River of Fundament


River of Fundament is a 2014 operatic experimental film written and directed by American artist and filmmaker Matthew Barney, and co-directed by longtime collaborator Jonathan Bepler. It was produced by Barney and the Laurenz Foundation and is loosely based on the 1983 novel Ancient Evenings by Norman Mailer. The film features Barney, Dave Bald Eagle, Milford Graves, Ellen Burstyn, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Paul Giamatti, Shara Nova, Joan La Barbara and Aimee Mullins.

Background

River of Fundament was produced over 2007 to 2012, being the final product of a series of performances that accumulated into becoming the film's narrative. The film follows Norman Mailer as he travels through three different reincarnations, enduring the seven mythological states of his soul, loosely based on his own novel, Ancient Evenings. Along with the main narrative, it includes other elements from performance, sculpture, and opera. It has been described as a "eulogy for Mailer."
The film was released on February 12, 2014 in a limited theatrical release and through exhibitions at museums in several countries.

Plot and narrative

Writer Norman Mailer, becoming a protagonist of his own, reincarnates three times during and after his wake into three separate bodies, the last failing to survive through the womb and body of his wife, Hathfertiti. Each reincarnation, he wakes up in a river of feces running beneath his Brooklyn Heights apartment.
Simultaneously, Mailer's body is represented as three generations of American cars: a 1967 Chrysler Crown Imperial, a 1979 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am and finally a 2001 Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor. All three cars are transmogrified through modern industrial processing and recycling to symbolize the regeneration and reincarnation of Mailer.
Through this, the narrative also follows American car dealerships, drum and bugle corps, 'stomp teams', James Lee Byars' piece "The Death of James Lee Byars", Los Angeles culture, the Brooklyn Navy Yard and alchemy.