The Illiac Passion

The Illiac Passion
Directed by	Gregory Markopoulos
Based on	Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus
Release date	April 1968 (1968-04)
Running time	90 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

The Illiac Passion is a 1968 American avant-garde film directed by Gregory Markopoulos.

Production

Jerome Hiler was an assistant on The Illiac Passion, working on costumes and scouting locations.^[1] Working titles for the film were Prometheus Bound, Himself as Himself, and Eternity.^[2] The soundtrack is based on a recording of Markopoulos reading Henry David Thoreau's translation of Prometheus Bound.^[3]

Release

The Illiac Passion premiered at the Film-Maker's Cinematheque in April 1968.^[4] The film screened at the fourth Knokke-Le-Zoute Experimental Film Festival [fr] in 1967. The festival jury made the controversial decision not to consider The Illiac Passion for any prizes, since Markopoulos had previously won for Twice a Man.^[5] A planned 1980 screening at the National Gallery of Athens was cancelled out of concern that the film contained nudity.^[6] The Illiac Passion is now part of Anthology Film Archives' Essential Cinema Repertory collection.^[7]

References

1. MacDonald 2006, p. 81.
2. Michelakis 2013, p. 91.
3. Markopoulos, Gregory (1972). "Love's Task (On Robert Beavers' New Film)". Film Culture. Vol. 53–55. p. 94.
4. Adler, Renata (April 19, 1968). "The Screen: Markopoulos From the Underground". The New York Times. Retrieved July 2, 2024.
5. Sitney, P. Adams (October 1968). "Report on the Fourth International Experimental Film Exposition at Knokke-le-Zoute". Film Culture. Vol. 46. p. 7.
6. Balsom 2017, pp. 204–205.
7. "Essential Cinema". Anthology Film Archives. Retrieved September 28, 2024.

Bibliography

• Balsom, Erika (2017). After Uniqueness: A History of Film and Video Art in Circulation. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-17692-7.
• MacDonald, Scott (2006). A Critical Cinema 5: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-93908-0.
• Michelakis, Pantelis (2013). Greek Tragedy on Screen. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-923907-8.

External links

• The Illiac Passion at IMDb 
• The Illiac Passion at the Temenos