Lost Landscapes, Found Paintings

By Ian Haydn Smith

Two New Films by James Benning

Described by Jonathan Rosenbaum as the ‘master framer of landscapes', James Benning has produced a body of work over three decades that highlights society's relationship with the environment it inhabits. Like one of his influences, earthwork artist Robert Smithson, Benning is fascinated by our interaction with the world and the detritus we leave behind, indelibly marking it.

There is a striking temporal and structural precision to his latest films. In 13 Lakes, the frame is divided equally between water and the land and sky that tower over it. In 10 Skies, images are captured by a camera positioned at an angle of forty-five degrees from the ground. And in each of these 23 ten-minute shots, Benning records the unfolding drama of their environments.

Benning's work also occasionally plays with elements of narrative cinema. A collection of films made in the mid-1990s (Deseret, 1995, Four Corners, 1997 and Utopia,1998) employed a voice-over, superimposed text and even another film’s soundtrack, to explore specific themes and preoccupations. With the California Trilogy (El Valley Centro, 2000, Sogobi, 2001 and Los, 2002), he returned to the structuralist style of earlier works, such as 11x14 (1977) and One Way Boogie Woogie (1977). Each film is comprised of thirty-five two-and-a-half minute static shots and between them create a dialogue between urban, agricultural and wild landscapes, ending on an ambiguous note; hoping that we can change the course of progress away from destruction of the environment, but knowing that history has shown we have little regard for the landscapes we occupy and, all too frequently, even those who live in them (the genocide of native Americans is a theme Benning has considered on a number of occasions).

Benning embarked on 13 Lakes because of an interest in the relationship between landscape and time, itself growing out of his awareness of his own ageing process. However, the choice of lakes was not merely an aesthetic one. In his documentary, James Benning: Circling the Image (2004), Reinhard Wulf focuses on the film-maker’s fascination with each lake’s history. The Salton Sea was formed accidentally in 1903 when the Colorado River broke its banks and flooded the Salton sinkhole. Fifty years later, resorts were built around the lake, but were themselves flooded the following decade when a more extensive irrigation network was built, raising the lake by ten feet. Benning shot the lake at Bombay beach, where remnants of the resort still protrude out of the water, “hinting at the strangeness of the lake.” This information is not divulged in 13 Lakes yet, through each shot, Benning encourages an investigation on the part of the audience, outside of the film, into ‘the strange past’ of each location.

10 Skies adopts a similar structure although, without an identifiable image to place it within a specific location, it becomes a more universal film. Two shots stand out. The second in the series was filmed during the 2003 Californian forest fires. A burnished sky, marred by dark streaks, resembles a Turner painting but holds the reflection of flames in the clouds and smoke from the burning wood. In the seventh shot, plumes of white cloud billow out from a factory at a borax mine, out of sight below. Benning added a soundtrack of migrant workers, taken from El Valley Centro. Although most of the sound for his films is recorded in synch, he is not averse to adding more for effect. This works particularly well in 10 Skies, producing a more expressionist counterpart to 13 Lakes, a film that Benning sees as "re-creating a feeling of realism."

Described by the film-maker as ‘found paintings’, the two films are as much chronicles of environments that have been lost as they are of what remains. Moving beyond the mixed message of hope and despondency that ended the California Trilogy, the films offer a more decisive and prescient statement of our place in the world. 13 Lakes ends on the undulating rhythm of an incoming tide. It suggests that the lakes, “no matter what condition they’re in, will probably outlast us all. We may destroy our environments, but it won’t necessarily destroy the earth or these lakes, just the systems that allow us to live.” With this ending, Benning succeeds in his aim, to “give this relentless feeling of forever.”

Ian Haydn Smith: Your most recent films blur the line between the cinema and gallery space.

James Benning: Lately, I've been calling 13 Lakes and 10 Skies installation films that have been designed for the cinema. Hopefully, an audience will adopt the mentality of an installation with the awareness that this is a film that has duration, a beginning and an end. It’s not something that you just wander in and out of. At the same time, I’m hoping some of the aesthetics of looking at art apply to this work and that it isn’t necessarily about narrative cinema. However, I do think 13 Lakes has elements of narrative because of the time that passes while you’re watching it.

