CINEMA PARENTHÈSE #46 presents TWICE A MAN TWICE: GREGORY J. MARKOPOULOS
The Greek-born American filmmaker Gregory J. Markopoulos (1928-1992) was one of the most original filmmakers in American experimental film history. His films, which often translated literary or mythological sources to a contemporary context, are celebrated for their extraordinary creativity, the sensuous use of color and innovations in cinematic form.
Under the statement “film as film”, his films focus on portraits of people or the investigation of places, and/or on adaptations of literary texts or Hellenic myths. Since the 1940s, his films have contributed to the renewal of visionary cinema. A spokesman for the New American Cinema Group and a pioneer of experimental film and poetry cinema, he nevertheless broke with the independent filmmakers’ cooperative movement in 1967, when he and filmmaker Robert Beavers left for Europe. With complete autonomy, he reoriented his work around a utopian project, The Temenos, conceived as an archive, a place of work and cinematographic creation. His last epic work, Eniaios (1948-1990, circa 80 hours), which re-edits his earlier films and integrates new sequences in a new order, is screened every four years in the open air at Temenos, a site in Arcadia, Greece, next to his father’s native village.
TWICE A MAN (1963, 45'00) marks a turning point in Markopoulos’ cinematographic work, introducing a new mode of editing which alternates between still shots and bursts of autonomous photograms (varying in scale from one to a dozen). Twice a Man is an adaptation of the Hippolytus legend, transposed to 1960s New York. The film is driven by three main points of identification: the character of Hippolytus (Paul Kilb), resurrected by Asclepius; his lover, the artist-physician (Albert Torgesen); and Phaedra, portrayed as a young woman (Olympia Dukakis) or an elderly mother (Violet Roditi).
TWICE A MAN TWICE, on the other side, refers to a 1966 performance piece at the Film-Maker's Cinematheque (founded by Jonas Mekas 1964) in New York when Markopoulos projected two copies of the film simultaneously side-by-side, one running forward and one backward, as an experiment in expanded cinema. For a brief moment at the midpoint of the projection, both copies showed the same image, although one is reversed. The sound was only preserved on the projector showing the film forwards. 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. Cinema Parenthése will be the second venue to present Twice a Man Twice.
In collaboration with Project(ion) Room and Art Cinema OffOff.
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PROGRAM
INTRODUCTION
Xavier Garcia Bardon - Historical experimental film researcher, film curator and specialist on the EXPRMNTL Festival in Knokke.
SORROWS
1969 | 16mm | color | sound | 7'00
Sorrow is a lyrical portrait which moves from a chilled and misty exterior to the crystalline interior of the Tribschen villa that King Ludwig II built for Wagner and his family. In tones of Beethoven's opera Fidelio, this Swiss chateau is bathed in dazzling light through numerous windows in different rooms with superimpositions made directly in the camera.
TWICE A MAN TWICE
1963/1966 | 2x16mm | color | sound | 45'00
Twice a Man is a sensual film based on the Greek myth of the asexual Hippolytus (in which a young man rejects the incestuous advances of his stepmother, Phaedra), transposed to 1960s New York. The film is characterized by "mythopoeic" elements, sensuous colors and a mosaic of "thought images" that shift tenses and compress time, creating a "landscape of emotion" rather than a linear narrative. With its elliptical imagery, non-linear structure of fragmented and symbolic imagery and allusions to the myth (such as a ferry ride that represents a passage to the underworld), Twice a Man is a milestone in the field of American experimental film history.
POLITICAL PORTRAITS
1969 | 16mm | color | silent | 18'00 (extract)
The original version of Political Portraits consists of 23 portraits depicting artistic, literary, and cinematic figures whom Markopoulos met in Europe in the late 1960s. Each portrait lasts the length of a 16mm reel (approximately three minutes) and was filmed directly in the camera, using multiple superimpositions. Temenos preserves a segment of five portraits of Ulrich Herzog, Marcia Haydée, Giorgio di Chirico, Rudolph Nureyev and Hulda Zumsteg. Markopoulos said of the portraits: “I call them political portraits in the Greek sense, daily living.”
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PROJECT(ION) ROOM
Rue de Praetere 55
1180 Uccle
Date: Dec 14, 2025
Time: 19:30
Entrance: 8€/5€
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With the support of Vlaams Audivisueel Fonds (VAF) and The Flemish Community Commission (VGC)
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