 Perhaps the epitome of the Renaissance man, Dr Donald Levy was a prodigiously
talented polymath who started out life succeeding in everything to which he set
his highly inquisitive mind. Yet towards the end of his life his ambitions
turned to failure and he died in relative obscurity, where he sadly remains
today.
Born in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia, Levy showed an early aptitude
for science and athletics. A scholarship took him to Cambridge University to do
a PhD in Theoretical Chemical Physics, but he was soon drawn to creative
activities. He quickly attracted attention for his remarkably diverse talents as
painter, jazz musician and prime mover of the university Film Society.
He gravitated to London's Slade School of Fine Art, where his science
background won him his first opportunity to make professional films for the
Nuffield Foundation, for which he made a series of short science documentaries,
the most successful being Time Is (1963), an inventive exploration of humanity's
changing perception of time, cleverly explored in a time-based medium.
While still prolific at the Nuffield Unit, he secured a grant from the
British Film Institute's Experimental Film Fund to make a short film inspired by
the legend of Herostratus, who reputedly burnt down the Temple of Artemis at
Ephesus with the intention of achieving immortal fame. Adapting the legend to
the present day, the film was to be a critique of the failure of postwar values
manifesting as selfish fame-seeking.
But funding fell short of Levy's vision, and shooting was frequently
interrupted as cast and crew-members, working for little or no pay, were forced
to take breaks to earn a living. Eventually the film's producer, former BFI
director James Quinn, personally financed its completion in 1967, five years
after its initial conception. Despite being well received in Europe, when it was
finally premiered at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts, Herostratus met
indifference in Britain. The few surviving prints show it to be a flawed yet
highly perceptive dissection of 1960s idealism, seduced by the Mephistophelian
deception of market forces and the empty promise of mass media celebrity.
Disappointed with Britain, in 1968 he accepted a post as visiting artist at
Harvard University. In 1970, he began teaching at the newly formed California
Institute of the Arts, alongside the more classically-minded but similarly
maverick director Alexander Mackendrick. Like Mackendrick, Levy found great
fulfilment in his new role as teacher and mentor.
For the remainder of his life, he conducted experiments with moving image
work, particularly with video. Unfortunately, none of these projects came to
fruition and finally, frustrated by his thwarted ambitions, Levy took his own
life in 1987. Five years later, Michael Gothard, who played Levy's Herostratus,
would do the same.
Stuart Heaney
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FILM & TV CREDITS
