River of Fundament Trailer by Matthew Barney

Visionary artist and filmmaker Matthew Barney will be screening his groundbreaking operatic 311-minute film River of Fundament, a radical reinvention of Norman Mailer’s most critically reviled novel Ancient Evenings, at the London Coliseum on June 29th. In collaboration with composer Jonathan Bepler and commissioned by Manchester International Festival, Barney combines traditional modes of narrative cinema with filmed elements of performance, sculpture, and opera, reconstructing Mailer’s 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 Salman Rushdie, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Debbie Harry, Paul Giamatti, Elaine Stritch, Ellen Burstyn, Joan La Barbara, and jazz percussionist Milford Graves. Alluring and intense, this brilliantly rendered and epic experience is a sprawling allegory of death and rebirth within the contemporary American landscape.

Written and Directed by Matthew Barney

Music Composed and Directed by Jonathan Bepler

Produced by Matthew Barney and Laurenz Foundation

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