Description: Taking the American landscape as its backdrop, the film River Of Fundament is an epic story of regeneration and rebirth, set in three major American cities—Los Angeles, Detroit, and New York. Loosely based on Norman Mailer’s 1983 novel Ancient Evenings, the film follows the death and reincarnation of two principal characters who take the form of Norman Mailer and an anthropomorphic automobile. A collaboration between visual artist Matthew Barney and Berlin-based American composer Jonathan Bepler, the film was conceived of as a contemporary opera that combines documentary footage of three live acts performed in outdoor environments in Los Angeles, Detroit, and New York, with live-action cinema, largely set in a careful re-creation of Mailer’s Brooklyn brownstone apartment, where the late author’s wake is underway.