From: Chuck Kleinhans (email suppressed)
Date: Tue Dec 01 2009 - 14:49:13 PST
I appreciate this elaboration by Marc and Fred. As I said, I'm no
Markopoulos expert; Ron Gregg would be the right person to ask for
more details.
I think Fred is right about Markopoulos' life long and deep
involvement with classical Greece. It might be interesting for
someone to work out more of the use of sanctified high culture by
pre-Stonewall gay male filmmakers, since it seems one prevalent
strategy for validating a stigmatized sexuality. We can see some of
this in Blood of a Poet and other Cocteau films, some parts of
Kenneth Anger's work, Willard Maas (I'm thinking of Images in the
Snow with its strong Catholic overtones), and perhaps Charles Henri
Ford and Charles Boultenhouse (haven't seen their work for ages, so
I'm guessing there). After a certain point it seems that the outlaw
and bike boy, drag queen and superstar (to use Juan Suárez's book)
themes and images took over which are much more clearly resident in
camp. Another way to pursue this might be through re-reading Parker
Tyler's analysis of "sleepwalkers" and Sitney's use of them to
define the trance film and look at Markopoulos through that lens.
CHUCK
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