The films of Hercules

[imomus]

Matthew Barney's epic films are weird labours of Hercules. Whether he's shinning up an elevator shaft, walking along the seabed, squeezing through a tunnel connecting two cars, or climbing around the proscenium arch of a theatre, Barney's self-imposed tasks are a sort of metaphysical obstacle course, bringing to mind the more mystical end of the fiction film genre: the crossing-the-pool-with-a-candle scene in Tarkovsky's "Nostalgia" or the hauling-a-boat-over-a-mountain in Herzog's "Fitzcarraldo", say.

But Barney's films start with his sculpture; a vat of liquid vaseline on the deck of a whaler or a sex-organs-based installation in a blimp. Turning the space-based medium that is sculpture into the the time-based medium that is film is in itself a "trial of Hercules", and the way Barney accomplishes it is with music, a kind of intermediate artform between space and time. Jonathan Beppler's (and now Bjork's) scores are hugely important to the success of the whole enterprise.

I haven't yet seen "Drawing Restraint 9"; I'll see it with Kyoto Karin Komoto on Sunday evening. A Japanese person and a Japanophile will be able to compare notes on the film's use of Shinto, gagaku, tea ceremony and so on. What I have seen, though, is the trailer (which looks great) and the press.

Some of the reviews have been aggressively dismissive. While the New York Times liked the film, they noted "an overt spiritual dimension that is a new element in Mr. Barney's work. If that spirituality is an outgrowth of his relationship with Bjork, it is a welcome addition in an oeuvre whose obsession with athleticism, competition and fertility rites has sometimes taken on fascistic overtones." Ah, poor Hercules, your labours now seem to us like fascism! But who knew fertility itself was fascist? Well, survival of the fittest and all that, I suppose Mother Nature has a bit of a Hitler thing going on, or at least a Darwin one.

The most dismissive review came in the New Yorker, who called the film "'The Simple Life' for a pair of self-important art-world celebrities. With a combination of lavish pageantry and industrial exertion, the Nisshin Maru, Japan's last whaling ship, sails off from Nagasaki Bay. Along with its crew, it carries two guests, Matthew Barney and Bjork, who submit to elaborate rituals of tonsure, pomade, and dress at the hands of solemn bearers whose job it is to keep from laughing at their employers' airs. They partake of a classical tea ceremony in an unabashed display of Oriental kitsch that makes "Memoirs of a Geisha" look like an ethnographic documentary. As their berth fills with what might be water or whale oil, the couple lovingly carve each other up into human sushi. Barney, the director of this unbearably empty spectacle, has in effect filmed at great expense the couple's designer-sightseeing cruise, with little more skill and vastly more pretense than the average tourist."

Whether you like Barney's oeuvre or not, it's hard to deny that, by adding an epic sort of narrative to his sculpture, he's not only had considerable impact on the public, but also influenced other artists, and established a new genre, the blockbuster sculpture. Watching Pierre Huyghe's film A Journey That Wasn't, for me the highlight of this year's Whitney Biennial, I couldn't help wondering if it was a parody of Barney's apparently not-so-sui-generis genre. Huyghe, exactly like Barney, sails through an icy landscape. In Huyghe's case, it's to discover an island with a single animal living on it. There's much ritualistic (and terribly beautiful) play with weather balloons. Then, back in Central Park, Huyghe recreates the voyage with lasers, smoke and an orchestra. The music by Joshua Cody sounds remarkably like Jonathan Beppler's scores for the Cremaster series.

Interviewed in today's Liberation, Barney explains his incursion into film quite simply:

"Cinema was initially a way for me to enlarge the definition of what I understood by "sculpture". I was very excited by the idea of molding vaseline on the deck of a ship and allowing it to melt when the mold had been removed. The intention is clearer than in the other works, where the objects came before or after the film. Cinema culture people wonder how a film can literally make itself into a sculpture. But in art we have a tradition, Land Art, and I've always felt comfortable with that."

