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Cremaster 4 More at IMDbPro »

10 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
One of the most easily digestible and likeable Cycle installments, 2 December 2003
Author: Graham Deans Williamson (gdwilliamson@deathsdoor.co.uk) from Middlesbrough, England

A satyr, surrounded by equally odd-looking assistants, tap-dances so much that he wears a hole into a pier and falls into the sea. Meanwhile, I start thinking about 'The Lord of the Rings'.

Now that Matthew Barney's art-film series is complete, and a DVD release is promised, I can't help wondering what it means for the future of commercial cinema that someone could own these films and place them on a shelf next to Peter Jackson's equally special achievement. Make no mistake, the Cremaster Cycle is a fantasy series (it touches on most genres, actually, but 'fantasy' seems the most fitting as a catch-all description), and it's now tap-danced through the floors of the art gallery into mainstream waters. Wouldn't it be interesting if some young film-maker came on the scene twenty years hence and cited 'Lord of the Rings' and 'Cremaster' as his or her main influence? What would that do to commercial cinema?

We shall no doubt find out. In the meantime, 'Cremaster 4' charts the descent of the films into a sort of reluctant masculinity, accompanied by the mythic, humorous and occasionally gross imagery that Barney has made his own. Unlike the bloated, bewildering 'Cremaster 3' or the somewhat mannered 'Cremaster 5', the meaning of this fourth installment is pretty much on the surface for everyone to see. Testicular images are echoed throughout the film, whether explicitly (the gonads rising out of the sportsmen's jackets) or implicitly (the shape of the docking bay on the pier). And the last image spells it out in a witty and concise way for anyone still confused.

There's a sort of maverick charm to this segment that I found lacking in 'Cremaster 3'. It's there in the rough and ready DV work, and Matthew Barney himself, smirking through layers of prosthetics as the Loughton Candidate as he wears a hole in the pier floor. 'Cremaster 4' is also a sports movie, both in the motor racing event Barney covers (displaying a sharp grasp of the visual grammar of TV sporting events) and in the epic struggle of the Loughton Candidate. Thoroughly enjoyable stuff.

5 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
The Best of the Cycle, 9 June 2003

Author: alexduffy2000 (alexduffy2000@yahoo.com) from Hollywood, USA

I liked this Cremaster movie the best. First of all, it's nice and short. Second, the visual imagery is simple, yet interesting, not the overkill of Cremaster 3. Lastly, it's probably the most "fun" of the Cremaster films to watch (if you can describe any of them as fun). There's no plot, of course, and it's extremely pretentious, but it held my attention for all 42 minutes, and I'd recommend it as a stand-alone art film. 8 out of 10.

8 out of 17 people found the following review useful:
part of a modern art classic, 20 March 2004

Author: Chris_Docker from Scotland, United Kingdom

The Cremaster Cycle 9/10 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 4 is closest to the biological model and so sets the scene, suggesting the system's onward rush. There is a motorcycle race and a Candidate who is tap-dancing his way through the floor (weird? yes - but it is definitely art, not weird for weird's sake!)

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).

1 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Great images, but..., 9 August 2003

Author: Abraham Mystical from USA

Glacial pacing and ridiculous mythopeia are more than compensated by the uniqueness of his vision, and the gutsiness of his approach. Well worthwhile for discerning viewers. Lovely music, great sets, but it's really a filmed document of his static art.

5 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
a great non-narrative art film dealing with gender, sports, and the Isle of Man, 11 December 2002

Author: rmax26 (rmax26@hotmail.com) from New Haven, Connecticut

Matthew Barney's "Cremaster 4" is an excellent example of what can be achieved in the area of video art. "Cremaster 4" contains no verbal dialogue, but exists purely in the visual (with audio accompaniment). While not made with the budget and means of perhaps Barney's later "Cremaster 3," "Cremaster 4" is a successful enveiling of various processes that reference issues of gender and masculinity, sports, and Barney's own mythology/ iconography. I believe what makes Barney's work so significant is his dealing with issues from contemporary American culture that artists previously either rejected or deemed unworthy as subject material. While the Cremaster cycle of movies most directly deals with masculinity (the cremaster is found in the scrotum and is the muscle which is responsible for raising and lowering the testicles), Barney also manages to weave in his own commentary on sports (he played football at Yale), video games (see the Guggenheim sequence in "Cremaster 3"; it's self-explanatory), and gender ambiguity. Barney has a keen eye for striking images. The music provided by Jonathan Bepler suits Barney's films very well. If you like evocative images, cryptic sequences of events, and can tolerate the occasionally disturbing, I highly recommend "Cremaster 4."

6 out of 16 people found the following review useful:
Lost Race, 27 January 2007
Author: tedg (tedg@FilmsFolded.com) from Virginia Beach

I'm seeing these in numeric order, which I must assume was some sort of intent. So far, the first was important and effective. It mattered to me. The second was overloaded with storysense that showed flat stupidity. The third was similar but overloaded with random symbols. Along the way, I saw "Drawing Restraint" and it was every bit as good as number 1.

The advantage of this is that the symbols are few, the symbolic structures simple and obvious, the posturing plain. Its still uninteresting. He's still not a deep man unless he thinks in images, environments rather than objects.

In this case, there's a race, an underground vagina and a sterile terminus for both.

Boring.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

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