The
title of sculptor/video artist Matthew Barney's
latest film is doubly misleading 'cremaster'
refers not to some pulp action hero, but the
muscle regulating the secondary male reproductive
organs, and the film is the fourth, not second,
of a five-part cycle.
The
confusion doesn't end there. Barney's stunning
HDTV images of beehives, glaciers, strange sticky
substances, mute dancers, Barney himself (as
executed murderer Gary Gilmore) and Norman Mailer
(in a cameo as escape artist Harry Houdini)
may not immediately add up.
But
a dip into Gilmore lore offers the key to understanding
the references and symbolism of Barney's initially
maddening, but ultimately rewarding cinematic
experiment. Hints: Gary Gilmore's grandmother
supposedly had an affair with Houdini, and bees
are the symbol of Gilmore's home state, Utah.
by
Matthew Barney