Oddly enough, when people parody Barney, it's his Herculean narrative rather than his attempts to turn sculpture into film they focus on. Here are three suggestions Michael Atkinson published in the Village Voice in 2003 for three more Cremaster films (the series has now ended):

Cremaster 8
Wearing a bronze jockstrap, an astronaut's helmet, and a coat of mango-peach latex paint, Barney scales Angkor Wat while the Green Bay Packers sit in an empty swimming pool, taking turns to blow up a used-car-lot balloon figure of Uncle Sam through a valve on its crotch. Cambodians slowly fill up the pool with cups of guacamole. By the time Barney finishes his climb and sings "If I Can't Sell It, I'll Keep Sittin' On It," the Packers are immersed.
Cremaster 6
Whoopi Goldberg reads the Magna Carta over the Yankee Stadium PA system, as a boa constrictor slowly slithers around the bases after a remote-control toy car with a real mouse in the driver's seat. In the outfield, 30 naked women play 30 grand pianos wearing cardboard Dalai Lama masks. When the boa makes it home, fireworks erupt, spelling "I LIKE IKE" in the sky.
Cremaster 7
Strapped together with bungee cords, Barney and a proboscis monkey run through a shopping mall as members of the Bolshoi Ballet and the cast of Mummenschanz battle each other with paintball guns. Barney is dressed as Elizabeth II; the monkey is completely shaved. In Sears, they meet Udo Kier, who's trimming dwarf juniper trees with a toenail cutter. Together the trio make it to the parking lot, board a circus elephant, and ride into the sunset.

I'll add my review in the comments section on Sunday evening. Anyone seen "Drawing Restraint 9"? Your thoughts? Is Hercules on form?

Comments

[scottbateman.livejournal.com]

Where's it playing on Sunday?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

It's on every day for the next ten days or so at IFC (http://www.ifcfilms.com/), West 4th Street.

[aberrantangels]

The chant at the beginning of the trailer reminded me of some of the chants Geinô Yamashiro-gumi did for the Akira score.

The suggestions for Cremasters 6-8, on the other hand, reminded me of Leo Rosten's "Pop Art, Shmop Art, Leave Me Alone" (Harper's, 1965), which I have in a Reader's Digest Treasury of American Humor I inherited from my grandfather. I specifically thought of the first piece the narrator encounters (all spelling and capitalization as in the original):

Because in that window is a garbadge pail full of Custard, and across the pail in pukey purple letters is the word — BEING. And in the goo are maybe 100 popsikles covered by a Fish-net, in which a U.S. flag is planted! And across our Stars & Stripes is pasted — NOTHINGNESS.

The rest of the piece is about similar parodies of pop-art, and Rosten's narrator dismissing it all as "the work of &12frac; wits who would not pass an Insanity Test given by Casey Stengel." Making strawmen and lighting them on fire is always fun for some people, as a casual perusal of your own comments on a typical day will show. (It also reminded me of this webcomic.)

[aberrantangels]

Argh. That should be "½ wits". I need to use the preview button more.

[bifteck.livejournal.com]

I hope to see it this weekend. As a fellow Japanophile, and a huge fan of Bjork, I'm very intrigued - but I've never seen any of the Cremaster cycle.

I'd also like to see the Bjorkestra (http://www.bjorkestra.com/live/) at Joe's Pub, which is coming up in a couple of weeks.

[silenceinspades.livejournal.com]

i saw them at the bowery ballroom a couple of months ago (maybe?). i was sort of disappointed as i found it more humorous than both the people playing and the people in the audience. it has inspired me to start my own bjork tribute though, bjorkulele. my ukulele version of pagan poetry is promising so far.

[bikerbar.livejournal.com]

Must be something in the stars this week Momus
as I've been blogging about Hercules the last few days

What strikes me about the labours of Hercules, and similarly with the work of Barney, is that the meaninglessness of our actions in life can be represented by massive exertion to no clear end. The point is that there is no point, and the process is all. We struggle meaninglessly, but it makes for good spectacle.

