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Matthew Barney's "Cremaster Cycle" is currently in limited release in arthouse cinemas.
For those who don't know of them, The Cremaster Cycle is a five-part series of feature-length art films created by football-player-turned-model-turned-artist Matthew Barney, described by the New York Times as the "most important artist of his generation." The title is in reference to the male muscle that controls the descension of the testicles, and serves as a metaphor for the process of creation.
On the enthusiastic recommendation of one of my studiomates I went to go see Cremaster 3, the final part of the series (although it's part 3 of 5, the films were created out of sequence, with the third part being the "finale"). It's the longest and most elaborate of the series, and is, among other things, a retelling of the key tale in Masonic lore, the murder of King Solomon's chief architect Hiram Abiff by his disciple, set in New York's Chrysler building.
The film is incredibly long (over 3 hours) and moves at a glacially slow pace, but I was completely fascinated throughout by the imagery, which is beautiful (even when it's grotesque - such as rotting, dripping horse-corpses running a race, and a character shitting his own teeth out through a fleshy tube protruding from his anus) and perfectly realized, with photography, costuming and set design that rivals most high-budget Hollywood productions.
The day after seeing C3 I rented the dvd of "The Order," the final 30 minute sequence of the film, which is actually a coda to the entire series, a summation of the entire project, in which Barney scales the interior of the Guggenheim museum, trying to accomplish a task on each of the museum's five levels, which reflect each of the five films in the series. I rented it to listen to Barney's commentary track, and was delighted to hear that he *didn't* sound like he was full of shit - I've had to suffer through a lot of ridiculous bullshit justifications for Art-with-a-captial-A, and this wasn't one of them. His explanation for the film was fascinating and illuminating.
Anyway, I'm hoping to catch the remaining 4 films in the series before they leave cinemas. I've heard that they vary in quality, with the earlier films having a much lower budget and being shot on video, but are still very much worthy of being seen.
Has anyone else seen any or all of the series, and if so what did you think? I'm very interested in discussing the symbolism and themes of the films, and I figure this is the best place to do it... |
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