Additional info about Matthew Barney
Sculptor-filmmaker Matthew Barney
Notes: MB graduated from Yale and was quarterback of the varsity football team.
His life partner is actress/singer, 'Bjork' gave birth to their first child in 2002.
Daughter, Isadora born October 3, 2002.
Filmography (all titles in "chronological" order):
Drawing Restraint 9 - Director, Actor 2005
Cremaster 3 - Director, The Entered Apprentice, Producer, Writer, Editor 2002
Cremaster 2 - Director, Gary Gilmore, Producer, Writer 1999
Cremaster 5 - Director, Diva/Giant/Magician, Producer, Writer 1997
Cremaster 1 (short) - Director, Producer, Writer, Choreographer 1996
Cremaster 4 (short) - Director, The Loughton Candidate, Producer, Writer 1995
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Notes: MB graduated from Yale and was quarterback of the varsity football team.
His life partner is actress/singer, 'Bjork' gave birth to their first child in 2002.
Daughter, Isadora born October 3, 2002.
Filmography (all titles in "chronological" order):
Drawing Restraint 9 - Director, Actor 2005
Cremaster 3 - Director, The Entered Apprentice, Producer, Writer, Editor 2002
Cremaster 2 - Director, Gary Gilmore, Producer, Writer 1999
Cremaster 5 - Director, Diva/Giant/Magician, Producer, Writer 1997
Cremaster 1 (short) - Director, Producer, Writer, Choreographer 1996
Cremaster 4 (short) - Director, The Loughton Candidate, Producer, Writer 1995
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CREMASTER 4 - don't let the number fool you, this is the FIRST of a five film CYCLE!
CREMASTER 4
First stop in the cycle is a mercifully short intoduction to the genius of artist and 'actor' Matthew Barney -welcome to the weirdness!
2 stars [*SHORT/(1994)US-France-UK /1995 release] - (*42 min.) - IMDb rating: 6.3 (out of 10)
Written and directed by Matthew Barney
Cast ... Characters
Matthew Barney ... The Loughton Candidate
Review (TBA):
[Need to see the C-Cycle AGAIN! -- 1st viewing: Screened in 35mm at the Film Forum (NYC)-Aud. #3/05-06-2003: 01:30pm]
More cast:
Dave Molyneux ... Ascending Hack #1
Graham Molyneux ... Ascending Hack #2
Steve Sinnott ... Descending Hack #1
Kart Sinnott ... Descending Hack #2
Christa Bauch ... Faeries #1
Colette Guimond ... Faeries #2
Sharon Marvel ... Faeries #3
John Stud Jr. ... Loughton Ram
MOVIE WEBSITE
Synopsis (from website):
CREMASTER 4 (1994 / FIRST in the CYCLE) adheres most closely to the project's biological model. This penultimate episode describes the system's onward rush toward descension despite its resistance to division. The logo for this chapter is the Manx triskelion - three identical armored legs revolving around a central axis. Set on the Isle of Man, the film absorbs the island's folklore as well as its more recent incarnation as host to the Tourist Trophy motorcycle race. Myth and machine combine to narrate a story of candidacy, which involves a trial of the will articulated by a series of passages and transformations.
The film comprises three main character zones. The Loughton Candidate (played by Barney) is a satyr with two sets of impacted sockets in his head - four nascent horns, which will eventually grow into those of the mature, Loughton Ram, an ancient breed native to the island. Its horns - two arcing upward, two down - form a diagram that proposes a condition of undifferentiation, with ascension and descension coexisting in equilibrium. The second and third character zones comprise a pair of motorcycle sidecar teams: the Ascending and Descending Hacks. These primary characters are attended to by a trio of fairies who mirror the three narrative fields occupied by the Candidate and the two racing teams. Having no volition of their own, these creatures metamorphose in accordance with whatever field they occupy at any given time.
Cremaster 4 begins and ends in a building on the end of Queen's Pier. As the film starts, the Candidate is being prepared by the fairies for a journey. The motorcycle race begins, and each team speeds off in opposite directions. The camera cuts back and forth between the race and the Candidate, who is tap-dancing his way through a slowly eroding floor. As the bikes vie for the title, the camera pulls in for close-up shots of the riders' torsos.