Barney's work reminds me of the elaborate mise-en-scene of Wes Anderson. And it is also a parody of the art world in a way. Your quotes from Michael Atkinson sound like they could be actual Barney films - and that shows how peculiarly ridiculous the world he creates is. I think when he talks about filmmaking-as-sculpture its just an exercise in artspeak. He's framing his activity in this way, but its somewhat ridiculous. All activity can be defined as sculpture. Beuys's work in that direction were much more interesting, as they were engaging politically. Barney, on the other hand, seems to have been seduced by the star machinery of film.

Hercules's labours are a coded astrological metaphor, like some art-of-memory, for as they were being told under the stars the heavens helped to illustrate the story, or vice versa. Barney hasn't quite reached that level of recognition ... but he would like to be a god. Perhaps in our age, Barney and Bjork are analogous to figures sitting on Mt. Olympus. But those who care are far fewer in number.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I like how he has this thing going on with his beard in the new film.

unrelated

[snowy-florimell.livejournal.com]

Did you entitle this icon "cappy" because you're wearing earth tones like a Capricorn might?


He suffered discomfiture when you finally put your birthdate up, but my friend used to think you were a Capricorn. Duh, you're an ultimate Aquarian.

I'm Gemini. thanks :P

Re: unrelated

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm a caricature Aquarian.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Yes, been by the IFC all week, and fully intend to see it.

As was the case with the Cremaster cycle, the articles and even Barney's own obligatory, tiresome artworld spiel get in the way of the experience of the films themselves. I don't care what they're "about"—it limits the experience. Why this need to understand it? I would prefer to let the images, edits and sounds hold sway, and work on the mind as they will. I'll make my own maps and burn them afterwards, thank you very much.

[bricology.livejournal.com]

I have to wonder how much of the meta-commentary attributed to Barney (or any famous artist, for that matter) reported in the media was intended for public consumption, and how much of it was just journalists trying fill column-inches. Perhaps he's been quoted where he hadn't intended to be, although I tend to suspect the opposite, given what sometimes appears to be an expository tendency with him.

I struggle with a similar issue myself, as my work has a conceptual element that makes it less likely to be immediately appreciable (although my stuff couldn't differ more from Barney's, and--of course--I'm nowhere near his ranking). But it is a difficult situation. I too prefer to approach other artists' work without knowing anything about it. The more famous the artist, the more difficult to maintain that state of ignorance-curiosity, and the less famous the artist, the less likely that viewers will be willing to devote the time and attention to understanding the work.

[pacina.livejournal.com]

I love the Cremaster Cycle.

[anglerfish96.livejournal.com]

He kinda resembles John Malkovich in the hirsute hairsuit picture.

I wonder if the Walker is going to get this soon.

[armoredbaby.livejournal.com]

He does! I immediately thought that.

[armoredbaby.livejournal.com]

The Bolshoy and Mummenschanz in paintball war...what an image.

I think the edge goes to the Mummengroup, for they have that toilet paper headed participant to help with the damage on the field.

[remyartista.livejournal.com]

hello. i'm a stranger to you but i wanted to change that by saying hi. i did a search on google for you after being intrigued at the whitney and too shy to ask your name and shake your hand. my lad and i followed you around a bit and wanted to learn more. i hope you don't mind that i've friended you. i am loving your art posts and can't wait to learn more about you.

i'm including a drawing of you in my comic zine about the biennial because you made me do a happy dance inside. yep it's true!

i'll leave you alone now i promise!

yours truly mofo,
~Shannon

[(Anonymous)]

Blog Hits instead of Bong Hits

cremaster 7

[(Anonymous)]

if you were udo kier, what look would you have on your face as you tram a dwarf juniper tree with a toenail cutter? How much direction would you need? I would give it the big eye 'humph', laurel and hardy, 'that'll teach you' motivation. Catch the directors big eye. Well in. More work.

not quite on course, but

[cityramica.livejournal.com]

i had a dream just a few nights ago...woke up in in a terrible fright...that my boyfriend and I got into an awful argument over whether or not Matthew Barney was a great artist.
I actually only know his work from hearsay [ie decriptions of his Pan wrestling in vaseline photography]...haven't seen much yet, but the soundtrack for Drawing Restraint 9 is quite interesting.

