Ten Skies

Germany, United States

2004

102 Min

Color

None

Currently 3.6/5 Stars.
1
2
3
4
5

PROD James Benning, Werner Dütsch

Filmed around Val Verde, California, this series of skyscapes gracefully visualizes human civilization’s interaction with, and impact on, the landscape. The skies and cloud formations chosen by Benning are affected by pollution from an industrial factory, jet trails, and smoke from an accidental wildfire, all clearly legible upon the firmament. And yet, despite these ominous environmental undercurrents, Benning conceived Ten Skies as an anti-war film, describing his work to be “about the antithesis of war, [about] the kind of beauty we’re destroying.” This intention is affirmed in the reflective serenity of his images; the varying tones, textures and colors of the atmosphere, and the shifting transformations of billowing clouds that produce astonishing perceptual revelations about scale, ephemerality, and the cinematic frame. –Harvard Film Archive

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

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

read less

Wall

Displaying 4 of 6 wall posts.

see all

Scott Barley

14Dec12

Surprisingly a lot less beautiful and creative than 13 Lakes.

răpciune

8Dec12

Benning works with an actor whose freedom is unquestionable, total, eruptive, the sky. It is like reverting director-giving-instructions vs. actor-receiving-and-conforming-to-them relationship. Here, it is the director who submits to the order of the actor, yielding his personal, whimsical vision to an order of necessity that would make no concessions to any directorial narrow imagination.

răpciune

8Dec12

Benning can only choose a point of view, eventually manipulate the image, but not make the actant enter the frame the way he wants to. Nature is the actor who takes the acting method of “do what you want, express yourself freely!” to its ultimate, inflexible limits. Its contemptive sovereignity can only allow being peeped on, avidly photographed like stars on the red carpet or a fame-struck supermodel, but never directed or commanded.
răpciune

8Dec12

my favourite is the last, with that white blob travelling away like a spaceship, while all the rest stands immobile, like a white lady vanishing behind the frame.

Somewhat Damaged

3May11

Nature is nature. Why would i want a "movie" (read a testimony) of the purest art form ? Humans cannot be able to even touch the perfection of this entity, and if i'd want to meditate thanks to nature, i'd be there, transcending. I cannot feel any power from this. It doesn't match with my idea of what art should be.

MadDog and 2 others like this

Leina, Yuki Aditya

bknight23

5Jul10

@joriah- I think implicit in the "time" quote is a partial point the artist wanted to make. One of the things I find interesting is peoples visceral angst towards things that dont satiate whatever expectations or latent aesthetic desires they have. If "art" followed my expectations it would have been Candyland as a kid, varying degrees of Deepthroat in my teens and, now in my 20s, dancing bottles of vicadin winking.

dinotone and Falderal like this