavers, which meant that his films were ultimately rarely screened. In 2011 – 2012, Art Cinema OFFoff already presented a four-part retrospective of his work (1, 2, 3, 4).

Markopoulos’ oeuvre has since attained iconic status within the landscape of experimental cinema. Twice a Man plays a central role in his body of work as it already hints at his later vision of ​“film as film” through the condensed concentration on flashes of individual frames, which Markopoulos calls ​“film phrases” or ​“thought images.” From the late 1960s onwards, his idea of ​“film as film” was to concentrate radically on the essential parameters of the medium.

Less well known is that Markopoulos showed an alternative, performative version of the film in 1966. He projected two copies of Twice a Man side by side, one running forward and one running backward. The sound is only preserved on the projector showing the film forwards. At the midpoint of the film, both copies show the same image, although one is reversed. This alternative version was restaged for the first time earlier this year at CIRCUIT Centre d’art contemporain in Lausanne as part of the exhibition Film as Film, Archive as Creation dedicated to Gregory J. Markopoulos and the Temenos project. Art Cinema OFFoff is honored to be the second venue to present Twice a Man Twice.

The screening of Twice a Man Twice is accompanied by two other films by Markopoulos: Sorrows, an elegant miniature filmed at Wagner’s home on January 22, 1969, and Political Portraits (excerpt), five dynamic portraits of Ulrich Herzog, Marcia Haydée, Giorgio di Chirico, Rudolph Nureyev and Hulda Zumsteg.

→ In collaboration with Cinema Parenthèse that presents the program at Projection Room in Brussels on Sunday, December 14.