Gelatinous gonadal forms - undifferentiated internal sex organs - emerge from slots in their uniforms in a migratory quest for directionality. In the case of the Ascending Hack, the organs move upward toward a second set of slots in the leather. With the Descending Hack, they ooze downward.
Back at the pier, the Candidate plunges through the floor into the sea and heads toward the island. At the moment of his fall - a transition from the utopian realm of pregenital oneness to that of bifurcation - the Ascending Hack collides with a stone embankment and the Descending Hack pulls off the course for a pit stop, where the fairies service its motorcycle. The Candidate reaches land and begins to burrow his way up into the body of the island through a curving channel that he must navigate in order to reach the finish line, where the two Hacks will converge. This conduit leads him to a bluff, where the fairies are having a picnic. They frolic in a game that mirrors the conflict enacted by the principal characters, but with none of the tension. Still in his underground tunnel, the Candidate finally reaches his destination.
The Loughton Ram stands at this junction - a symbol for the integration of opposites, the urge for unity that fuels this triple race. But before the Candidate and Hacks meet, the screen goes white. The Candidate's dream of transcending his biology to dwell in the space of pure symmetry is shattered.
In the final sequence at the pier the Hacks are parked on discrete ramps sloping down from the building's exterior. In the closing image the camera peers through an open crotch at the top of the frame toward the end of the pier. A tightly retracted scrotum is pierced with clasps connected to vinyl cords, which trail off to the awaiting Ascending and Descending Hacks, who will drive toward the island to pick up the slack. Full descension is guaranteed.
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CREMASTER 1 is NOT the first one to watch, do your research & get em chronologically!
CREMASTER 1
A blonde goddess pulling two blimps across a football field - what more do could you ever want in a movie!
3 stars [(1995)USA] - (40 min.)
Created by artist Matthew Barney
Locale: Boise State University Football Stadium
Featuring: Marti Domination as 'Goodyear'
Review [1st viewing: Screened at the Film Forum (NYC)-Aud. #3/04-25-03: 7pm]:
Well, I took my first journey into the Cremaster Cycle Friday night. After a brief introduction from performance artist Marti Domination (the blonde under the table in Cremaster 1)...
...I was amused and bemused by this featurette of sorts. With no dialogue and only lilting music to carry the visuals, it does set up what artist-director Matthew Barney has on his mind - namely - internal pathways of the sex organs (fallopian tubes) as patterns of form and movement.
This would make an interesting companion piece to the Andy Goldswothy documentary with his obsession for snakelike ribbons and holes, but here Barney seems more interested with the path followed by the twin ovaries to the vagina.
Hilariously he illuminates this pathway with two Goodyear Blimps over a football stadium with chorus girls forming various shapes on a blue astroturf field (which actually exists).
Worth a look if you can find it at a theater.
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CREMASTER 5 is the THIRD one in Matthew Barney's artistic film CYCLE!!!
CREMASTER 5
Centerpiece of artist Matthew Barney's "Cremaster Cycle" will either blow your mind or send you to dreamland, but be careful, your dreams might lead you back to Barney's world after all!
2 stars [*SHORT(1997)USA] - (*55 min.) - IMDb rating: 6.9 (out of 10)
Written and directed by Matthew Barney
Characters ... Cast
Ursula Andress ... Queen of Chain
Matthew Barney ... Diva/Giant/Magician
Review (TBA):
[Need to see cycle AGAIN! -- 1st viewing: Screened at the Film Forum (NYC)-Aud. #3/05-06-2003: 01:30pm]
Synopsis (from website):
When total descension is finally attained in CREMASTER 5 (1997), it is envisioned as a tragic love story set in the romantic dreamscape of late-nineteenth-Century Budapest. The film is cast in the shape of a lyric opera. Biological metaphors shifted form to inhabit emotional states - longing and despair - that become musical leitmotivs in the orchestral score.
