small roads

United States

2012

103 Min

Color

1.78:1

None

Currently 4.5/5 Stars.
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SOUND James Benning

Rotterdam (Spectrum), BAFICI (Trayectorias)

Synopsis

Benning’s latest work fits in perfectly with his extensive oeuvre of landscape films. In small roads, Benning films 47 roads in the USA. Not only expansive landscapes crossed by trains, but also narrow lanes where only an occasional animal or vehicle passes.

The ne plus ultra of road movies, small roads is precisely what its title indicates. James Benning claims his film is best described by making a list of the 47 roads in question and the cars that drive on them, which together denote a circular journey through America’s west and south over the seasons.

But let’s speak in grander terms: small roads is digital cinema as virtuoso landscape painting, depicting each two-lane blacktop from a central perspective, each 16:9 countryside highway glistening under the hot sun, shrouded in fog, or coated with a dusting of mid-winter snow. In its execution, small roads most resembles Benning’s final 16mm masterpiece RR, in that the action (or here, stasis) inside the frame determines the length of each shot; but with each shot being a careful, invisible digital composite, the suddenly prolific Benning is up to more than just ‘looking and listening’. –IFFR

Director

James Benning

James Benning’s early films fused the “structuralist” investigations into sound-image relationships of filmmakers like Michael Snow and Hollis Frampton with an interest in narrative and a deep sensitivity to color, light, and landscape. He first grabbed the attention of the avant-garde film world with 8 1/2 × 11 and 11 × 14. Filmed in vivid color in the rural and urban landscapes of his native Midwest, these two films would provide the kernel for his further investigations into film form.

His films’ rigorous structures — often based on numerical systems — and exquisitely composed shots reflect his training as a mathematician, and their frequently autobiographical subject matter draws upon his working-class roots (a rare subject for avant-garde film) and his longtime commitment to political activism.

While his earliest films are mostly concerned with form and narrative, his work in the ‘80s began to introduce both personal subject matter and documentary elements, at the… read more

James Benning’s early films fused the “structuralist” investigations into sound-image relationships of filmmakers like Michael Snow and Hollis Frampton with an interest in narrative and a deep sensitivity to color, light, and landscape. He first grabbed the attention of the avant-garde film world with 8 1/2 × 11 and 11 × 14. Filmed in vivid color in the rural and urban landscapes of his native Midwest, these two films would provide the kernel for his further investigations into film form.

His films’ rigorous structures — often based on numerical systems — and exquisitely composed shots reflect his training as a mathematician, and their frequently autobiographical subject matter draws upon his working-class roots (a rare subject for avant-garde film) and his longtime commitment to political activism.

While his earliest films are mostly concerned with form and narrative, his work in the ‘80s began to introduce both personal subject matter and documentary elements, at the same time becoming increasingly concerned with the themes of history, memory, and death. American Dreams, Landscape Suicide, and Used Innocence all provide glimpses into the minds of violent criminals through their own words, and are made all the more chilling by Benning’s decision to place their crimes in their historical and political and contexts rather than pass judgment on them.

After moving to California in the 1990s, Benning began, with the highly acclaimed Deseret, a series of experimental documentaries investigating the effects of history and politics on the American West. Composed almost entirely of landscapes, these films recall his early experiments with cinematic time and offscreen space, and are considered by many to be among his best.

His central innovation — the use of narrative to explore cinema’s formal possibilities — has proven to be enormously influential on a number of experimental and independent filmmakers. Echoes of his style and compositional sense have popped up in television commercials since the ’70s, and can be found in the work of such directors as Jim Jarmusch, Chantal Akerman, and Rob Tregenza. —allmovie guide

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