Cremaster 2

This baroque fugue on the genealogy and death of Utah multiple murderer Gary Gilmore is the fourth and most complex installment in multimedia artist Matthew Barney's Cremaster quintet. And while critics may debate the enduring worth of his work, Barney's virtuoso visual sense renders each successive Cremaster more ravishing than the last. The film is grounded in a bit of Gilmore family lore, recounted in Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song: Gilmore's grandmother, turn-of-the-century spiritualist "Baby" Fay La Foe, once enjoyed a brief affair with Harry Houdini, who was Gary's real grandfather. The film is essentially in two parts, divided by...