From last to first, best to worst. Cremaster 4 represents Matthew Barney’s first chronological entry in his Cremaster Cycle, and it is in all ways the work of an amateur. The Cycle’s biological message (“Testicles exist, and they descend.”) is rendered most literally here, with footage of testicles existing, and descending. And it’s so cheap. The whole thing was evidently shot on video (which the other Cremasters do a good job of masking) – for some reason, the preferred medium for all poncy art types. And did every shot have to be done with a fisheye lens? Such filmmaking should be limited to Stanley Kubrick and rappers. Cremaster 4 resembles, more than anything else, a skate video.
But it’s not a skate video. It’s a motorcycling video. Two-man motorcycle/sidecar teams set off on opposite courses around the Isle of Man, one team in blue (descending gonads) and one in yellow (ascending gonads). They’re called “Hacks” in the credits. Why “hacks?” Maybe Barney agrees with his critics. And really, at least 50% of Cremaster 4 is taken up with footage of these literal Cremaster cycles, er, cycling their way through a circuit. I’d ask who’d want to see such a thing, except…I do know who would.
Time for a personal side story, because I grow weary of discussing Björk’s boyfriend balls. My college roommate was an avowed motorcycle enthusiast, on top of his many other mental problems. When asked what his favorite movie of all time was, his response was something like 30 Laps Around the Isle of Man. I never saw this epic, or even verified its existence, but I’ve experienced practically its entire scope. Drunk and clad in his 1930s pajamas, my nusto roommate liked to ride the LA-Z Boy like a motorcycle, making oral revving noises as he pretended the carpet was an island in the UK. I usually ceased laughing around 4 laps in. I never saw him reach the finish line.
So there is a marked interest for the motorcycle thing. Still, I have no clue how a maniac like my roommate would take the sudden emergence of two sentient testicles from each biker’s jumpsuit. Nor can I gauge his potential reaction to the semen that has filled one biker’s helmet upon crashing into an outcropping. Or when the blue team pauses so that a pink tire can be affixed to their craft, a tire with testicles (which we sadly never get to see in action). And I am sure he would have no use for the other half of Cremaster 4, seeing as it’s the “arty” half.
Cremaster 4 stars Matthew Barney, because it was only in Cremaster 1 where he was able to overcome his innate desire to let audiences stare helplessly at his physical form. This time, he is a nattily-suited satyr, his squinty features made even less appealing underneath goat prosthetics. And there’s also that smirk – oh that smirk! – the likes of which can only be found on video game mascots from the ‘90s.
Barney credits himself as the “Loughton Candidate” for reasons I do not care about. As usual, material outside of the films themselves has far, far more to say about the Candidate than a mere, wretched viewer could ever parse out: “He is the descendant of a Manx satyr named Phynnodderree and wears an Edwardian suit with a Manx heather corsage.” That’s all so much gobbledygook. He also has a trio of nude yet genital-free female cohorts, credited as “faeries,” though I’ll call ‘em what they are: nymphs. They’re also cross-dressing dudes, because 1994 must’ve been during Barney’s possible “liking penises” phase. They gross me out.
Oh right, and the Candidate has no horns, but fleshy spots where they were. Barney affords us lengthy, lengthy views at these spots. Okay, Matt, I get it, they look like anuses! Don’t belabor the point!
The Candidate makes his disgusting residence in a little white house out on the docks, the starting and finishing point for those motorcyclists I’d now rather be in the company of. At the rear of the house is a gigantic statue that looks unmistakably of gonads. How much time did Barney spend shoving his own testes in and out before he decided to make movies of such self-reflection!
Donning spiffy shoes, the Candidate proceeds to tap dancing – it and the motorcycles’ revving makes up the whole of Cremaster 4’s soundtrack. Again belaboring a point that could be made in brief, it takes half the film for Barney the filmmaker to make the following message clear: The Candidate’s dancing is slowly wearing a hole in the linoleum floor, to the sea below. And once it’s big enough, the Candidate himself descends outside, as any symbolically-laden satyr-cum-gonad is wont to do.
The Candidate then trounces around the sea floor for a bit – For this effect, Barney felt the need to putter on down to Florida. Just when we’re getting tired of this footage, it goes on for a while longer. And then it gives way, as the Candidate falls into a subterranean cave filled with tapioca balls – parallels to the grapes of Cremaster 1, or things I haven’t mentioned yet from Cremaster 5. Yeah, it’s so much metaphorical semen.
And are you sick of Vaseline? Are you sick of how I’ve complained about Vaseline in previous entries? Because Barney’s happened upon the mother lode. With enough Vaseline to fill four suburban houses, Barney has constructed an overly-womblike cavern for his Candidate to slither through like Prince Randian (Freaks). Consider this act. It was probably filmed in New York City, Barney’s haven of likeminded bohemian oddballs. With the rents out there, what a waste these womb-tunnels of Vaseline must’ve been! Oh, but that gives it importance! And to see Barney (as the Candidate) squirming through a giant, protrusion-filled white colon, well, it sums up the human spirit. Or something.
All throughout the Candidate’s intestinal adventures, his faeries dress in yellow (the female color) and enjoy a tapioca picnic. They ring bells.
The Candidate emerges from the butt-cave into the streets, where a Manx Loaghtan (a sort of sheep that actually exists) awaits. And pity the poor animal coerced into doing this scene, for they have dressed it up in precious ribbons and accoutrements. Let no object capable of production design go unadorned! The motorcycle teams close in on either side, ready to crush this endangered gonad goat, when –
TESTICLES! TESTICLES RIGHT UP THERE ON SCREEN! Whoops, my caps lock was on. A minute’s uncut (as it were) shot displays Barney’s own man-grapes in all their testicular glory. Guess what, no hernias! Of course, the sack is slathered in Vaseline, that most hallowed of all jellies, denying us a view of anything but the balls. For some unholy reason I cannot fathom, Barney even allowed some mini Mengele to sew threads through his testicle skin, so that metal forearms could reach in and untie them. Man, the Saw series is gonna have no effect on me now!
I’d like to call the final shot a ball POV, except the balls are in shot…well, they would be, had they fully descended. (That has to wait until Cremaster 5, and full release.) But they are juuuuuuust there, strings tied to the scrotum, connecting to the two motorcycles on the dock. We fade out before the bikes speed away, denying audiences the chance to see the most tragic blooper in cinematic history.
There is some promise in this nasty little flick, suggesting the fuller visual notions later productions would boast. There is also a lot of testicle. Thematics aside, none of the good stuff in The Cremaster Cycle has to do with seeing testicles. Apart from moments resembling a sports video, that’s all Cremaster 4 has – the chutzpah to bear balls and let us wallow in their every biological detail. That’s the same juvenile phase seemingly all modern art is stuck in – like when kids first learn a naughty word, and wield it wantonly without artistry. If I see one more B&W photograph of someone’s genitals on a museum wall – But I’m getting distracted. Full descension is still ahead of us, and we can all be thankful that Cremaster 5 was made at a time when Barney had become a bit more tactful in addressing his scrotum obsession.
Related posts:
• No. 2 Cremaster 1 (1996)
• No. 4 Cremaster 2 (1999)
• No. 5 Cremaster 3 (2002)
• No. 3 Cremaster 5 (1997)
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