LAFF: James Benning "Segobi" Q&A Pt. 1 - May 27, 2007

May 27, 2007.
James Benning
Q&A for "Segobi" - Part 1

Moderator: Adam Hyman
Location: The Spielberg Theatre at the Egyptian Theatre

THE CALIFORNIA TRILOGY, by James Benning
PART 3: SOGOBI (2002, 16mm, 90 minutes)

The California Trilogy contains three films investigating the landscape around California. El Valley Centro (2000), Los (2001) and Sogobi (2002) present interrelated portraits of California's agricultural, urban and wilderness landscapes, each film consisting of 35 stationary 2-and-a-half minute shots. Initially screened in Los Angeles (at Cal Arts and USC) only as one five-hour epic, Benning is now willing to accept its separation into three evenings. He was present at Filmforum after the screening of Sogobi on May 20.

Born in Milwaukee in 1942, James Benning studied mathematics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a legacy discernible in the meticulously structured nature of his films including his highly acclaimed early works, 81/2 X 11 (1974), 11X14 (1976) and One Way Boogie Woogie (1977) which combined structuralist investigations of off-screen space, sound-image relationships and cinematic time with a sensitivity to composition, color, light and landscape, regional and popular culture and a distinctive, sometimes idiosyncratic interest in narrative. During the 80's Benning lived in New York producing work that dealt elliptically with history, memory and death: American Dreams (1984) juxtaposes baseball giant, Hank Aaron memorabilia against the disturbed writings of Arthur Bremer, the man who shot George Wallace. Combining reenactments of court testimony and location shooting, Landscape Suicide (1986) examines the circumstances surrounding two notorious but ostensibly unrelated murders in Wisconsin. In 1991 just before moving to Val Verde where he lives and Cal Arts where he teaches, Benning made North on Evers (1991), which chronicles in diaristic form a cross-country motorcycle trip. In the years immediately prior to The California Trilogy he has made a number of highly acclaimed films focusing on the landscape, history and ecology of the American west including Deseret (1995), an account of the history of Utah based on 100 years of New York Times reports, Four Corners (1997), and Utopia, a film that uses an appropriated soundtrack to complement and comment upon his visual chronicling of a journey from Death Valley, California to Mexicali, Mexico. Since then he has completed his California Trilogy and the films 13 Lakes (2004), Ten Skies (2005), and 27 Years Later (2005), the last being a companion piece to One Way Boogie Woogie. He also has new films on Robert Smithsons Spiral Jetty (Casting a Glance) and on trains (RR).

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[ITcanB]

i love his work! pure,compelling and hypnotic....