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Cremaster 3

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 7 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 21 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Matthew Barney
Directed by: Matthew Barney
Release Date:
Theatrical: May 15, 2002
Running Time: 182 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Matthew Barney's Cremaster series has taken on a legendary stature. This final piece in the 5-part cycle is the longest, densest and most complex -- filled with beautiful, mystifying images, many of them harkening back to themes the artist has already established. (Film Forum)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Drawing Restraint 9 Matthew Barney: No Restraint
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Film Forum Profile
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Variety Scott Foundas
Matthew Barney delivers his masterpiece in Cremaster 3, unquestionably the 35-year-old sculptor-performance artist-filmmaker's most linear, most narratively inclined work to date.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
If Cremaster 3 is an innovative artwork that has been credited with breaking down the distance between sculpture and film, is it also a great movie? Probably yes.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
Barney has been criticized as willfully esoteric, but if traditional meaning is once again elusive in this film, it remains an enthralling aesthetic experience, one that's steeped in mystery and a ravishing, baroque beauty.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
Barney's cinematic art inspires both awe and revulsion, often simultaneously.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Few of its loosely linked vignettes have enough visual or emotional power to be very memorable.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Ed Halter
Offers little beyond the momentary joys of pretty and weightless intellectual entertainment.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.2 (out of 10) based on 21 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Laredo D. gave it a0:
The Barney hype machine has had me suspicious from the start, and now I feel justified in my feelings. I only wish the real masters of the unconscious, such as Dali or Bunuel, were here to truly initiate Barney - dental torture would not be their preferred method I am sure. I have grown to dislike Barney most of all because he preys on the ID without taking us into any meaningful transformational metaphoric state that would make the journey worth traveling. He has a truly ferocious visual talent, but I always feel as disgusted after one of his films as if I had seen a truly exploitative porn flick. And that I think is why I have tired of him - I feel that he exploits all my darkest subliminal symbolic synapses, but leaves me nothing of light or knowledge in return for my visual rape.
Monica B. gave it a 2:
This movie was terribly pretentious and tediously over-drawn. The repetition was suicide-inducing drivel, indeed with vague themes and metaphors that you could only "get" by reading off the website. Take off the lavish, expensive costumes, sets, and effects, and what you'd get would be a piece of drivel.
Elliott gave it a 9:
It is a remarkably beautiful film, filled with bizarre, occasionally horrific, images that stay with you long after the film is over. The scenes where the Chrysler Building was transformed into a giant maypole were particularly wonderful, and the set pieces were simply amazing. Cremaster 3 is the best of the series. It really is a masterpiece.
Jochen T. gave it a 9:
I am on a thin line with this film. It is purposely obscure with it's meanings, and it's a problem I have with a lot of contemporary art. A lot of art doesn't seem to deal with common language that is stated with complexity, which is upon to readings from any perceptive individual, but instead uses obscure symbols. I suppose in that light it makes sense that Barney's Cremaster films are so expensive to buy, because then they remain in the art world. Or are doomed, captured in the art world. A lot of the people I know who would actually think about art, instead of just jumping onto the badwagon for the latest piece of fashionable art, are poor S.O.B.s who only have the money to rent the latest Cronenberg or Lynch film. As it stands, Cremaster three is held at a distance by its price-tag. It does little to communicate its meanings to a large audience, but maybe gives the art the same lofty remoteness of people within the Masonic order, and maybe the elusiveness of the film contributes to its popularity. The film itself, as much as I understand its symbol set, revolves around Free-Masonry, and its images are related to rising through the order. I believe this includes the Scottish book-ends, since (as near as I've come to understand) Free-Masonry began in Scottland. If you want to understand the symbols used for the Enterred Apprentice section, reading up on the ritual for the initiation of the Entered Apprentice is probably a good start. Other than that, I thought it was pretty dope, and very beautiful. Very ornate in a contemporary way. His influences are obvious, but it didn't feel derivitive. He seemed pretty in control of them.
Therese P. gave it a 1:
Cremaster= masturbation, white male, pretentious, chauvinistic, and totally overrated.
Matt B. gave it a 5:
I've seen cremaster 1-3. I'm surprised that none of the other reviewers have mentioned how derivative the works seem. Barney is plainly influenced by Kubrick, David lynch and the team that made koyanisquatsi. As result, none of Barney's images or ideas seem that original or interesting to me. Nevertheless, except for a few disgusting sequences of bodily fluids and what not, the films seem harmless. They hold your attention, despite the annoying editting in which cuts seem to have been made with help of a metronome, occuring with a regularity that at times seems to interrupt the action on the screen. I found much in the films to be funny, almost a parody of an art film. I mean, so much is so over the top, its hard not to laugh. I'm seeing cremaster 4 and 5 today at the Dobie theater in Austin, TX, which is showing the complete cycle this week.
Portal Star gave it a 3:
The movie was terrible. It was too long (3 hours with an intermission), and had vague social themes with no impact. The occasionally beautiful shots almost made the movie worth seeing, but didn't make up for the repetativeness and tedium. There was no speech. Barnes beats his subtle themes into you, when he could have summed up the movie in 15 minutes having spent less money. I think the only reason critics praise it is for fear the art world will think they are not intelligent. To quote a friend, "If I prevent enough people from seeing Cremaster 3, my life will have been worth living."
