**/**** Image A Sound A Extras B+
directed by Alison Chernick
by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Full disclosure: my exposure to Matthew Barney extends solely to his whales/Björk/petroleum jelly extravaganza Drawing Restraint 9, and to say I didn't get it would be putting it mildly: it sailed so far over my head that it may still be in orbit somewhere over Mercury. Yet I was game for Alison Chernick's Matthew Barney: No Restraint, if for no reason other than that it might decode said production and provide a framework for appreciating Barney's other work. On this score, the film only does half the job. Running an abbreviated 71 minutes, it offers a rather rushed assessment of the artist's métier, with various critics and performers peppering the roughest outline of Barney's modus operandi with soundbites of approval. When all's said and done, it's a teasing, fitfully interesting suggestion of a mindset but far from key to understanding Barney's peculiar dream logic.
Barney, of course, has courted controversy ever since his fast acceptance into the art elite. Landing an ARTFORUM cover nearly immediately after graduating from Yale, he's inspired jealousy and scorn for his apparently frivolous career as a model and for bypassing the season of neglect that upstart artists generally endure. But the main criticism has been the man's apparent obscurity, his cultivating in the Drawing Restraint and Cremaster cycles a personal symbolism that is all but impenetrable to the layman. No strident political issues or austere frustrations of narrative: his portfolio (as excerpted in the film) is just pure, hardcore insanity to anyone who exists (as I do) outside the art world. To be sure, No Restraint offers several intriguing rationales for everything from Barney's choice of seldom-used materials to his lingering on physicality. The "drawing restraints," for example, are about him setting tasks that literally restrict his ability to create; the enormous effort is effectively what each piece is about.
That being said, we learn more about Barney's influences (athletics play a big role) and original aspirations (plastic surgeon!) than we do about his output proper. Though interspersed with expert witnesses stating the case for Barney, the film is mostly devoted to the making of Drawing Restraint 9, interviewing the artist as he enthuses about Vaseline and the musculature of whales and the particular, less-than-obvious symbols he embeds in the work. The man spends more time worrying about the meaning of the makeup on a shaman's face than most people lavish on entire movies–and while he has a noble attention to detail, the significance of his choices remains largely uncommented-upon. There's no directorial voice–Chernick trains her camera on Barney and barely imposes order on what she shoots. It's not even a précis of a man whose complexity has defeated critics and viewers better versed in these things than I.
As I say, the length is an issue. I don't know why Matthew Barney: No Restraint is so short: to an outsider, that brevity is maddening, and I believe the film barely scratches the surface for anybody looking for even an introduction. Furthermore, it's opaque about what it does delve into: one learns little from the set of Drawing Restraint 9 beyond the vagaries of petroleum jelly use and other technical ephemera. There's no point-of-view beyond vaguely-defined cheerleading that may be touching tribute but doesn't get down to the meat and bone of what is this thing Matthew Barney? Although I haven't written the man off and do intend to access his stuff in the future, the mediocre nature of this documentary didn't bring me much closer to a place where I could approach him without some trepidation.
THE DVD
IFC/Weinstein Company's DVD release of Matthew Barney: No Restraint is nevertheless highly creditable. The HD-sourced 1.78:1, 16×9-enhanced image is clear as a bell, coupling good, vivid colour with excellent definition that does without bleedthrough or other separation distractions. The Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound is largely functional, but the variety of music has dimension and sharpness is never an issue.
First up for extras is an interview gallery, including Barney himself on such subjects as: "His Early Inspiration" (1 min.), in which he mentions his painter mother and his ability to communicate best through visual means; "Early Drawing Restraint: Satyrs and Rams" (4 mins.), an explication of a video depicting satyrs wrestling in car as well as the various other works that surround the piece; "Early Drawing Restraint: Guillotine" (10s), a literal description of photos featuring costumed people in a wrestling move; "Drawing Restraint 8" (4 mins.), a discussion of the "erotic drawings" facilitated by Barney's method and his gravitation towards petroleum jelly and other concerns that will carry over into his next project; "Drawing Restraint 9" (2 mins.), in which Barney talks about the film's love story, the "object-driven narrative," and the guest in the host's environment; "Drawing Restraint 9 Challenges: Using Shrimp" (1 min.), wherein he explains why he chose to abandon using real shrimp in a particular scene; and finally "Drawing Restraint 9 Challenges: Storytelling" (25s), in which the artist reveals why he wanted to record his sculpture process on film. None of this is exactly comprehensible to an outsider, though the already initiated should get something out of it.
"Björk on Japan" (1 min.) gives us the singer/songwriter talking of her desire to not seem like a tourist when approaching her work on Drawing Restraint 9 (and coming across as rather magnanimous in the process), while "NEW YORK TIMES Chief Art Critic Michael Kimmelman on Barney's Early Work" (3 mins.) sees Kimmelman–who links 1970s art to a "personal mythology" and identity politics without self-righteousness–delivering the most lucid exegesis of Barney's significance you'll find on this disc. Also on board are two time-lapse clips of building the petroleum jelly sculptures that figure into Drawing Restraint 9: one in Brooklyn (3 mins.) and one in Japan (17s). Nothing revelatory, but watching the jelly congeal is surprisingly entertaining. Trailers for An Unreasonable Man, Close to Home, The Aura, and Requiem begin on startup.
71 minutes; NR; 1.78:1 (16×9-enhanced); English DD 2.0 (Stereo); Spanish subtitles; DVD-5; Region One; IFC/Genius
