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Cremaster 3: The Order

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The Order: From Cremaster 3 (Matthew Barney, 2002)

First off, let me just say that the disc is misrepresented by most people. Yes, it's a teaser DVD released in anticipation of the full Cremaster boxed set (which was supposed to be out 16 September 2003, and is now pushed back vaguely to "sometime in 2004"). No, it's not a hundred twenty minutes of Cremaster 3, which ran three hours in the theaters. It's thirty minutes of Cremaster 3 that occur towards the end of the film. So at the prices you're seeing it selling for at amazon, ebay, etc., it's not worth it unless you already know you love Cremaster (for reasons specified below).

As a rental, though, The Order is an absolute must. I don't know whether Matthew Barney created the subsection of Cremaster 3 called The Order with an eye towards releasing it as a teaser, but one way or the other, it works fantastically.

The Cremaster Cycle is that rarest of oddities, a series of films that have managed to become wildly popular despite having content that would leave the average filmgoer walking out scratching his head and saying "what on earth did I just sit through?" For that matter, most film snobs will wonder the same thing. Cremaster is like the Ezra Pound's Cantos of modern film; you'll enjoy it on the surface, but there's much more to be found if you happen to be up on such topics as Biblical history, the Masonic initiation rites, the Paralympics, and other such cultural obscurities. But don't let such a thing stop you. I know there's a lot of you out there who just have a thing for men in kilts. You get that, too.

Cremaster 3 is an allegorical tale detailing the construction of the Chrysler Building and linking it to the construction of the Temple of Solomon. The Order is a piece of this (filmed in the Guggenheim Museum, a gorgeous space made even more so by the film's set decoration) that deals far more with the Temple of Solomon aspect and the focus on the Masonic initiation rites. The protagonist is the Masonic Entered Apprentice (played by Barney). He starts at the bottom of a large cylindrical room with a spiral walkway that goes up five levels, with each level being a degree of Masonic initiation. Needless to say, this is not easy; he can't just walk up, but must climb, and each degree has a particular challenge he must face; an aggressive chorus line, a battle between two New York punk bands (Murphy's Law and Agnostic Front), a love interest (Paralympic gold medalist and Olympic athlete Aimee Mullins), The Five Points of Fellowship (you tell me, I have no idea) and, at the pinnacle, the Architect of the Temple of Solomon and the Chrysler Building himself (played by artist Richard Serra).

Like the rest of the film, the Apprentice's assent is not a linear thing; he bounces back and forth between levels, trying to figure out what's going on as much as we are. Pieces of each puzzle are scattered throughout, giving the whole thing an odd, Myst-like feel. (In fact, the Apprentice does not end with Serra, but on a lower level; non-linearity at its finest?)

Where the DVD of The Order may become purchasable for the average Joe who finds himself enamored with the Cremaster films is in the bonus material, which is what stretches the disc out to the promised 120 minutes. There are six full songs from each band to be found if you dig around enough, and a whole lot of outtake footage from each degree; various shots taken from various angles that extend each degree into a mini-film of its own (for example, the chorus line on the first level, who actually get maybe four minutes of screen time in the finished piece, do a whole fifteen-minute routine. The choreography is wonderful, and one wonders why you never see such things in actual chorus line performances).

For most of us, though, The Order is bound to do exactly what it set out to do: what our appetites for the whole boxed set. If there's as much bonus material in the box as there is on this disc, it's going to be huge, and wonderful, and worth whatever Palm Pictures ends up charging for it. See this now. **** ½

The Cremaster Cycle is a series of five films shot over eight years. Although they can be seen individually, the best experience is seeing them all together (like Wagner's Ring Cycle) - and also researching as much as you can beforehand. To give you an idea of the magnitude, it has been suggested that their fulfilment confirms creator Matthew Barney as the most important American artist of his generation (New York Times Magazine).

The Cremaster films are works of art in the sense that the critical faculties you use whilst watching them are ones you might more normally use in, say, the Tate Modern, than in an art house cinema. They are entirely made up of symbols, have only the slimmest of linear plots, and experiencing them leaves you with a sense of awe, of more questions and inspirations than closed-book answers. The imagery is at once grotesque, beautiful, challenging, puzzling and stupendous. Any review can only hope to touch on the significance of such an event, but a few clues might be of interest, so for what it's worth ...