In other news, I was thrilled to finally get a hold of a copy of "The Taste of Tea" last night. lovely. i was so happy.

Re: not quite on course, but

[instant-c.livejournal.com]

did you order it or find it in SF? I cant wait to see it, yikes!!

[akabe.livejournal.com]

hercules becomes background rather, which is why i, for the first time, enjoyed a barney opus. a very sensitive approach to the subject matter. wondering how much this is barney's merit or the commisioning/research/advicing team's - question which becomes kind of pointless given the 'holographic' weltanschauung. whether it's authentically shinto is also beside the point as it is psychologically and culturally hollowed out on both sides, the natives and the guests, this itself arguably very shinto. (closer to eno's music for onmyouji than greenaways pillow book)
i wouldn't really want to see this anywhere but at the kanazawa 21C museum (http://www.kanazawa21.jp) where the work kind become part of the hologramic building itself, also allowing different angles of barneys previous herculian antics shown at the same time.

A Journey That Wasn't.

[mistresshellena.livejournal.com]

One of these days I will see some of Matthew Barney's stuff. I'm very intrigued by it and the stills reminds me of Derek Jarman. Do you know if he was an influence on Barney?

I love works in film & video by artists who work primarily in other media. It reminds us that film & video are MEDIA, a means to an end, and don't have to follow the constrictions of narrative that the commercialized outlets have made popular.

I'm with you on A Journey That Wasn't. After being underwhelmed by the art and overwhelmed by the crowd with a few fun moments sneaking around after you trying to hear what you were saying! I was so happy to find A Journey That Wasn't and felt like I should have just spent my whole trip to the Biennial there. Especially the concert in Central Park. That was amazing.

[(Anonymous)]

None of you will ever be smart enough to figure out his films! Sculptures? All is for naught!
Seriously, these films are admirable because they test the confidence of even the most schmooziest of all art lover types.

[(Anonymous)]

&frac68

ive seen it!

[(Anonymous)]

They show it in the anual film festival of mexico city (with the 5 cremasters which my favourites were cremaster 3 and 5)...

I didn´t go to see the movie trying to understand what barney try to mean but i did enjoy it visually, musically (but of courseee!!!!!), and what it came to my mind as i saw bjork and barney in the tea ceremony and then tearing the flesh of each other legs till they turn into whales was feelings of love, union, sacrifice,cycles closing and opening again, retroalimentation...etc...

I used to think that Berney was pretencious and i haven´t seen his movies then;but i´ve seen his movies now, and they´re a very significative,deep and complex stories told by living sculptures (with all the aesthetics you can think about)on them... and at this point it intrigues me what does he want to mean indeen in DR9 but im happy with my own interpretation which i think it should be for everyone...you have to experience his movies to find your own perception of it...

That´s my opinion of how ppl should see barney´s works...don´t wait for a fucking explanation!

Hope you like DR9 as much a i liked it, Nick.

DR9 - Nice

[4rstofdaunicorn.livejournal.com]

I just saw the film on saturday night at IFC. I think I liked it a lot although I found it to be different from the Cremaster Cycle (which I actually just watched last weekend). For some reason I couldn't help but feeling like the main difference was that overall it was more feminine. Maybe it was the lack of workout equipment, chorus girls, and metal bands (then again there is a certain amount of machismo that goes with whaling).

At the same time the film seemed like a departure because it was more cinematic and less performative then his other works (de lama lamina, the entire rest of the drawing restraint series).

I think that one can get caught up criticizing his japanese references: noh, shinto, the tea ceremony -- and they can seem like a kind of fetishism with japanese culture. But Matthew Barney if anything is sucessful in referencing tradition, myth but ultimately creating a dialogue that is entirely his own - The pieces don't need to fit entirely perfectly.

