Racing Dead Horses. Dental Torture. The Usual.

[Dave Monroe]

>From Stephen Holden, "Racing Dead Horses. Dental
Torture. The Usual," NY Times, Wed., May 15th, 2002
...

The scaly spire of the Chrysler Building in New York
City is the summit of all dreams in "Cremaster 3," the
centerpiece of Matthew Barney's deliriously esoteric
five-part epic cycle exploring artistic creation and
destruction. Images of that spire, poking through
clouds like the needled head of a giant swordfish
jabbing into heaven, recur throughout this three-hour
movie, which opens today at the Film Forum. 

With its spiky Art Deco crown, that skyscraper is a
potent symbol of demonically ambitious creativity in a
film that celebrates the twin urges to build and
destroy as inseparable (and irrational) compulsions.
At its most powerful, the largely wordless film evokes
this theme with thrilling rushes of imagery, music and
visual humor.

Along with its obsessive devotion to the esoteric
(especially the lore surrounding Freemasonry),
"Cremaster 3" exudes the fizz of a Busby Berkeley
musical and the visceral excitement of a sports
extravaganza. In its decidedly masculine view of
artistic aspiration, it is spiritually synonymous with
strenuous athletic competition and a rage for order,
in which all things are named, numbered, ranked.

[...]

"Cremaster 3" is the largest and final piece in a
cycle that was filmed out of order (4, 1, 5, 2, 3)
beginning in 1994 and that has already been canonized
as a major work of contemporary fine art. Until now
the series has remained an art-world phenomenon
outside the consciousness of the moviegoing public. 

Within the museum and gallery axis that nurtured it,
however, it has spun off a cottage industry of
sculptures, photographs, drawings and videos. Next
month, the film cycle and related projects will embark
on a world tour.

Those who have followed the "Cremaster" cycle know
that its umbrella title comes from the name of the set
of muscles controlling testicular contractions in
response to external stimuli.

That title is anything but frivolous, since the sex
drive is a prime component of artistic creativity....

[...]

Like the other four films in the cycle, "Cremaster 3"
is an intricately structured work of personal
mythology whose creator has described the whole as "a
sexually driven digestive system." The film, which has
its slow patches, is unabashedly in love with its own
labyrinthine mysteries. And in compacting
architectural theory, Celtic mythology, the history of
Freemasonry; and parodying several movie genres , it
creates a puzzle to beat all puzzles. 

... To my eyes, at least, the Cremaster films convey
an sense of antic adventure and playfulness that all
but vanished from the "Star Wars" movies beginning
with "The Phantom Menace."

[...]

"Cremaster 3" culminates at the Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum in Manhattan with a quasi-apocalyptic
initiation rite in which the apprentice (Mr. Barney,
comically outfitted in a kilt and a fuzzy pink hat)
acrobatically swings from level to level of the
museum's curved ramp, confronting various mythic
opponents. On one level, he is menaced by the Order of
the Rainbow for Girls, a grimly smiling Rockettes-like
chorus line tapping in perfect precision.

On another level, hard-core punk rock galvanizes a
mosh pit of hurtling bodies. At the same time, the
Architect, standing at one juncture, pours molten
Vaseline down the ramp. Juggling different styles of
music, the scene sustains a jarring orgiastic power
that brings to mind "The Rite of Spring," and it made
me wonder if the "Cremaster" series, with its
iconoclastic blend of architectural theory, quirky
mythology and pagan energy might be a cinematic "Rite
of Spring." 

"Cremaster 3" is prefaced with a post-Nietzschean
epigram from Vince Lombardi that describes human will
as "character in action." In captioning the primal
energies unleashed by the film, that about says it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/15/movies/15CREM.html?rd=hcmcp?p=0436Zl0436cs432ee012000mX3dIX3i_

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