Starting with the title. The 'Cremaster' is a muscle that acts to retract the testes. This keeps the testes warm and protected from injury. (If you keep this in mind as you view the piece it will be easier to find other clues and make sense of the myriad allusions to anatomical development, sexual differentiation, and the period of embryonic sexual development - including the period when the outcome is still unknown. The films, which can be viewed in any order (though chronologically is probably better than numerically) range from Cremaster 1 (most 'ascended' or undifferentiated state) to Cremaster 5 (most 'descended'). The official Cremaster website contains helpful synopses.

Cremaster 3 is the longest (3hrs) and most complex of the Cycle. It charts the construction of the Chrysler Building and looks at the forces of spiritual transcendence (which can in itself be taken as a metaphor). It quotes Lombardi: "Character is an integration of habits of conduct superimposed on temperament ... Character is will, exercised on disposition, thought, emotion and action." We have a mythological prologue, then an Apprentice who scales the Chrysler Building by means of one of the lift shafts and takes part in a Masonic ritual. Before winning his Masonic instruments he must become the master of lust and his own ego. This penultimate stage is set in a section called 'The Order' comprising Five Degrees of Initiation.

The Guggenheim Museum (which houses a parallel exhibition) describes the Cremaster Cycle as "a self-enclosed aesthetic system consisting of five feature-length films that explore processes of creation." As film, the Cremaster Cycle is one to experience in the cinema if you have the opportunity to do so, or to experience and re-experience at leisure on DVD (the boxed set is promised for late 2004 and will be a gem for lovers of art-cinema fusion).

Barney plays the Entered Apprentice and his opponents include the Order of the Rainbow for Girls (who look a lot like the Rockettes), Agnostic Front and Murphy's Law (two New York Hardcore bands), Aimee Mullins, and Richard Serra. Molten Vaseline, dental surgery, a demolition derby by vintage Chrysler Imperial New Yorker cars and a gorgeous creature who is half-cheetah/half woman all figure in this latest edition of Matthew Barney's fever dream. Much of the action takes place in two New York landmarks, the Chrysler Building and the Guggenheim Museum, as well as at the Saratoga Racetrack (upstate NY), the Giant's Causeway (Ireland) and Fingal's cave (the Scottish Isle of Staffa).

My main point in writing this is to counter the spotlight review that gives false hope of a Cremaster Cycle DVD set release. I am also taking the opportunity to comment on Barney's reasons for not releasing the films commercially. This is based on my personal research and I hope it's useful to some that may spend long hours trying to find any news of a possible DVD release as I did.

Matthew Barney has stated many times that he will never release his films on any form of mass media. His reasons have the do with the physical sculptures that he sells. He sees them as limited edition art objects and, therefore, to reproduce them would be wrong. I believe he produced six laser disc copies of each of the five films, which sold in elaborate sculptural cases. He is allowed to circulate prints for massively expensive screenings as major museums, but he feels it would be wrong to duplicate his art work.

I see it from a more economical standpoint. His films are incredibly expensive to produce and they're all privately and personally funded. Why settle for $20s per DVD when you can get hundreds of thousands for each museum screening? Perhaps it's a mixture of both. But, why use the medium of film for something that six people get to personally enjoy? We have that expectation with a painting or a photograph, but the medium of film lends itself to mass duplication. Besides that, any film employs many many individuals (actors, technicians, etc.) and it really seems like a huge waste of effort if it's going to such a limited audience. Some composers write totally uncompromising music with almost no commercial appeal, but they still disseminate them through traditional means. It's not as if no one would buy these.

I respect Barney for sticking by his ideals, but I wish he would let the rest of us in on his work. As I write this review in early 2007, the films are currently playing in Germany. It's not like most of us can drop everything and fly over there to check them out. They haven't been in the states for a while and who knows when they'll be back?

I'm giving the DVD five stars based on the small part that I've experience both there and through some of his massive picture books. I wish I could say I've seen them all, but then again, I'm supposed to be reviewing the DVD itself - the product you can actually buy.

