Cremaster 2

Cremaster 2 bezieht sich auf die Geschichte von Gary Gilmore, der 1977 in den USA für einen Raubmord hngerichtet wurde. Gilmore wurde zum Antihelden, als er für seine Tat die höchstmögliche Bestrafung forderte.

Der Film führt von einem Gletscher in den kanadischen Rocky Mountains zu den Salzebenen von Bonneville, vom Utah des Jahres 1976 ins Chicago von 1893. In der ihm eigenen, mythologisch aufgelandenen Bildsprache spannt Barney einen erzählerischen Faden um den filmischen Antihelden Gary Gilmore (dargestellt von Matthew Barney)

Der Schriftsteller Norman Mailer, der Gilmores Geschichten in seinem Buch "The Executioner's Song" festgehalten hat, spielt in Cremaster 2 den Entfesselungskünstler Harry Houdini.


Gary Gilmore was the man who was executed in 1977 - at his own request.
A mass murderer, Gilmore had spent most of his life behind bars - in total
22 years of the 36 years he was alive. I use Gilmore as a vehicle. It gives my
journey a purpose. My travels begin in the north in the Canadian Rockies.
Gilmore's biography helps me make my way from the Columbia glacier
down to the salt lakes of Utah. The search for the places which were impor-tant
in his life but also the lives of his parents and grandparents lead me
south along the Rocky Mountains. Geology and genealogy begin to over-lap.
But this is also a journey back in time from 1977 to 1893.
This was the year in which the Chicago world exposition took place. Harry
Houdini, the most famous escapologist of his times, was appearing at the
exhibition. Gilmore's grandmother paid a visit there and, so legend has it,
she and Houdini had an affair which produced an illegitimate son -
Gilmore's father.

Utah's emblem is the bee. The bee is also the key image for the Mormons,
symbolising family and structure. During the course of my film, Gilmore
fades into the background and the subject of bees begins to take centre
stage, dictating the narrative. The film begins to focus on the dynamics of
the hive and the way that the male bee - the drone - becomes useless as
soon as he has fulfilled his function, namely, to mate with the queen. Hou-dini
called his most spectacular trick 'Metamorphosis'. For this act, he was
locked into a box and, when the box was reopened, Houdini's wife walked
out. Gilmore was a drone, he had lost his usefulness and was locked away.
History's metaphysical resolution is: Gilmore wants to be Houdini so that he
can turn into a woman, because as a woman he can ascend the throne as
queen bee and will not have to die.

Matthew Barney