An Artist of Intimate Intent: A 16mm James Benning Retrospective

Our all-16mm retrospective of seminal experimental filmmaker James Benning begins tomorrow, Sunday the 24th, at 8pm at Doc Films at The University of Chicago with Landscape Suicide (1986). I was proud to push for all analog in this expansive survey of his early works, dating from 1977 to 2002. Below is an essay written for the program:

"James Benning is a sculptor of time as much as an observer of nature. The work of a former high school math teacher preoccupied with history, his films form their own structures and disclose their own histories. A minimalist filmmaker, Benning conducts quiet experiments without a crew and engages with different formal and avant-garde qualities with his electric Bolex. Most famous for static shots of landscapes, he is preoccupied with how light interacts with and informs environment. Both staged tableaus and naturally occurring movement pepper Benning's frames. An artist of intimate intent, he weaves layers of environment, text, and sound, slowly revealing themes, stories, or removing narrative altogether. He is a filmmaker who is hard to pinpoint, as he is almost constantly reaching outside of any definitions of his work that could confine him or reduce him to mere repetition.

One might assume that Benning's films, still and static, would be cold, but Benning simply removes manipulation, leaving the warmth of his ambition and meditation. What is left in that warmth is room for viewers to wander through his spaces, think their own thoughts, feel their own feelings. This series, inspired by Erika Balsom’s deep-dive into Ten Skies, offers the Doc premiere retrospective of one of avant-garde film's most eclectic and eternal artists as intended, on 16mm film."