THE ILLIAC PASSION (Gregory Markopoulos, USA, 1964-1967, 16mm)
"While in his writings Markopoulos posited the timelessness of classical themes, his treatment of myth -- in narratives that are fueled by sensuality and interior experience -- was startlingly modern. He spoke of deploying "incarnate individuals or character figures" instead of actors. The vitality of his approach is exemplified in his imaginative casting of 23 friends and underground figures, including Andy Warhol, Jack Smith, and Taylor Mead, as mythical beings in... The Illiac Passion. Kristin M. Jones
"Among these film spectators, the New World Spectators,there will be those who are ready to understand, who are not too tired to understand the simple method of the images; the simple and rich method of the filmmaker singing his images to Aeschylus' play and to the Greek myths; the filmmaker chanting the remarkable translation of Prometheus Bound by the American Thoreau.Who will not pause to breathe freer; who will not pause to consider how the characters of The Illiac Passion are bound and unbound in their passions; who will not pause to be immersed in my lake of Remembrance and Forgetfulness." Markopoulos