This is not a release of Cremaster 3 but instead a small section of the film. Although there have been rumors of a release of the actual full length Cremaster films for years now, it seems much more likely that, as another review notes, Barney and Barbara Gladstone ultimately decided that, since they had sold a small number of dvd copies as very limited multiples at ghastly collector's prices, they would not release an affordable version for the masses because it might devalue that original limited edition. If this is their approach, then so be it. By not doing a general release that ordinary people might be able to afford to buy or rent, they have decided to limit the audience for Barney's work only to those who are lucky enough to be able to see a Cremaster or Drawing Restraint showing at a museum or cinema near to them or those tiny few numbers of supercollectors for whom money is pretty much meaningless. The rest of the public should follow their lead and refuse to purchase this or any other "excerpted" versions of Barney's work and pay them back in kind. Art should not be the exclusive domain of an elite. If artists insist on making their work difficult to see or accessible only to the powerful or wealthy, then the rest of us should ignore it and let it disappear.

Matthew Barney is continually scrutinized by artists and critics alike.

Ignore them and see his work for yourself.

Matthew Barney successfully combines both his visual and conceptual ideas in the Cremaster series through an orchestrated, cinematic production of five Cremaster cycles, shot and released out of sequence. The Order (Cremaster 3) is just one of those cycles, but is the final of the series, bringing closure to his project which has been produced over the course of a few years. The Order takes place in the Guggenheim Museum of New York, where a Tartan-clad Barney scales five levels of the Museum to confront different challenges before gaining his rite-of-passage. I won't spoil the excitement.

This dvd is cutting-edge to the modern art scene, and the only affordable version of Matthew Barney's project that has been released to the public. With an interactive feature that allows you to watch the entire cycle, each section individually, or all five sections (angles) simultaneously, I'd say anyone who purchases it is getting one hell of a deal.

The DVD is not the complete Cremaster 3 movie. Easy for most fans to figure out but if you are just getting into Barney or saw Cremaster 3 at a special showing this is only part of it. This DVD contains a 30 minute "Order" movie and then it seems a longer version using multi angle feature that is very difficult to figure out. I finally had to get on the computer to play the DVD and use the controls there find the "angles" Great art and love the work but DVD still confusing.

Beautiful, strange, hilarious, moving, cryptic, amazing: what more can I say about this? Matthew Barney is a genius, and this is a great introduction to the whole cycle.

The DVD interface *is* confusing. The "multiangle" feature shows you what is going on (in "real" time) on each level throughout, once the Apprentice has climbed to the first level. So, pick a level from the opening screen and choose "Start". You won't see the individual "degree" intros, but you will see the showgirls introduce the Apprentice. Pressing the "angle" button on your DVD player remote won't do anything until the apprentice reaches level 1 and encounters the tap-dancing lamb-women. Then, you'll get the Cremaster field symbol in the lower right corner of the screen with regions for the different levels--choose the one you want to go to, then enjoy! What you see is what the different characters are doing on each level throughout. The "film version" intersects at various points but otherwise you do get things you don't see and hear in the regular "film version." So it's not a true multiangle feature like on other DVDs--you can't select different angles for different scenes--but I think it's even more interesting the way it is. I especially like the action on level 2 (with the punk bands playing acoustic) and level 3 (Aimee Mullins pacing her turf and later being cheetah-like), okay and level 5 with Richard Serra throwing hot vaseline. You can follow what is going on at each level by the thumbnail movies in the Cremaster field symbol and switch from level to level at will.

The director's commentary was harder for me to figure out how to access: using the onscreen interface didn't work for me, but I eventually found it using the sound option on the remote. It is surprisingly dry and factual: merely a summary of the various characters and symbols, with no amusing anecdotes about what must have been an interesting production. And not a trace of the humor that runs through Barney's art! But I guess he has to keep a dead pan over all of this for it to work.

