James Benning Movies

One half filmed in 1977, one half filmed 27 years later. Director combined the structural analysis of image and sound with fragments of a narrative...

Filmed at Benning's home in Val Verde during the first month of the pandemic, the film is a portrait of that time.

Four landscape shots containing a replica of Ted Kaczynski’s cabin, one shot per season. On the soundtrack, Benning reads extracts from...

This three-channel video installation by James Benning shows three scenes from David Wark Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915). The...

"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,...

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

In the fictional city of Santa Teresa, located on the border between Mexico and USA, the researcher Juan de Dios Martínez straddles the line...

The portrait of an art institution: James Benning explores the building and grounds of the California Institute of Art. Each image creates a tension,...

I just a did a film with my ‘Acting Bad’ class called After Warhol, where we watched a few of the Warhol screen tests and then mimicked...

an excerpt of a conversation between James and I during the Fall of 2019 - Santa Clarita, CA

Filmed on November 21 and 22, 2018 in Valencia, California. A gibbous and full moon rising.

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...

A view of an Oregon farm field, observing a solar eclipse and incorporating a Leonard Cohen song.

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...

At Northwestern University, where he teaches at the time, Benning gives a short interview to some student filmmakers. He then uses this material to...

The 3-channel video installation brings together four histories: the 1860s scorched earth policy of Kit Carson used to drive out the Navajos from...

Intercourse between two people who never appear on the screen at the same time. An exploration of sex and male/female identities.

"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...

A document of one of the most famous 66 miles of railroad track in the world including the Tehachapi Loop.

It centers on Allensworth, the first self-administered African-American municipality in California, showcasing the buildings of the now-abandoned...