River of Fundament takes the form of a three-act opera and is loosely based on Norman Mailer’s novel Ancient Evenings.[19] In collaboration with composer Jonathan Bepler, Barney combines traditional modes of narrative cinema with filmed elements of performance, sculpture, and opera, reconstructing Mailer’s hypersexual story of Egyptian gods and the seven stages of reincarnation, alongside the rise and fall of the American car industry.
Barney replaced the human body with the body of the 1967 Chrysler Imperial that was the central motif from his earlier film Cremaster 3.[19] The film’s central scene is an abstraction of Mailer’s wake, set in a replica of the late author’s apartment in Brooklyn Heights and featuring Maggie Gyllenhaal, Paul Giamatti, Elaine Stritch, Ellen Burstyn, Peter Donald Badalamenti II, Joan La Barbara, and jazz percussionist Milford Graves.