As an artist the name Matthew Barney was one that I had heard but was not terribly familiar with. The only exposure I had to his work had been a few photogrpahs in magazines and art books. However, last summer, a weekend trip to New York solidified my knowledge of this artist. Last spring The Guggenheim Museum was host to the entire Matthew Barney Cremaster Cycle, and fortunately, I just happened to stumble upon this retrospective exhibition merely by chance. The exhibition showcased all four of the Cremaster films, mostly all of the sculpture,as well as numerous photographs and drawings. The experience was rather overwhelming, however,I may be so bold as to say it was a life-changing experience. And, since experiencing the show at the Guggenheim I have researched this artist extensively and I have discovered the logic, themes, and motivation behind this impressive collection of artwork and the fascinating man that creates it.

I felt compelled to write a review here after reading some of the negative things said about this excerpt DVD of Cremaster 3. It is truly impossible to pass judgement on this excperpt if one has not seen all of the films together, and especially if one watches this DVD without knowing what the series is about, or if one has not first read anything regarding the artist or the themes of the films. The negative reviews here are uninformed and unfounded. The Cremaster films are not meant to be art that is accesible or understood by everyone, hence, if one does not understand what is going on in the films it is because the story does not make sense unless one has a general knowledge of the themes. While inside the Guggenheim, I myself had trouble understanding just exactly what was going on. However, when I returned home,I read about these films extensively and I began to understand the concepts.

In this series of films, Barney examines mostly the concepts of sex(the word "Cremaster" references a muscle in the gonads stimulated by the embryonic process at the moment of sexual differentiation), also ascension, decension,birth,etc. As a graduate student, Barney explored the process of climbing, fashioning numerous climbing apperatti in his studio. This is the reason for Barney climbing inside of the Guggenheim, inside the Chrysler Building,etc. He is exploring ascension and sexual arousal. He refernces different themes and mythologies, intertwining these into a complex series of metaphors, (Gary Gilmore claimed to be a descendant of Harry Houdini, Gilmore rang Johhny Cash the night before his execution, Gilmore rode bulls while incarcerated,etc,etc). Barney brilliantly links all of these seemingly disjointed themes by creating characters that relate to the myths as well as portraying the real-life characters involved in these stories.

Luckily, if one has an appreciation of good film, one can appreciate the beautiful cinematic qualities of these movies regardless if one does not understand what the movies are about.Barney is involved in every detail including make-up and prosthetics, set design, lighting,cinematography and of course, music. This is truly film as art. And, in the Guggenheim retrospective, this concept was pushed to the extreme. The entire museum was "transformed" into a "venue" as seen in Cremaster 3, wherein Barney transforms the museum into a sort of futuristic Roman Forum.

It would be impossible to expalin every detail here. My suggestion is that before you buy or rent this excerpt from Cremaster 3, go to your local library and check out the books published on the films. These books explain the themes and the imagery. The DVD may then make more sense, however, it is unfortunate that it is only a portion of the film. This is the reason that it seems disjointed, pretentious, and pointless. One must remember that these films are Matthew Barney's art, just as Picasso's painting were his art. There were many misunderstood themes and metaphors behind Picasso's paintings, but like with any good art it is not easy to understand at first glance. Good art takes time to appreciate. Matthew Barney is truly an artist for the 21st century and one experiences something new everytime one sees one of his films. He is definitely worth exploring. But remember to approach Matthew Barney in the context of an artist first, then as a filmmaker.

As someone who has seen the entire Cremaster Cycle in order at the cinema, this DVD is highly recomended as a taste of the entire cycle.

The commentary by Barney is rich and detailed, he does not hide behind any philosophical rhetoric and is extremely generous with infomation on the concepts as well as the more practical matters.

But if anyone is just waiting to buy the entire DVD set, forget it. Barney sold (extremely) limited editions of the films in glass cases and mounted on materials pertaining to the films, apparently for around one million dollars each, so there is no way that you will be able to buy a complete film on dvd without going to Barney's art dealer with a big wad of cash, what a pity.

i went to New York to see the show at the Guggenheim. i saw all the films & it was great! I was excited learn 3 was on dvd, & i purchased it here. The product details claims that it has a running time of 240 minutes, but this is not true. in reality, i was duped out of $20, for what boils down to a 30 minute trailer. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY. Wait until they release them, IN FULL LENGTH, because they are worth having.This is not what you want.