River of Fundament
Release Date: December 4, 2015
Studio: International Film Circuit
Director: Matthew Barney
MPAA Rating: N/A
Screenwriter: Matthew Barney
Genre: Documentary
Starring: David Amram, Matthew Barney, Ellen Burstyn, Dick Cavett, Paul Giamatti, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Deborah Harry
Plot Summary: Set across the American landscape, the film "River of Fundament" is an epic story of regeneration and rebirth. Loosely based on the 1983 Norman Mailer novel Ancient Evenings, with an ancient Egyptian protagonist who sought reincarnation three times in the hope of achieving immortality, "River of Fundament" borrows its structure from Mailer’s text, corresponding to the seven stages the Egyptian soul undergoes in its journey toward new life. Conceived as a nontraditional opera written in collaboration with longtime collaborator Jonathan Bepler, the film combines documentary footage of three live acts performed outdoors in Los Angeles, Detroit, and New York with live-action cinema largely set in a careful recreation of Mailer’s Brooklyn brownstone apartment, where the late author’s wake is underway.
Imagined as a lavish dinner party attended by New York’s cultural literati, the wake takes place inside the Mailer apartment as it is ferried down the river. Intercut with scenes from the outdoor live acts, the story of Norman’s three-time journey along the river of fundament parallels that of the automobile, and is equally populated by the incestuous characters belonging to the myth of Osiris. As the story of Norman’s lives is recounted to him by an elder pharaoh, Norman’s widow and wives contemplate the soul’s journey as a series of recitatives, quoting passages from Ancient Evenings, as well as from American authors Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and William S. Burroughs.
Release Date: December 4, 2015
Studio: International Film Circuit
Director: Matthew Barney
MPAA Rating: N/A
Screenwriter: Matthew Barney
Genre: Documentary
Starring: David Amram, Matthew Barney, Ellen Burstyn, Dick Cavett, Paul Giamatti, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Deborah Harry
Plot Summary: Set across the American landscape, the film "River of Fundament" is an epic story of regeneration and rebirth. Loosely based on the 1983 Norman Mailer novel Ancient Evenings, with an ancient Egyptian protagonist who sought reincarnation three times in the hope of achieving immortality, "River of Fundament" borrows its structure from Mailer’s text, corresponding to the seven stages the Egyptian soul undergoes in its journey toward new life. Conceived as a nontraditional opera written in collaboration with longtime collaborator Jonathan Bepler, the film combines documentary footage of three live acts performed outdoors in Los Angeles, Detroit, and New York with live-action cinema largely set in a careful recreation of Mailer’s Brooklyn brownstone apartment, where the late author’s wake is underway.
Imagined as a lavish dinner party attended by New York’s cultural literati, the wake takes place inside the Mailer apartment as it is ferried down the river. Intercut with scenes from the outdoor live acts, the story of Norman’s three-time journey along the river of fundament parallels that of the automobile, and is equally populated by the incestuous characters belonging to the myth of Osiris. As the story of Norman’s lives is recounted to him by an elder pharaoh, Norman’s widow and wives contemplate the soul’s journey as a series of recitatives, quoting passages from Ancient Evenings, as well as from American authors Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and William S. Burroughs.
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