Writing on the cinema Virginia Woolf has said,

‘We should see violent changes of emotion produced by their collision. The most fantastic contrasts could be flashed before us with a speed which the writer can only toil after in vain …’ [from The Captain’s Death Bed And Other Essays]

It was after such a joyous collision between Robert C. Freeman, Jr., and myself in 1950 that the motion picture Swain took shape. In the beginning, as I will reveal to you presently, Swain was anything but Swain. It was only later that Swain became Swain. Only with the discovery of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s first work did the outline of Swain become apparent. And as always in the tradition of the filmmaker’s most important personal revelation, it gathered its content through the filmmaker’s very soul and visual powers after and beyond the tale by Hawthorne. […]

Fanshawe was published by Marsh and Capen, 362 Washington Street, at the press of Putnam and Hunt. The opening pages of the book reveal in great detail, ‘the present state of Harley College …’ However, as I recall, this is not what intrigued me, rather it was the following passage which is a description of one of the characters in the book referred to as the Stranger. The Stranger was like, ‘a ruler in a world of his own and independent of the beings that surrounded him.” It was thus this character of the Stranger blended in my own imagination with the figure of young Fanshawe that gave immediate birth among those mysteries which are creativity to Swain, the hero of the film. And as in Hawthorne’s quote from Southey at the beginning of the book, ‘Wilt thou go on with me?’ – I proceeded with fantastic speed.

– Gregory J. Markopoulos, From Fanshawe to Swain

The motion picture Twice a Man adapts the Hippolytus legend to modern experience, and is designed to enhance the survival of classical patterns and classical learning as a vital factor of our present-day culture. I am deeply convinced that film as a creative product is as essential as the documentation and scientific investigation carried on through filmic means. Moreover, I believe that the United States is obliged, especially in this era of cultural exchange, to make an extra effort to maintain the prestige of its filmmaking in the face of the great prestige recently won in this country by creative films from abroad. [….]

I wish to demonstrate […] a new narrative form which is based on very brief film-phrases used in clusters to evoke thought through imagery. What I call the 'thought image' thus holds both psychological and aesthetic charges. It intensifies and builds up the visual theme while dialogue and music are worked in as heightening elements. Since ultimately the vigour of the content depends, I believe, on the adequacy and unity of the form, I have striven toward a synthesis having great economy.

This attempt to summarize turning points and climaxes with decisive effect is evident in my previous works: In Psyche, at the end, brief 'clips' from previous scenes reintegrate the whole; Swain was marked by the same device. In my most recently completed work, Serenity, the urgent climax provided in this way is parallel with the stream-of-consciousness in literature. My current project being more elaborate, the same device is used in saturation and modulates the whole narrative.

– Gregory J. Markopoulos, Statement on Twice a Man

I sincerely believe that the filmmaker must become enamoured of the odour of celluloid, splicing cement, projection exhalations; he must feel the exhilaration through the pores of his skin. With each 100' reel that he projects he must learn to discard all excess footage. Later he will realize that what he has been discarding is the clue to his particular film form. He must continue filming; he must continue working. He must never be obsessed with any formula save that always tentative formula which in time will become his style. He must seek neither Fantasy nor Reality. Such a filmmaker must miraculously approach himself, and recognize the single world myth within him: the eternal fire that in destroying unites man. He must abhor Psychological and Sociological implications. What he contains of the passions of humankind will become apparent soon enough as he maintains the normal pace of his native creative needs. The blossom that he imparts from himself to his spectators will be his work and will embrace, naturally, the deepest relation to those few of his spectators who will grasp the total work. Those few will understand, they will recognise the very terrible, daily encounter of the filmmaker’s Sight and Sound. Others will barely perceive the intent of a particular work. Still others will vault a beautiful work, jealous and fearful of its beauty.

– Gregory J. Markopoulos, Inherent Limitations