"For me, locations and beautiful people have always been the backbone of my work."-G.M., 1967While a student at USC, Markopoulos wrote the screenplay Prometheus Bound, based on Aeschylus's play, which eventually became the basis for his epic The Illiac Passion. Filmed in 1964, edited in 1965, it was finally seen in 1967. Featuring Richard Beauvais as Prometheus, The Illiac Passion includes performances by Gregory Battock, Gerard Malanga, Taylor Mead, Paul Swain, Andy Warhol, and Markopoulos, in what Markopoulos refers to as "a testament to the New York scene, to the aura of filmmaking at that time." Markopoulos further commented, "I allowed myself to depart, to drift, to journey among the motions of the players I found during my odyssey; until finally, in the final version of The Illiac Passion, the players become but the molecules of the nude protagonist, gyrating and struggling, all in love, bound and unbound, from situation to situation in the vast sea of emotion which becomes the filmmaker's proudest endeavor." The soundtrack consists of Markopoulos's creative reading, with repetitions and silences, of Thoreau's translation of Prometheus Bound.