Movies: James Benning

Exploring the Panama Canal is a fascinating journey through the land of mystery and adventure and the Canal that divides it. Through rare archival footage, you'll experience the history of the Canal, from its failed beginnings to the Herculean effort...

A three hour shot containing light, dark, and a BNSF train in the desert....

"On November 28, 2023 I woke up early and drove down to the Upper Kern River. I came to film a tree. It's leaves were orange. The shot would be 87 minutes, the exact length of Godard's Breathless. My film would be non-narrative, but stuff happened" -...

Between July, 2007 and June, 2008, veteran independent film-maker,James Benning built replicas of two iconic American Cabins in a remote part of the High Sierras- Henry David Thoreau’s hut from Walden Pond and the one-room plywood shack in rural Mont...

The Fitzgerald classic as you've never seen it, transposed to a Los Angeles of sleek modern architecture and strip-mall foot clinics....

Grand Opera marks a stock-taking of Benning's work and his life, presenting a personal and artistic autobiography woven together with a series of events dealing with the historical development of the number pi, Benning's travels, and homages to Micha...

Lunch Break features 42 workers as they take their midday break in a corridor stretching nearly the entire shipyard....

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...

Maintenance is filmmaker Adele Horne’s exploration and meditation on house cleaning. Cleaning is one of the most private things we do in our homes, other than sex and arguments. We often feel shameful about clutter and dirt, so there is something par...

One half filmed in 1977, one half filmed 27 years later....

Los Angeles is depicted in 35 stationary shots, each 2 1/2 minutes long, in this non-narrative film, part 2 of Benning's "California Trilogy"....

A narrative film concerning an investigation of two women in time and space, to the point where the investigation becomes the narrative....

signs is a sobering continuation of Benning’s career-long interest with the written word as image, text as vision: a silent parade of stills showing dozens of cardboard signs asking for money, food, and kindness....

"Sandy Ding's WATER SPELL is a bold, abstract journey that takes us into the psychic interior of our very cellular structure... and back. For me, this film is about reincarnation and transformation, on both the spiritual and sub-atomic levels. This i...

Using experimental narrative structure as his vehicle, Benning recreates the sensationalized and controversial circumstances surrounding Lorencia Bembenek, aka "Bambi", former "Playboy bunny" turned cop, turned accused and convicted killer who disapp...

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....

glory is a film about the present, about America and its history of abuse....

James Benning watches tv with a young girl....

Many films by this master of landscape cinema are cinematic studies of specific landscapes, as is the case with SOGOBI – the Shoshonean word for "Earth" –, part 3 of Benning's "California Trilogy" and his approach to the Californian wilderness in 35 ...

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 characteristical...