1.05.2010

at REDCAT - James Benning: Ruhr


Jack H. Skirball Series

U.S. premiere - James Benning: Ruhr

Jonathan Rosenbaum (Film Comment/Chicago Reader ) calls James Benning “A master framer of landscapes.” Perhaps one of the most fascinating figures in American independent cinema, James Benning makes his eagerly awaited entrance into the digital realm with absolutely stunning effect. Ruhr—which is also the first film Benning has shot entirely outside the United States—is a meditation on the notion of terra incognita. Faced with the unfamiliar landscape of Germany’s Ruhr Valley, the cradle of heavy industry in that country, and a new medium, he turns the film into a process of slow discovery. As Benning uses HD to continue his exploration of duration in seven masterfully composed shots, minute events and nuances of changing light suggest a complex balance between permanence and mutation in the Ruhr’s industrial landscapes, marked, not least, with the ubiquitous presence of immigrant labor.

***James Benning will be there in person

** Jonathan Rosenbaum's 100 alternate film List O' Mania

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