James Benning
Over the past thirty-five years James Benning (b. 1942) has played a central role in the history of American independent cinema by offering his rigorously structured yet wonderfully graceful films as extended meditations on the American landscape and its social and... Read full bio →
Measuring Change
Towards the end of 2015, James Benning made one of his occasional expeditions to Utah, to the place where Robert Smithson's colossal land-sculpture Spiral Jetty (1970) extends out into the Great Salt Lake. The water-level was low, leaving the vast bulk of the Jetty exposed in the crisp air.
Natural History
In 54 static shots, Benning provides a picture of the Natural History Museum in Vienna. With the exception of the first three shots, he chooses areas that are normally closed to the public: offices, store rooms and empty corridors. A characteristically meditative Benning, even though this time he chooses to stay indoors.
Nightfall
A stunning study of real-time light changing from day to night which was filmed in a forest high up in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains
Easy Rider
'After doing a re-make of John Cassevetes’ "Faces" [1968], I decided to re-make another American classic, Dennis Hopper’s "Easy Rider" [1969]. "Easy Rider" interests me in two ways: its portrayal of 60’s counterculture – unlike "Faces" which for me is more about the 50’s – and its search for place.
Small Roads
Lengthy static shots of various backroads, smaller interstates, quieter roads, and lonely highways.
Ruhr
James Benning's worrying and also reassuring vision of the Ruhr Valley, shot in six fascinating takes of a tunnel, a forest, a factory, a mosque, graffiti and a chimney.
RR
Looping, chugging and barreling by, the trains in Benning's latest monumental film map a stunning topography and a history of American development.
Casting a Glance
Casting a Glance is a tribute to the American artist Robert Smithson. Between May 15 2005 and January 14 2007, I made 16 trips to the Spiral Jetty. Created in 1970, the Jetty is a 1,500-foot long spiral-shaped jetty extending into the Great Salt Lake in Utah constructed from rocks, earth, salt and red algae.
13 Lakes
Shots of 13 great lakes in the USA, with each shot containing half water and half sky or land.
Sogobi
Named after the Shoshonean word for "Earth", this is the third and final part of Benning's "California Trilogy" and his approach to the Californian wilderness in 35 static scenes.
Los
Los Angeles is depicted in 35 stationary shots, each 2 1/2 minutes long, in this non-narrative film.
El Valley Centro
Experimental filmmaker James Benning returns with this abstract documentary about California's Central Valley, part 1 of his "California Trilogy". Consisting of 35 shots, each over two minutes long, the film quietly portrays nature's subjugation to encroaching commercial interests. This film was screened at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival.
Deseret
This is multifaceted look at the landscape and history of Utah (or Deseret, as the Mormon Church prefers to call it). Benning condenses 93 news stories from the New York Times from 1852 to 1992 (read offscreen by Fred Gardner) and sets them against contemporary Utah landscapes, the shots changing with each sentence.
North on Evers
In NORTH ON EVERS James Benning takes the road movie seriously, making his circular trip across the U.S. a marvelously photographed, intensely felt, and disturbing portrait of contemporary America.
Landscape Suicide
Benning continues his examination of Americana in this film through the stories of two murderers. Ed Gein was a Wisconsin farmer and multiple murderer who taxidermied his victims in the 1950s. Bernadette Protti was a California teenager who stabbed a friend to death over an insult in 1984.
One Way Boogie Woogie
Sixty one-minute shots with no camera movement. This tension between painterly and cinematic space is not only experienced as an intellectual contrast but is also felt as a dialectic between permanence and impermanence.
11 x 14
65 shots making up a cryptically alluded-to narrative: a lesbian couple's Midwest travels, a hitchhiking young man's journeys, the story of a man who may be having an affair.