Word: houdini
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...part sculpture, part film, his mandarin works are outrageous spectacles of heavy makeup and dreamworld metamorphosis. Barney, 32, has appeared before his camera as a red-haired ram in a morning coat; as a satyr squirming in the backseat of a stretch limousine; as a naked and chained Houdini in Budapest, throwing himself into the Danube while Ursula Andress, as the weeping "Queen of Chain," looks...
Cremaster 2 is a sprawling, hallucinatory quiltwork of gorgeously shot scenes, ominous organ music and barely a page of dialogue, all slowly unfolding a circuitous plot involving Gilmore (played with truculent wordlessness by Barney), copulating bees, members of the Gilmore clan, Houdini (played briefly and pugnaciously by Norman Mailer, author of the Gilmore saga The Executioner's Song), a Brahma bull, the Mormon Tabernacle and landscapes ranging from Utah's blindingly bright salt flats to the glacial ice fields of Jasper, Canada...
...body and is an indicator in the fetus of male gender. Everything in the "Cremaster" series swirls dizzily from there: for him, biological destiny is a prison. Escape from it is a heroic act--in fact, a spiritual right. Thus his transmogrified, half-human creatures elsewhere; his fixation on Houdini, the impossibly malleable escape artist; and now his Gilmore, who spent the better part of his adult life in prison, only to be released into the world, where he killed and was executed by his own demand in what he imagined was a transformative act of blood atonement...
...things we won't do for a little attention. Would Harry Houdini be anything more than a nameless bum without his box, chains and death-defying stunts? Would we drop Hugh Grant's name nearly as often without his infamous exploits? Would Linda Tripp be a household name if she wasn’t' a self-professed double talking snoop? Would Annie Taylor be an enduring symbol of American ambition if it wasn't for her unprecedented trip over the Niagara Falls in a barrel of her own making? Hardly...
...most fascinating quirks of Ragtime is the number of historical figures included in the cast. Booker T. Washington (Allan Louis) serves as a role model of monumental importance for Coalhouse and his friends; likewise, Harry Houdini (Bernie Yvon) is always introduced as an example of the success even an immigrant can find. Social activist Emma Goldman (Theresa Tova) plays a key role in Tateh's life as she organizes the labor rallies of Lawrence, Massachusetts. On the other end of the spectrum, a haunting dance depicts J.P. Morgan and Henry Ford crushing the starving masses underneath their ridiculous wealth. Even...