MFAH Film New Releases: River of Fundament

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents another in its New Releases series. Enjoy these critically acclaimed, award-winning international films as they make their Houston debut!

Community partner: Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.

River of Fundament

Director Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler
Released 2014
Country USA
Running Time 332 minutes (Act I: 115 min. – Act II: 108 min. – Act III: 96 min.)
Format DCP, Color
Website http://www.riveroffundament.net

The screening on Friday, September 16 is introduced by Bill Arning, director of Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.

In collaboration with composer Jonathan Bepler, renowned artist Matthew Barney (whose The Cremaster Cycle screened at the museum in 2003) combines traditional modes of narrative cinema with filmed elements of performance, sculpture, and opera inspired by Norman Mailer’s novel, Ancient Evenings, a hypersexual story of Egyptian gods and the seven stages of reincarnation, alongside the rise and fall of the American car industry.

The film’s central scene is an abstraction of Mailer’s wake, set in a replica of the late author’s apartment in Brooklyn Heights and featuring Maggie Gyllenhaal, Paul Giamatti, Elaine Stritch, Ellen Burstyn, Joan La Barbara, Deborah Harry, Jonas Mekas and more.

Alluring and intense, this epic, multidimensional experience is a sprawling allegory of death and rebirth within the contemporary American landscape.

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/riveroffun