It was though, a very beautiful film. Bjork's soundtrack was wonderfully integrated. Maybe not more spiritual then his other works but more meditative (what is more spiritual then freemasonry, mormonism, and american spiritualism?)

P.S. You gave terrific tours of the Whitney.

Re: DR9 - Nice

[(Anonymous)]

It's worth considering that the Japanese Tea Ceremony - this ceremony bit is an interesting transliteration- but anyway, it puts a lot of focus on the process itself and appreciating the moment as the cha-wan is prepared, followed by the tea preparation, and the participants don't just guzzle the tea but they prepare themselves first taking great care. All in all, there is a great deal of preparation, care and focus going on to do something that most of us- even the participants- do daily without dilly-dally. Please excuse the alliteration, but perhaps Barney used the JTC (in its entirety) and the Dressing Ritual not to bore our pants off but to point to art, film, and sculpture as very deliberate, considered processes; at least in his case.

There are spontaneous forms of art- but maybe they are too-sweet iced tea in a 64-oz. BIGGULP?

Looking forward to your impressions on the film…

Maffew

Cremaster 6

[loverboy82.livejournal.com]

Cremaster 6 (http://www.yale.edu/wake/spr03/cremaster6.html)

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, I liked DR9. It's lovely to watch and lovely to listen to. I like the way it presents things like matsuri and tea ceremony fairly straight, but with some elements exaggerated and lifted into a Barneyesque symbolism. (Drinking tea out of shells instead of cups, for instance.) Usually in a two and a half hour film I'm bored, but I wasn't bored in this one. There was always something to watch, marvel at, or listen to. It's like a cross between "Ai No Corrida", "Titanic" and a documentary about a Robert Smithson Land Art installation. The only thing I felt was slightly silly was when they cut each other up into human sashimi. I thought that almost gave way too much to the conventional Hollywood "body horror" genre, or capitulated to a Hollywoodish need to provide a big dramatic moment (usually involving fire or blood), catharsis. But I quite enjoyed seeing them as whales.

It's basically a musical, and the music is wonderful; I love how a weird gloopy theme will arrive with the liquid vaseline, as though that substance were a character with its own theme tune. But it also just shows us a lot of cool things -- a huge crane loading stuff onto a ship, a ceremony, the way you tug a weird bit of flotsam onto a ship -- and each of those things is interesting, cinematically, in itself. That's why the film never drags. I think I find most films, especially American ones, a bit insane, the way they privilege words and concepts and plot over image and experience, and I found this film incredibly "sane" in the way it used its basic properties. This is the kind of thing film is for.

[akabe.livejournal.com]

i found the way it was shown at the kanazawa bijutsukan very cool and did a lot for the movie. it was basically given equal weigth to the main sculpture placed in the same room. the whole layout gave you the choice or rather encouraged you to go around, check out the other things: sculptures, vitrines, photos, other DR material, then return to the main screen which was like the anchor of the whole show. the movie itself was de-moviefied which makes a lot of sense to me. i think it was also shown in fragments, in an order i couldn't quite work out, so i fortunately never got to see the human sashimi bit. (is that supposed to be some joseph campbell primal thing?)

Drawing Restraint 9

[(Anonymous)]

I saw it and it left me thinking. Most films state what you should be thinking while this one left it up to the viewer. You could say that non-linear movies are more interactive. The only thing I can saw I wish could have been better is the actual picture's color quality (was it shot in digital?) was not brilliant enough.
jimmy.mcdonough@gmail.com

[trini-naenae.livejournal.com]

The photo department of my city college went to San Francisco for our fall fieldtrip, and the 4th floor of the MOMA was all Matthew Barney, and most of it was "Drawing Restraint 9" photos (by Bjork I think...), and giant petroleum jelly scupltures and so on. When I saw it, I immediately thought of this. Didn't manage to see the movie, but I'll probably see a version somewhere on the internet.