Matthew Barney et Jonathan Bepler

The American writer Norman Mailer once personally gave a copy of his 1983 novel Ancient Evenings to Matthew Barney as a hopeful source of inspiration. This gesture led to what
would later become the film River of Fundament. Blending cinema, opera and performance, the film was inspired by Mailer’s provocative interpretation of the ancient Egyptian Book of
the Dead.
River of Fundament revolves around a wake for Norman Mailer (deceased in 2007). The scenes of the wake are interspersed with extracts taken from previous performances recorded
and orchestrated by Matthew Barney: Los Angeles in 2008 (REN), Detroit in 2010 (KHU), and New York in 2013 (BA). The images explore life, death and reincarnation in a gripping overlap of myths from Egypt and modern-day America: hence, Osiris becomes a Chrysler Imperial being smelted down as a brass-band of day-labourers play in the rain…
Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler began working together in 1995 on the Cremaster series, for which Bepler composed the score. Both Barney and Bepler consider it essential to
work with artists from a wide range of backgrounds, and have worked with the likes of Ursula Andress, performer Marti Domination, singer-songwriter-musician Patty Griffin, thrash-metal drummer Dave Lombardo, the Budapest Opera and Philharmonic Orchestra, hard-core groups Agnostic Front and Murphy’s Law, the Radio City Rockettes. Similarly, the following all contributed to River of Fundament: actors Ellen Burnstyn, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Paul Giamatti, John Buffalo Mailer and Elaine Stritch; singers Joan La Barbara, Deborah Harry, Belita Woods, Lila Downs, Shara Wordon, drummer Milford Graves; baritones Eugene and Herbert Perry; organist-composer Dr Lonnie Smith; and the Mystic River Singers.