With this ending, Benning succeeds in his aim, to "give this relentless feeling of forever."

IHS: Your most recent films blur the line between the cinema and gallery space.

JB: Lately, I‘ve been calling 13 Lakes and 10 Skies installation films that have been designed for the cinema. Hopefully, an audience will adopt the mentality of an installation with the awareness that this is a film that has duration, a beginning and an end. It’s not something that you just wander in and out of. At the same time, I’m hoping some of the aesthetics of looking at art apply to this work and that it isn’t necessarily about narrative cinema. However, I do think 13 Lakes has elements of narrative because of the time that passes while you’re watching it. It suggests that the lakes, “no matter what condition they’re in, will probably outlast us all. We may destroy our environments, but it won’t necessarily destroy the earth or these lakes, just the systems that allow us to live.”

IHS: What was the inspiration for 13 Lakes?

JB: After making The California Trilogy, which was comprised in essence of portrait films, I decided I wanted to look a little more closely at landscape. Making the trilogy convinced me that landscape was a function of time and that perhaps I needed to work with greater durations. I thought I could make a film using a 400ft load that would enable me to use 10-11 minute shots. It then occurred to me that perhaps I could start aesthetically, thinking about the way light reflects off water and the way it hits land. That then led me to the idea of 13 Lakes,. I went in search of lakes around the US, filming them in different lighting conditions and at different times of the year. Lakes have this reflective quality, so capturing that was my initial idea. I wanted to frame each of the lakes in the same way and to be able to find something in the frame, perhaps the way that light would strike the frame or the kind of weather in that particular location, which would help to locate the uniqueness of the lake. So it really grew from the simple idea of looking and listening closer than I did with the trilogy.

IHS: One of the things that seems to have carried over from Sogobi is the minimal human presence in the film. Was that a conscious decision?

JB: I was interested in including some reference to manmade systems. At first I thought I would try to capture the lakes in their purest stage. But I also realised that none of the lakes exist in that way any more. After filming a few lakes I realised that I wanted the film to make the audience consider what shape these lakes are in. There are always certain politics that reside within me and keep bubbling up, feeding into the image.

IHS: Did the idea for 10 Skies grow out of 13 Lakes?

JB: I was halfway through 13 Lakes when I decided to make the companion film. I was becoming more aware of the sky, which occupied half the frame, and it occurred to me that when you look at the framing that I employed for 13 Lakes, it’s rather recognisable. But if I point my camera up at the sky and then I look at a detail of the sky, that isn’t as recognisable. We only see that it’s sky in its whole context. The only way to see a detail is to have some kind of apparatus that looks at a portion of the sky. And that’s exactly what the frame is. You become aware of the dynamics of any one of the skies that I filmed. I think it is a much more radical film.

IHS: It is more of an action film than 13 Lakes.

JB: It’s much more dramatic.

IHS: It highlights how the over-use of time-lapse photography in films betrays the natural drama of the sky.

JB: With 10 Skies I never knew what would happen. Sometimes there would be nothing, but often it would become too dramatic, too much to show. I shot a lot of to get what I wanted. I used forty rolls to get the ten shots – a four-to-one shooting ratio – which was great for me because most of the time I’m shooting close to one-to-one. I wanted to make a much more subtle film. I wanted to have a combination of natural movement that varied dynamics, between a slowness and great speed.

IHS: Do you consider the audience when making films?

JB: I never really consider the audience when I’m making a film. I always make the films for myself, setting up problems that I try to solve. By making these films I’m solving the problems. I then hope that audiences will ultimately be interested in the things I’m looking at.

Ian Haydn Smith lives in London and writes regularly on film. He is working on a novel.

13 Lakes and 10 Skies will screen at this year’s London Film Festival in October (www.lff.org.uk).

A retrospective of James Benning’s work will screen in the Autumn at Whitechapel Art Gallery (www.whitechapel.org).

Thanks to German United Distributors for James Benning: Circling the Image. Images courtesy of FDK, M. Stefanowski.