“This is like The Exterminating Angel but with less hope.”

Matthew Barney has, if nothing else, achieved one of the highest pretension-to-achievement ratios in known human history. He has just issued River of Fundament, a six-hour movie…not exactly based on a terrible Norman Mailer novel, but using a terrible Norman Mailer novel as a jumping off point. Rich Juzwiak has watched this movie so I can still not watch it. The results are — almost certainly unlike the movie — quite entertaining:

29:00 – So much is happening. Elaine Stritch is eulogizing Mailer with a strong focus on the under-appreciated brilliance of American Evenings. A woman is passing her hands over a seated Giamatti. I assume that she is aligning his chakras without having any knowledge of what that actually looks like. A chamber band is tuning up, and it sounds like rotten fruit tastes. A man is feeding his doll-sized chiminea dry substances I cannot identify. Someone, perhaps Giamatti, is getting his bare feet massaged under the dinner table.

[…]

1:20:00 – Giamatti is in the bathroom, which now is lit by open gas flames on the wall. He says, “You see, whatever shortcomings I may have had, whatever I might have lacked in dedication, piety, bravery, or martial spirit, were nonetheless all present in my stool. And my stool would cultivate the earth and bring forth the most splendid herbs and vegetables, flowers, and spices to enrich those priests and officers most devoted to the Life-Health-Strength of our city.” Again, I relate.

[…]

1:54:41 – Mercifully, we have reached our first intermission. A difficult movie is sometimes like a conversation with someone that you can’t hear because they aren’t speaking loudly enough as you wonder if they aren’t speaking loudly enough because they simply can’t be bothered to do so. I’m given a stack of press notes and consistently surprised at the synopsis of what I am in the middle of watching—these characters supposedly have names that aren’t the names of the actors playing them (even though many, like Lebowitz and Stritch, do play themselves). They have backgrounds and purposes. I read an introduction stating that, “Mailer’s protagonist, the nobleman Menenhetet I, uses magic and trickery to become reincarnated three times in the womb of his wife, who then becomes his new mother.” The idea that any character has agency throws me; the only agency that I was aware of for the past two hours was Barney’s. I resolve to look harder. I know this will prove futile, but all I can do is try.

I am less surprised to discover that Barney has cast himself as a god, Osiris.

[…]

2:42:17 – Back in Detroit, an investigation is underway. Snakes have been found in a detached golden sleeve of, I guess, the straitjacket. Said one investigator, “My guess is that it was in the river.” Of fundament? Now everyone is singing, giving this scene the air of a CSI episode in which all of its characters whoop melodically.

[…]

3:21:30 – A woman playing a banjo in her lap, like an autoharp, is singing about Osiris now. I strikes me that to even have a shot of understanding what’s going on, you need not only a deep familiarity with the material, but of what is happening in Matthew Barney’s head. Well, at least one person on earth will leave the theater very, very satisfied.

[…]

3:35:21 – Maggie Gyllenhaal is singing, and my mind wanders back to that scene in Sherrybaby when she sang “Eternal Flame.” God, that was a terrible movie, and yet, I’d give anything to be watching it. I’d give my all to have just one more night with Sherrybaby. I read reviews of Sherrybaby on my dimmed iPhone for a few minutes. (Don’t worry—there were at most 10 other people in the theater with me, and all were sitting too far for my illuminated reading material to disturb them.) Hilarious that it was considered an Oscar contender at one point. Everyone gets a little loopy in the fall.

3:39:09 – There’s a close-up on Not Patricia Arquette’s chain mail. It’s gold like the leaf on the shit and the pig’s knuckles. I wonder for a time what incentive there is to understand any of this. In Act 1, at the dinner party, there was a discussion about a painting and one character pointed out that art is nothing to get mad about; if you don’t like it, walk away. That echoes mockingly in my head, given my assignment and also that movies are much harder to walk away from.

I heard a rumor Kanye West walked out of the world premiere of this movie at BAM after its first act. When he’s right, he’s right.

[…]

5:37:39 – Oh my god it’s over. I’m free. After almost six hours, I’m left with less than a reality TV binge-watching session. I love the idea of something self-consciously high-brow so focused on shit. I wish there were more of it in the literal sense. Metaphorically, though, The River of Fundament was well stocked.

For those more sympathetic to Mr. Barney than the author, friend of the blog Glenn Kenny has a more warmly skeptical take in the New York Damned Times.