The opera's primary characters - the Queen of Chain (played by Ursula Andress) and her Diva, Magician, and Giant (all played by Barney) - enact collectively the final release promised by the project as a whole.
Cremaster 5 opens with an overture that introduces the opera's characters and lays out the map of Budapest that the narrative will traverse. The Magician crosses the Lánchíd Bridge on horseback. The Queen ascends the staircase of the Hungarian State Opera House with her two ushers. She settles onto her throne in the royal booth, and the ushers arrange a fleet of Jacobin pigeons around her. Pearls float on the surface of the pools in the Gellért Thermal Baths, partially concealing the Füdór sprites, who inhabit their underwater realms. The curtain rises to an empty theater, the conductor readies his orchestra, and the opera begins.
As the Queen sings, her Diva appears on the stage, delineating the proscenium arch of the stage by laying ribbons across its floor and then scaling its contours. The Queen's mind wanders to memories of her beloved Magician preparing for a leap into the waters of the Danube from the Lánchíd Bridge. Stripped naked, he positions plastic shackles over his wrists and ankles, then fits molded gloves on his hands and places weighted balls between his toes. His actions recall the famed bridge jumps of Harry Houdini, who was born in Budapest in 1874. The Magician is seeking transcendence, but the Queen misunderstands his actions and thinks he is trying to take his own life.
The Queen's ushers direct her attention to orifices in her throne through which she can see into the Gellért Baths below. Her birds plummet through the passages in the throne, trailing long satin ribbons into the bath. Her Giant enters the watery path between the two pools, wading through the pearls to hip level. The sprites cluster around him with a garland of ribbons they have woven together out of those attached to the birds. They reach up through the water and affix the garland to the Giant's scrotum. In the warm waters of the thermal baths, the cremaster muscle releases and the testicles descend. This climactic moment - the emergence of a fully differentiated state - is rendered visible when the pigeons soar upward with ribbons trailing.
The Queen then relives the Magician's leap into the river and swoons from the horror of her recollection. At this point the narrative mirrors the path of descension just revealed: having completed his climb, the Diva tumbles to the stage, and the Magician plunges to the bottom of the river, landing, manacled, on a flowerbed. Two water sprites caress his fallen body and insert a black pearl into his mouth. The Queen performs her mournful aria, preparing to join her lover in death. A thin stream of liquid emanates from her mouth, trickling onto her ruffle and throne, then falling into the pools below. On its descent, the stream divides into two droplets that strike the water simultaneously. Two perfect circles resonate outward, filling the surface of the bath with their waves, suggesting, in turn, eternal renewal or the echoes of a system expiring.
The Cremaster cycle defers any definitive conclusion.
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Centerpiece of artist Matthew Barney's "Cremaster Cycle" will either blow your mind or send you to dreamland, but be careful, your dreams might lead you back to Barney's world after all!
2 stars [*SHORT(1997)USA] - (*55 min.) - IMDb rating: 6.9 (out of 10)
Written and directed by Matthew Barney
Characters ... Cast
Ursula Andress ... Queen of Chain
Matthew Barney ... Diva/Giant/Magician
Review (TBA):
[Need to see cycle AGAIN! -- 1st viewing: Screened at the Film Forum (NYC)-Aud. #3/05-06-2003: 01:30pm]
Synopsis (from website):
When total descension is finally attained in CREMASTER 5 (1997), it is envisioned as a tragic love story set in the romantic dreamscape of late-nineteenth-Century Budapest. The film is cast in the shape of a lyric opera. Biological metaphors shifted form to inhabit emotional states - longing and despair - that become musical leitmotivs in the orchestral score.
The opera's primary characters - the Queen of Chain (played by Ursula Andress) and her Diva, Magician, and Giant (all played by Barney) - enact collectively the final release promised by the project as a whole.
Cremaster 5 opens with an overture that introduces the opera's characters and lays out the map of Budapest that the narrative will traverse. The Magician crosses the Lánchíd Bridge on horseback. The Queen ascends the staircase of the Hungarian State Opera House with her two ushers. She settles onto her throne in the royal booth, and the ushers arrange a fleet of Jacobin pigeons around her. Pearls float on the surface of the pools in the Gellért Thermal Baths, partially concealing the Füdór sprites, who inhabit their underwater realms. The curtain rises to an empty theater, the conductor readies his orchestra, and the opera begins.
