Contemporary artist Matthew Barney’s “Cremaster Cycle” is part of a “$25,000 Pyramid”-worthy list of things that are classically long. “War and Peace.” Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy’s marriage. Last year’s Wimbledon men’s final between Roger Federer and Andy Roddick. Gene Simmons’ tongue. But only “Cremaster” has spurred dissertation about the space of the possible and the ontological nature of the corporeal (sorry, Gene!). It’s also impossible to see in its entirety. tag
If you’re willing to see the “Cremaster” series as dreams, that’s several hours inside Barney’s mindscape, explored in five separate sleeps. Accordingly, they work effectively as a parody of Hollywood blockbusting entertainment: sequels, a vast complex of self- referential feats, merchandising and an inscrutable mega- star. Barney directed, wrote, coproduced and stars in each film, in addition to conceiving and creating the sculptures.
The cycle refers to creation — the birth, enactment, death and regeneration of an idea, of a myth and of self. And it alludes rather vividly to the reproductive and endocrine systems, while dismantling what we find comfortable or familiar about masculinity — namely Barney’s. The Busby Berkeley-inspired pageant in the crisp “Cremaster 1,” from 1995, features a troupe of dancing girls and is topped off by a hostess guiding two Goodyear blimps as though they were party balloons.
The films were not numbered or released in chronological order; “Cremaster 4,” the first in the series, appeared 16 years ago, and “Cremaster 1” came the next year. But seen in numerical order they suggest a continuum. The cycle culminates with “Cremaster 3,” the conclusive fifth installment, which was released in 2005. Of the five, “3” is the most unknowable, the most richly open to interpretation, and by far the longest at 182 minutes. It’s also the only one whose digital-video format is the most cinematically murky, and the most cryptic and deeply haunted.
“Cremaster 4” and “Cremaster 5” are experiments on smaller scales, with templates — hypersexualized drag races and opera as magic-realist feudalism, respectively — that were easier to unravel. “Cremaster 3” is the sum of its previous parts and something entirely new, characterized by Barney’s anxiety to wrap up this cycle. The sight of him transformed as a bloody- mouthed grotesque working to stop molten Vaseline from oozing to the bottom of the Guggenheim Museum produces stress, exacerbated by the organized chaos around him. That chaos comes courtesy of the manly sculptor Richard Serra playing a loosely villainous version of himself.
The cycle’s final installment is not as visually striking as its predecessors. Its having been shot on film gives the work a gravity that deflates the surrealist gloss of the other four movies. Even stranger, it feels more familiar. The stuff in the Chrysler Building reminded me of Joel and Ethan Coen’s “Barton Fink” and Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.” The previous chapters’ visual allusions were more elusive, and less obvious. One of the images in “Cremaster 2,” a stretched-out car interior evoking a sort of vinyl-lined birth canal, comes to mind.
The short, “De Lama Lâmina,” is another unknowable metaphorical conflation of eroticism, ritual, spectacle, industry and bodily surrealism that’s being shown with Parts 4 and 5. But, really, the phallus once again is the star. Barney made the film with the American experimental musician Arto Lindsay, who sings and plays his guitar while atop a truck surrounded by Brazilian Carnival pageantry.
The fascinating opening shot presents a soft black object writhing ever so gently on a sloped surface covered in grain, leaves and white powdery fuzz. Is it a slug, a bud, what? It’s eventually clear what we are looking at (in Portuguese, the title means “from mud, a blade”). Although, what Barney is up to remains an exhilarating obscurity.
For a good stretch, we have no idea what’s happening or where we are. What emerges is a nude male figure rigged to the undercarriage of a truck not far from where Lindsay and his band are playing. Vegetation sprouts (or explodes) from most of his orifices. He holds a stuffed monkey. On the platform above, a woman has her way with a tree (the credits mention the arbor activist Julia Butterfly Hill) whose clipped limbs are outfitted with what looks like prophylactic baby bottles. The short could be used as a primer for the main attraction. But it’s just as effective as a chaser for the films that precede it.
With Barney, the question arises: Are these works of art cinema or an Olympic endurance test? They’re both, really. On one hand, completing the cycle is its own reward. On the other, what Barney is trying to work out — his place in a self-contained, self-made historical aesthetic space — is far from universal. But what he’s done is more compelling than what it all means: He’s done a shot-for-shot remake of his subconscious.
“CREMASTER CYCLE (1-5) & DE LAMA LAMINA.”
Unrated.Starring Marti Domination, Norman Mailer, Richard Serra, Matthew Barney and Ursula Andress; directed by Matthew Barney. Opens today for a special one-week engagement at Chez Artiste.
