“The cremaster muscle is a muscle that covers the testis.” – Wikipedia, in its almighty wisdom
Whoo! I’d originally intended to preserve this series until my “every franchise ever made, damn it” project war nearing the end. Amongst other reasons, this was because The Cremaster Cycle seemed like the absolute most idiosyncratic and bizarre series I could find – out of the hundreds and hundreds produced. There was only one problem…availability. None of these five movies really exists outside of specialized, fine art screenings…well, that, or paying over half a million dollars per entry to watch ‘em on DVD! I surely cannot afford to do that! And with The Cremaster Cycle currently playing at Chicago’s Music Box Theater, who was I to pass up this opportunity? And so, stomach filled with beer and coffee and popcorn, I joined roughly 46 other strange-looking hipster types to partake.
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Matthew Barney is an American artist, in that he works in sculpture, drawing, photography…oh yeah, and film. His most notable work, Cremaster Cycle aside, is an ongoing art project called Drawing Restraint, concerned with how muscle relaxation (and restraint) influences the drawing process. This climaxed with a 2005 film, Drawing Restraint 9. Also, Björk had his child.
The Cremaster Cycle is similarly concerned with muscles as an inroad to greater artistic exploration, in this case our titular testicular-covering cremaster. Yes, it’s a five-film franchise devoted to the gonad! Barney, the Cremaster master, conceived of his cremasterpiece as encompassing not just film, but other disciplines such as drawing and sculpture – some of which can been seen within the films. Sadly, apart from the project’s “official” premiere in 2002 at the Guggenheim, now pretty much only the films are available. Good thing they’re the central spoke to the Cycle.
The Cremaster Cycle is an overall piece divided into five segments. These segments are numbered thematically, ordering the steady evolution of the reproductive organs in the embryonic state. Yeah, like most fine art of the past century, The Cremaster Cycle takes infinite glee in provoking the bluebloods through genitalia obsession – I cannot wait for art – excuse me, Art – no, wait, one capital letter just ain’t enough – ART to get beyond this stage, to itself evolve. Nonetheless, Barney’s ordering means that Cremaster 1 concerns the most “ascended” state, the sexual differences (gender) undifferentiated. Cremaster 5, on the other end, is the “descended” state, with the greatest differentiation.
Now, this is the thematic progression, it is not the chronological order. Cremaster 1 was not the first one made; that would be Cremaster 4. As far as the mere space-time continuum is concerned, this is the series’ order:
Cremaster 4 (1995)
Cremaster 1 (1996)
Cremaster 5 (1997)
Cremaster 2 (1999)
Cremaster 3 (2002)
As a “cycle,” there is a sense that traditional order is less important than in mainstream works – some feel the Cycle could be viewed in any way pleased. Still, the chronological order is useful to indicate the degree of complexity in each individual component. The earlier entries are less technically sophisticated, and a little more literal in their biological metaphor. For someone purely interested in Barney’s filmmaking, that might be the best way to view them.
The Music Box, however, is basically presenting the series thematically. Thus, Cremaster 1, though second in production, is the first seen.
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A few comments on the style of the films. They are avant-garde, and more closely related to 1929’s Un Chien Andalou than any subsequent cinema – For those not in the know, Un Chien Andalou was an eyeball-slicing movie by Salvador Dalí, so just picture how that’d go. The Cycle is cinema as museum piece, not popcorn pleaser (though I did munch on my art house popcorn) – hence, it’s well nigh incomprehensible from a traditional point of interpretation (though Cremaster 1 is simpler in this way than most). There is little to nothing in the way of dialogue or sound effects as one would expect in most representative filmmaking – the overall effect is much more controlled.
We open in a sea of the bluest blue conceivable – the Astroturf of Bronco Stadium in Barney’s hometown of Boise, Idaho. It takes a while to figure even that out, as Barney’s camera is content to sail over the individual yard lines while they remain abstractions. Then we become aware of the stands, themselves just as pink as the Astroturf is blue – with but a few primary colors on hand, I cannot help but perceive these as symbolic of gender, perhaps the potentiality of the future embryonic differentiation. (Okay, if all this seems nutbars, just wait five days and I’ll be ragging on the Resident Evil movies instead.)
Hovering beyond the goalpost are two Goodyear blimps, themselves resembling testicles. Never once is a ballsack seen (at least, not in this entry), and yet things retain an almost Cronenbergian sense of the biological. Oh, and in the center of the field is Barney’s trademark field emblem – a bisected capsule full of symmetry.
