Cremaster trilogy

anyone seen the Cremaster trilogy?

www.cremaster.net

I have to admit, I’m absolutely gutted that I missed the screening of the Cremaster trilogy at the recent film festival, even though I had spent quite a bit of time "preparing" myself mentally for it. You have to realize that Matthew Barney is such a fascinating, complex figure; his films aren't just movies, they are really just one medium in a much larger, sprawling ecosystem where he weaves together his drawings, sculptures, and photography into this singular vision.
MoMA



Some trivia for you guys:
- The cremaster muscle is actually the muscle responsible for covering the testes, functioning to raise and lower the scrotum to regulate temperature.
- And then there is the connection to Björk, who dedicated "Pagan Poetry" to him.

Matthew Barney is a straight-up genius. I’ve always had a thing for minds like his. 🙂
I caught one of the films from the Cremaster trilogy a while back, but with all five hitting the local film fest this year, I went ahead and grabbed tickets for almost all of them. I'm skipping the one that runs nearly three hours, though—just don't have the bandwidth. There are way too many other indie flicks in the lineup worth checking out since they aren't playing in regular US theaters.
Tried hunting down a DVD online, but no luck so far.

That massive three-hour epic is actually Cremaster III, the final installment in the series. Apparently, word on the street is that its sheer length makes it a bit much unless you're one of those hardcore devotees who lives for this stuff.
I was scouring Amazon and Barnes & Noble, only to find nothing but the "Cremaster III: The Order" DVD, which—get this—is just the final 30 minutes of the actual film!? Can you believe that? On the bright side, there’s this massive monograph titled "Cremaster Cycle" that covers the whole saga; we're talking over 500 pages of photography, though it'll cost you a small fortune at about $200.

By the way, a lot of the big-shot art critics have been hailing Matthew Barney as one of the most significant artists working today... he has this incredible knack for fusing disparate forms together in such an original way, blending cutting-edge technology with symbols borrowed from Freemasonry, Celtic mythology, pop culture, and more. It's quite something, really.

Here is a fantasticread about him (found on this really interesting site 😉)