[Focus]

I cannot say I've seen an "Art Film" such as this one. Or any, for that matter.

It starts with a letter-as-song to General MacArthur. The person writing the letter (I think Will Oldham sings here?) is sending him two fossils.

Later, there is a parade/procession in Japan. People are leading a tanker filled with hot vasoline/fat/petroleum to a ship, called the Nisshin Maru.

Bjork is shown playing with some water and Five Japanese Women find a floating, bleeding(?) rock. Needless to say, there is probably too much symbolism for Barney's artistic needs, but hell if it isn't a gorgeous film.

I've never seen his Cremaster Cycle series, though.

ANYWAYS. Has anyone else seen this, or other of Barney's works? I'm curious for interpretations.

[newave]

Barney is the master of textures in films.

[Wall of Beef]

Focus, did you see this in a theater, or on DVD? Because I seem to remember hearing when they were showing it near me that it was intentionally never coming to DVD. Which is annoying, because I never got to see it.
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[Focus]

Yeah, I remember reading online somewhere, NEVER EVER EVER GOING TO BE ON DVD!!!

So, I went to go see it. I'm tempted to go see the documentary (which sounds to be just a glorified "Making Of") tomorrow, but it is showing at 2 PM and I'm not sure if I'll feel like WALKING to the theaters and spending my last five dollars.

I'm sort of upset that The Cremaster Cycle isn't coming to DVD, either. One of my schoolmates here saw one of them in Chicago, maybe a week ago? Either way, I don't see why not. Unless Barney is against the whole commercialization deal.
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[bort]

According to a link on wikipedia to some forum topic somewhere, the dude auctioned off 20 DVD sets of the Cremaster Cycle at $100,000 each.

So yeah if that is true he is a tremendous asshole.

[Wall of Beef]

Is it some crap thats he is trying to pull like its some art project that must be toured or something? I mean, sure its better to see any movie in the theater, just like its better to see a famous painting in real life. But they make cheap prints of famous paintings as well, just like they can make a copy of a movie on DVD.
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[Focus]

The 9 in the title refers to it's sequence. He's up to 13 or 15, now, I think.

The pieces (besides 9) are mostly performative actions that usually produce one or two drawings. One of them has him climbing up a wall with elastic restraints (Bla bla bla, hence the title, bla bla bla) and drawing in the upper corner of a room. Another one is him jumping off a mini trampoline at a 15-degree angle, making a mark at a time on the ceiling. The marks he made for the trampoline piece are combined to form a self portrait.

So!

It DOES suck that he refuses to release anything on DVD, though. The cheap prints of paintings analogy works well, too.
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[Laurel Soup]

To state the obvious, paintings are painted. There's brush strokes and texture, so seeing an actual painting as opposed to a print is a pretty big difference. Plus paintings are historical objects; seeing the actual David or Nocturne in Black and Gold or what have you can be impressive.

When comparing film to DVD both are printed in mass quantities and--these days--pretty high quality. The only major difference is the context--theater versus your couch. I'm not one to rag on the theater-going experience, but if a director feels that context is so integral to their films (and they aren't William Castle) to deny a DVD release, something foul is afoot.

I've been a curious about this guy, but he sounds a wee bit pretentious.
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[Wall of Beef]

Matthew Barney: "They cannot be distributed as DVDs because they originally sold as limited-edition art objects. If a sculpture is in an edition of six, you can't make more of them. It's not right for them to be available to be owned in an unlimited way after they've been sold in a limited way. I have the right to do theatrical distribution of the films, which I've done with 'Cremaster' and 'Drawing Restraint 9.' In Paris, they have now, for the second time, brought back the series. It's certainly a better condition to see it than on a monitor."

Supposedly the ultra limited Drawing Restraint DVDs are all "hand packaged" by Barney, and one of them went for a quarter of a million dollars to some rich art collector.

He just carts these movies around the globe and charges from what I understand, quite a bit from theaters to show them for like 5 days, and moves on again. And when ever he feels like it he can make a few copies for mere pennies, and sell it some rich dumbass at the Guggenheim.

The guy is making loads off a being a total scrooge, and is lucky that rich art collectors will eat up anything a hippster can throw at them.
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[newave]

[Mr. Business]

There's always the off chance that someone rips and torrents one of these DVDs. Doesn't seem too terribly likely though, because someone who sits around paying 250k for a set of DVDs probably isn't all that interested in piracy, Linux, or fansubs.

Sounds to me like this guy is just closing his eyes and blindly ignoring the state of his chosen medium. Either that or he's "challenging" it, but I'd like to think it's a challenge at which he will ultimately lose.
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Taking a break.

[Wall of Beef]

Well, isohunt.com has Drawing Restraint 9.
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[newave]

Well back in art school, i watched all the current Cremaster cycles at that time (all but Cremaster 3) this was aroun 99-01, on bootlegg VHS, so someone is making copies. Probably at that time from LD transfers to VHS.

[SplashBeats]

[Wall of Beef]

[Focus]

[Wall of Beef]

I've seen Bjork naked before, she had a music video where she was naked in the whole thing...not bad actually.
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[newave]

That torrent needs some damn seeds....

[Predator Goose]

You'd better not look at Bjork naked, she's married to Space Ghost, and he might be the jealous type.
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I can no longer shop happily.