Cinematography: James Benning

Direction James Benning

Plot American Dreams is chock full of concrete, discrete elements that comprise an American iconography of the past three decades. The film encourages a kind of perverse nostalgia for 'the good...

Direction James Benning

Plot In "Landscape Suicide" Benning continues his examination of Americana through the stories of two murderers. Ed Gein was a Wisconsin farmer and multiple murderer who taxidermied his victims in the...

Direction James Benning

Plot A canonical structuralist film and a singular document of Milwaukee, "One Way Boogie Woogie" unscrolls a series of 60 one-minute static shots of one-way streets from the city's south side....

Direction James Benning

Plot The film 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,...

Direction James Benning

Plot Divided into 35 levels (from 2 ½ minutes each), "The Central Valley" shows this California area with irrigation systems and vast farmland. First part of the "California Trilogy."

Direction James Benning

Plot In 1977 Benning shot "One Way Boogie Woogie", a onehour film composed of 60 minute-long shots of industrial urban landscapes in his native Milwaukee. For "27 Years Later", he returned...

Direction James Benning

Cast Serafina Bathrick · Ted Brady · Barbara Frankel · Michael S. O'Brien

Plot One of the most widely praised American avant-garde films in recent years, James Benning's 1977 feature is a laconic mosaic of single-shot sequences, each offering some sort of image/sound pun...

Direction James Benning

Plot In RR (preferably pronounced “Railroad”; as the filmmaker notes, “RR sounds like a pirate movie”), Benning allows the respective lengths and speeds of the various trains to determine the editing—he...

Direction James Benning

Plot Divided into 35 levels (from 2 ½ minutes each), "Sogobi" shows various wilderness areas of California. Second part of the "California Trilogy."

Direction James Benning

Plot Benning’s latest work fits in perfectly with his extensive oeuvre of landscape films. In "Small Roads", Benning films 47 roads in the USA. Not only expansive landscapes crossed by trains,...

Direction James Benning

Plot Divided into 35 levels (from 2 ½ minutes each), "Los" shows functional areas of the city of Los Angeles. Third part of the "California Trilogy."

Direction James Benning

Direction James Benning

Plot “Ruhr was filmed in the Ruhr District, the center of German coal and steel making. For me the title means working class. During WWII the Ruhr was heavily bombed because...

Direction James Benning

Plot Visually reminiscent of the "California Trilogy" in its carefully wrought long takes of landscapes-here of Death Valley and southwards, past the Mexican border-Utopia "steals" its soundtrack wholesale from Richard Dindo's...

Direction James Benning

Plot James Benning marks the centennial of Utah’s statehood with his excellent experimental documentary, Deseret. As befits its structuralist maker, the film examines the imposition of human design, both physical and...

Direction James Benning

Cast Sompot Chidgasornpongse · Francesca Sloane · Thom Andersen · Stefan Pascher

Direction James Benning

Plot A contemplative excursion through Monument Valley in the year 2012. Lens-based landscape artist Benning went to the locations of the famous road movie from 1969. His static takes are animated...

Direction James Benning

Plot 13 Lakes is no more than what it promises: thirteen lakes (from across the United States) filmed in identical ten-minute takes. Each is a static composition, framing sky and water...

Direction James Benning

Direction James Benning

Plot In three virtuosic sequences created entirely in-camera, Benning alternates contrary camera movements in a trio of Chicago locations with increasing rapidity to a point where they first fracture and then...