As the Queen sings, her Diva appears on the stage, delineating the proscenium arch of the stage by laying ribbons across its floor and then scaling its contours. The Queen's mind wanders to memories of her beloved Magician preparing for a leap into the waters of the Danube from the Lánchíd Bridge. Stripped naked, he positions plastic shackles over his wrists and ankles, then fits molded gloves on his hands and places weighted balls between his toes. His actions recall the famed bridge jumps of Harry Houdini, who was born in Budapest in 1874. The Magician is seeking transcendence, but the Queen misunderstands his actions and thinks he is trying to take his own life.
The Queen's ushers direct her attention to orifices in her throne through which she can see into the Gellért Baths below. Her birds plummet through the passages in the throne, trailing long satin ribbons into the bath. Her Giant enters the watery path between the two pools, wading through the pearls to hip level. The sprites cluster around him with a garland of ribbons they have woven together out of those attached to the birds. They reach up through the water and affix the garland to the Giant's scrotum. In the warm waters of the thermal baths, the cremaster muscle releases and the testicles descend. This climactic moment - the emergence of a fully differentiated state - is rendered visible when the pigeons soar upward with ribbons trailing.
The Queen then relives the Magician's leap into the river and swoons from the horror of her recollection. At this point the narrative mirrors the path of descension just revealed: having completed his climb, the Diva tumbles to the stage, and the Magician plunges to the bottom of the river, landing, manacled, on a flowerbed. Two water sprites caress his fallen body and insert a black pearl into his mouth. The Queen performs her mournful aria, preparing to join her lover in death. A thin stream of liquid emanates from her mouth, trickling onto her ruffle and throne, then falling into the pools below. On its descent, the stream divides into two droplets that strike the water simultaneously. Two perfect circles resonate outward, filling the surface of the bath with their waves, suggesting, in turn, eternal renewal or the echoes of a system expiring.
The Cremaster cycle defers any definitive conclusion.
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CREMASTER 2 - Fourth film of the Cycle!
CREMASTER 2
Intriguing first half strangely morphs into a historical anecdote!
2 stars [(1999)USA] - (1 hr. 19 min.)
Directed & written by Mathew Barney
Characters/Cast
Harry Houdini - Norman Mailer
Gary Gilmore - Mathew Barney
Review [1st viewing: Screened at the Film Forum (NYC)-Aud. #3/04-25-03: 8pm]:
Not as accessible as "Cremaster 1" is the overlong (79 min. felt like 2 hours) Cremaster fourth installment, which after offering a thinly concealed pornographic episode proceeds to add the following historical characters: magician Harry Houdini, killer Gary Gilmore and Gilmore's singing girlfriend (the 'psychic' connection being that Norman Mailer plays 'Houdini,' but Mailer's also the author of the Gary Gilmore bio "The Executioner's Song.")
As usual, Barney shows off his creative artistic ability by amazingly transforming normal objects like chairs, saddles, and even vintage Ford mustangss into extensions of sexual behavior.
Unlike "Cremaster 1," the actors do get to talk in this one, but sadly, the dialogue seems to detract rather than explain. Much worse are the actors themselves including Norman Mailer as 'Houdini' and Barney himself as 'Gilmore,' who seem more amateurish than even the bimbo models in "Cremaster 1."
Repeated viewing, research on the subject, and/or knowledge of the entire cycle may make the connection between these characters clearer than the film does. However, I'm beginning to find that the only real way to appreciate each film to its fullest extent is to view them in context of the entire cycle.
More cast:
Baby Fay La Foe - Anonymous
Bessie Gilmore - Lauren Pine
Frank Gilmore - Scot Ewalt
Nicole Baker - Patty Griffin
Max Jensen - Michael Thompson
Johnny Cash (With Drums) - Dave Lombardo
Johnny Cash (With Bees) - Bruce Steele
Johnny Cash (Voice) - Steve Tucker
Two-step Dancers - Cat Kubic, Sam Jalhej
Brahma Bull - #55
French Bulldog - Jacqueline Molasses
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Intriguing first half strangely morphs into a historical anecdote!
