Matthew Barney

The third film of a five-part art-installation epic - it's part-zombie movie, part-gangster film.

The film concerns the theme of self-imposed limitation and continues Matthew Barney's interest in religious rite, this time focusing on Shinto. (imdb)

A lyrical, challenging work about America, mythology, and death. Believing that his grandmother had an affair with Harry Houdini (Norman Mailer), noted murderer Gary Gilmore (Barney) wanders through the afterlife - depicted here as a gold-colored honeycomb maze filled with two-stepping cowboys and rodeos - hoping to find the magician. In the process, Barney constructs a personal narrative from elements and symbols of the American west.

Set in Boise, ID, on the football field of Bronco Stadium. There, a flock of stewardesses and showgirls converge, forming intricate dance/movement patterns both on the field and in the sky, their actions dictated by Goodyear, a goddess hovering overhead, simultaneously occupying two Goodyear blimps. While surveying her subjects, each version of Goodyear arranges grapes in a formation on the floor, which are then carried out by the dancers below.

The film is set on the Isle of Man, in the sea between Ireland, England, Scotland, and Wales. The film incorporates imagery from the island's folklore, wildlife, and annual Tourist Trophy motorcycle race. "Cremaster 4" deals with the organism's desire to return to a state of neutral gender as its male identity is formed.

The Queen of Chains (Ursula Andress, with the singing voice of Adrienne Csengery), wearing a glass dumbbell on her head, moves into the restored Budapest Opera House where she sings passionately of her lost love (writer-director Matthew Barney), later seen as a half-man/half-fish surrounded by pink mermaids.

A compilation of erotic films intended to illuminate the points where art meets sexuality. (imdb)

Cremaster 1-5 all together.

In 2007, Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler began a new collaborative project inspired by American author Norman Mailer's 1983 novel Ancient Evenings, set in pharaonic Egypt. The project was conceived as a nontraditional opera with a series of one-time-only live acts performed across the American landscape.

Unfolds as a series of hunts in the wilderness of Idaho's Sawtooth Mountains. The characters communicate a mythological narrative through dance, letting movement replace language as they pursue each other and their prey. (imdb)

A 'video action' in which Barney crosses the ceiling of the Gladstone Gallery using a harness and ice-climbing screws, propelling himself by the forces of muscle and will. [IMDB]