UCLA Film & Television Archive to showcase digital films of James Benning

This post was updated March 8 at 12:33 p.m.

James Benning is celebrating half a century of landscape film mastery.

From Friday to Sunday, the UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Hammer Museum will be presenting a three-night program designed by filmmaker Benning and curator Steve Anker. Benning will be attending in person to present his digital films “Ruhr,” “Stemple Pass” and his latest film, “THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ” at the Billy Wilder Theater. After producing dozens of 16-millimeter films, Anker said it was in 2009 when Benning transitioned to digital, and the program is doubling as recognition and a historical snapshot of his digital career.

“(Benning is) working with digital in ways that approach using the technology in a way which stretches the technology, but also goes very deeply into the capabilities of what high definition can do,” Anker said. “He’s doing it within his own aesthetic. … He’s dealing with the American landscape, urban, rural, but (also) cultural as well as physical.”

Benning’s initial rise to fame in 1971 was catalyzed by his work in 16-millimeter filmmaking, having mastered the color, image and sound of the medium. However, Benning said he wanted to challenge himself with a new format that renders images differently. Regardless of the medium, Anker said Benning’s films function as a distinctive window into the world that isolates time and perception, consisting of conceptual and formal structures. Benning trains his camera on landscape shots and allows his audience to delve into such settings, Anker said, capitalizing on the filmmaking features of sound and style.

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In order to challenge viewers’ mindsets and inspire questions, Anker said Benning constructs thought-provoking juxtapositions. His films include framed landscapes that are hypnotically meditative and intuitive, allowing viewers to challenge their typical mindsets and experience an alternate world that deviates from their current one, Anker said. Ultimately, Anker said viewers are tasked with entertaining how external phenomena such as history and politics inform a natural environment.

Instigating such self-awareness can be tactfully trying on the viewer, said co-presenter and executive Director of the LA Filmforum Adam Hyman, as they tend to be slow and shots surpass minutes with no narrators or card descriptions. Viewers are meant to peel back the layers and investigate, Hyman said, amid numerous changing elements such as lighting, manipulated sound and space acting as devices to relay narratives.

“Almost nothing happens, except a great deal is happening,” Hyman said. “But the things that are happening are like shifts in the light, or there might be somebody in the distance that is doing something repeatedly, sometimes they have a great sense of humor.”

As someone who believes in the power of being perceptive, Benning said a quality artist is akin to a scientist who learns from observation and knows how to report back. His first digital work, “Ruhr,” was shot in Germany’s industrial center Ruhr Valley and reveals a commentary on the working-class life of immigrants. Benning said he was prompted to film there because it reminded him of his comparably industrial hometown of Milwaukee.

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The final film to be shown at the program, “THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,” was made during the COVID-19 pandemic. Benning said he was inspired to create a film about the United States while restricted to his home. The film uses minutes’ worth of Woody Guthrie singing “This Land is Your Land” and snippets of audio from prominent Black civil rights organizer Stokely Carmichael to implement juxtapositions and irony, Anker said — the film exposes the hard truths of the American environment.

“In the course of 97 minutes of watching this film, it becomes part of a lengthy tapestry of experiences that one has,” Anker said. “This adding up (of experiences) as one experiences the United States in a very distinctive way is the premise of the film.”

Ultimately, Benning said his everlasting goal as an artist has been to address what is not typically addressed, such as varying sociopolitical issues, and to unearth them in a stimulating manner. He said he is constantly considering what solutions he can bring to the challenges of the world and hopes that audiences will leave the program having greater insight about themselves and their minds.

“I don’t make entertainment at all,” Benning said. “I make films that are rather difficult. What I’m hoping happens with audiences is that they understand that concept of it’s not necessarily an easy hour or two when you watch my films, but hopefully that if you work hard, you learn something about yourself and about what that particular film was about.”