Screening Log

This new site feature is a collective effort to summarize our viewing habits. Occasionally, you will find titles here that are coming to a theater near you, in addition to films viewed on television, and even films viewed in piecemeal. The screening log is archived each month; to view past entries select a month in the menu below.

March 2006 activity

Total Log Entries: 87

Total Comments: 44

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Cremaster 3 / USA / 2002

In all honesty Matthew Barney’s Cremaster 3—the final installment in his five-part art-over-cinema cycle—deserves its own review rather than a short blurb in a screening log. But I wouldn’t know where to begin.

Perhaps one the most visually stunning films ever made, it’s also one of the most confusing. A three-hour piece of media art, Cremaster 3 relies on the stilted, silent performances of writer-director Matthew Barney as the Entered Apprentice, sculptor Richard Serra as stone-faced architect Hiram Abiff, and Nesrin Karanough as the emaciated and gender-reassigned Gary Gilmore, among others. We’re given scenes of cars demolishing one another in the Chrysler Building, decomposing horses running a derby, a man expelling teeth out his intestines. But there’s never any dialogue; instead, much of the sound comes from a club maitre D’ and his elevator harp.

With each moment we’re given something new and unexpected, keeping us spellbound. We may not understand Barney’s intentions, but confusion has never been more enjoyable. If there’s a deeper meaning here, it’s lost on me.

by Adam Balz | Source: 35mm print
07 Mar 2006 12:32 PM | Submit Comment

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