2 stars [(1999)USA] - (1 hr. 19 min.)
Directed & written by Mathew Barney
Characters/Cast
Harry Houdini - Norman Mailer
Gary Gilmore - Mathew Barney
Review [1st viewing: Screened at the Film Forum (NYC)-Aud. #3/04-25-03: 8pm]:
Not as accessible as "Cremaster 1" is the overlong (79 min. felt like 2 hours) Cremaster fourth installment, which after offering a thinly concealed pornographic episode proceeds to add the following historical characters: magician Harry Houdini, killer Gary Gilmore and Gilmore's singing girlfriend (the 'psychic' connection being that Norman Mailer plays 'Houdini,' but Mailer's also the author of the Gary Gilmore bio "The Executioner's Song.")
As usual, Barney shows off his creative artistic ability by amazingly transforming normal objects like chairs, saddles, and even vintage Ford mustangss into extensions of sexual behavior.
Unlike "Cremaster 1," the actors do get to talk in this one, but sadly, the dialogue seems to detract rather than explain. Much worse are the actors themselves including Norman Mailer as 'Houdini' and Barney himself as 'Gilmore,' who seem more amateurish than even the bimbo models in "Cremaster 1."
Repeated viewing, research on the subject, and/or knowledge of the entire cycle may make the connection between these characters clearer than the film does. However, I'm beginning to find that the only real way to appreciate each film to its fullest extent is to view them in context of the entire cycle.
More cast:
Baby Fay La Foe - Anonymous
Bessie Gilmore - Lauren Pine
Frank Gilmore - Scot Ewalt
Nicole Baker - Patty Griffin
Max Jensen - Michael Thompson
Johnny Cash (With Drums) - Dave Lombardo
Johnny Cash (With Bees) - Bruce Steele
Johnny Cash (Voice) - Steve Tucker
Two-step Dancers - Cat Kubic, Sam Jalhej
Brahma Bull - #55
French Bulldog - Jacqueline Molasses
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CREMASTER 3 - The final installment (chronologically) of a 5 film 'art' cycle?
CREMASTER 3
Only fans of Matthew Barney's artistic talent will truly appreciate this epic (and I'm not one of them -yet)!
2 stars [(2002)USA/2003 release] - (2 hrs. 58 min - Pt.1: 91 min/Pt.2: 87 min)
Writer, director, artist, co-star: Matthew Barney
Character/Cast
Hiram Abiff - Richard Serra
The Entered Apprentice - Matthew Barney
The Entered Novitiate/Oonagh MacCumhail - Aimee Mullins
Performance cameos/Featured bands:
Murphy's Law
Agnostic Front
Review (1st viewing):
Bizarre mythic opening scene is soon left behind as the viewer is taken to more equally bizarre scenarios. Artist-sculptor-filmmaker Matthew Barney completes his 5 film cycle (parts 4 and 5 were shot earlier, he has his own numbering system, too) and now Barney-philes are able to see all of them back-to-back. In 2003, there wass also an art installation that travelled the country and further enhanced the Cremaster experience as Barney included his many sculptures in each of his films.
The serpentine forms will probably resonate much more for art enthusiasts than general theater-goers which is why you should probably do a little research before sitting in on the massive conclusion to four equally bizarre films.
New Yorkers may thrill to sight of the venerable Chrysler building being wrapped in ribbon as it seemingly ejaculates like the large phallic symbols that skyscrapers are wont to be.
MORE cast:
Cloud Club Maitre D' - Paul Brady
Cloud Club Barman - Terry Gillespie
Grand Master - Mike Bocchetti
Grand Master - David Edward Campbell
Grand Master - James Pantoleon
Grand Master - Jim Tooey
Gary Gilmore - Nesrin Karanouh
Fionn MacCumhail -- Peter D. Badalamenti
Fingal - The Mighty Biggs
Featured bands: Murphy's Law, Agnostic Front
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