Up we go into the lefternmost Goodyear gonad, where the soundscape remains simply the endless droning of the engines (soundtrack by Jonathan Bepler). The room is oppressively white, set off by the gray uniforms of a quartet of airline stewardesses, ‘60s style. You know, tight hair, tight outfits, altogether tight…and somehow resembling Mena Suvari. In the room’s center is a draped table, covered in heavily-symbolic green grapes. And dominating over those grapes is a statue, perhaps of a sperm, or legs, or penises, or something biological at any rate (the damn thing was made out of Vaseline), though it mostly resembles an alien’s eyeballs. Get used to all this imagery; we’ll have little else to focus on. Barney specializes in fully exploring minor variation.
Moving over to the other Gonadyear blimp – everything’s the same!...Well, mostly. The grapes here are red – correction, purple. Make what you will of this.
Underneath the table – either table – is Goodyear herself (?!), played by Marti Domination. Oh God, Domination?! One of Barney’s self-important drag queen hermaphrodite artiste buddies from New York, no doubt, who reeks of the same pale androgyny that fucking Marilyn Manson would later steal outright (in correct assumption his fans wouldn’t recognize the nutso origins). Miss Goodyear looks pretty damned uncomfortable, perched juuust so upon the table’s…stem?
The soundscape within the table(s) is more vibrant than outside – on top of the electronic ambient hum, little tings can be heard, resembling nascent musical chords.
Madame Goodyear rends open the tablecloth, creating what is for all the world an orifice in white – depending upon the shot, just which orifice can differ. It is with this little hole that Goodyear gains access to the delicious grapes above. As the hostesses pace and smoke cloves like expectant bohemians, she obtains one whole bushel. We do not see her devour said fruits, but we do see the grapes then jettison forth from the bell on Goodyear’s winged shoe (I know, I know), itself resembling the same-named tire giant’s logo. I can’t even imagine what Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company makes of all this!
Blatantly CGI grapes (it was a self-produced 1995 art project after all) reach the blimp’s floor, and arrange themselves in two straight lines, parallel to each other – one dimension.
Down on the field, a chorus line appears, clad in double-hooped skirts the likes of which fashion designers love to conjure up for seemingly no practical purpose. The soundtrack now takes full form, the scant chords from before now recalling the soundtrack from a ‘50s sitcom, or a commercial for natural male enhancement. (As we return to the other settings, the soundtrack shall too revert to their modes.) The chorus girls obey the almighty grapes’ whims, themselves taking the same lines.
The Mistress Goodyear rearranges the grapes into a circle – two dimensions. Like the football plays on a coach’s chalkboard, the chorus too forms a circle.
This shall be the central motif from now on. Attention moves from the chorus to the hostesses to Goodyear, as more and more shapes take, er, shape. Most of these intentionally convey cellular growth (it’s like a Rosetta Stone for understanding the Cycle), though at one point the girls seem to draw out Kilroy (he who was here). Then they take the form of Barney’s field emblem, directly on top of the field’s emblem. Pure potential, the artist’s own notes assure me this is.
To get a good idea of how all this plays out, just imagine the “Gutterballs” sequence in The Big Lebowski. The Coens were undoubtedly aware of Cremaster (and they even reference other obscure semi-movies, like the work of video artist…sorry, dancer Merce Cunningham)!
Goodyear herself is now down on the field, the central zygote, even while she simultaneously remains underneath both tables, playing with a goo that resembles semen meets cotton candy. You know, like what the Staypuft Marshmallow Man exploded into. On occasion, the field is clear of all except for Goodyear the woman, who runs about parading two miniature Goodyear blimps. And things progress along in this way until we’ve reached feature length.
Content-wise, there’s not a whole lot to Cremaster 1. I think I listed out nearly everything – though I could stretch it out and comment on the pattern in the blimps’ rugs, or try, you know, actual interpretation. But backed with Barney’s extra-filmic hints, which unmistakably point out the biological metaphor (in case you somehow missed that, by dint of being a religious shut-in, or something), it ain’t hard being sure of at least something. Yeah, yeah, it’s clever enough, using Bubsy Berkeley musicals and televised football tropes as a means of indirectly portraying sperm. Woody Allen did something similar (with even the same antiseptic, medical white) in Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask). There’s even a pertinent “Simpsons” quote, naturally, for this context: “Ovulate, damn you!” But watching the thing, in this case, isn’t much. Cremaster 1 doesn’t benefit from its length, and ultimately becomes a little redundant. But it is but an early portion of Barney’s project, and surely not a work unto itself. Unlike practically all other franchises in existence, the “original” cannot stand on its own.
Related posts:
• No. 4 Cremaster 2 (1999)
• No. 5 Cremaster 3 (2002)
• No. 1 Cremaster 4 (1995)
• No. 3 Cremaster 5 (1997)
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