CNYPG
welcomes James Benning
with his films TEN SKIES and 13 LAKES
April 3-8
and April 15, 2005
Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY, Sunday, April
3
SUNY Binghamton, Binghamton, NY, Monday,
April 4
Colgate University, Hamilton, NY, Tuesday,
April 5
George Eastman House, Rochester, NY, Wednesday,
April 6
Cornell Cinema, Ithaca, NY, Tuesday,
April 7
Squeaky Wheel, Buffalo, NY, Friday, April
8
Hamilton College, Clinton, NY, Saturday,
April 9
Bard College,
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, Friday, April 15
The Central New York
Programmers Group is pleased to host James Benning on a tour of eight New York
venues.
Benning will present
his two new films, TEN SKIES and 13 LAKES.
With
TEN SKIES, master structuralist landscape filmmaker James Benning points his
camera toward the sky above his home in the small mountain town of Val Verde,
California, and makes ten distinct portraits of what he finds there. Each of
the ten skies reflects how "they are affected by the landscapes and the
atmospheric/environmental conditions below them. Each shot details a different
effect, a differentstory: forest fire, industrial pollution, mountain air current--adding
a new dimension to Benning's cinematic reflection on the landscape." (Los
Angeles Film Forum)
13
LAKES: A static shot of 13 large American lakes, each shot lasting the same
amount of time, each shot a stunning portrait unto itself, but all together
amounting to a profound meditation on America and its landscape. The lakes
featured: Lake Michigan, Great Salt Lake, Hiamna Lake, Lake Okeechobee,
Lake Pontchartrain, Red Lake, Lake Champlain, Salton Sea, Lake Powell, Lake
Winnebego, Flathead Lake, Goose Lake and Moosehead Lake.
Born in 1942 in Milwaukee,
James Benning first studied Mathematics, then
switched to filmmaking after seeing Maya Deren’s landmark experimental
film, Meshes of the Afternoon (1943). He is one of the major exponents of
the "structural film" and the "landscape film," having
shown his work in
international venues, such as the Berlin, Rotterdam, Vienna and Sundance
film festivals, and various museums around the world.
His films include
8 1/2 X 11 (1974), 11 X 14 (1976), Grand Opera (1979), American Dreams
(1983), Lands-cape Suicide (1986), Used Innocence (1988), North on Evers
(1991), Deseret (1996), Four Corners (1997) and "The California trilogy":
El Valley Centro (1999), Los (2000) and Sogobi (2002).
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