William Greaves
- 1971Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One
- 1972Nationtime
- 2005Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2½
An actor turned documentary maker who sent three film crews into Central Park and kept the footage of them turning on the production.
Greaves joined the Actors Studio in 1948, alongside Marlon Brando and Julie Harris, and acted on stage and in films such as Miracle in Harlem. Disillusioned with the roles open to Black performers, he left for Canada and the National Film Board, where he worked for years in production before directing and editing Emergency Ward (1959).
Back in the United States he became co-host and then executive producer of the television series Black Journal, which won him an Emmy in 1969. His documentary Nationtime recorded the 1972 National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana.
Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One, shot in Central Park in 1968, went undistributed until a 1991 retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum. Steve Buscemi saw it at Sundance in 1992, and he and Steven Soderbergh helped Greaves find distribution and the money for a sequel. Take One joined the National Film Registry in 2015. Greaves died at home in Manhattan in 2014.
Films
Where to start with William Greaves, in the order they were made. Runtimes are approximate.
Still from Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One to come. Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One
Greaves plays the director of a fictional film in Central Park, with one crew on the actors, a second filming the first, and a third filming everything else. When the crews start to sow dissent, that goes in too. Shot in 1968.
Nationtime
A record of the National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana, narrated by Sidney Poitier. An 80-minute restoration was released in 2020.
Still from Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2½ to come. Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2½
Greaves returns 35 years later and picks up the story of two of the actors from the original.