Part of First Look 20/21
Saturday, July 31, 2021, 4:00 p.m.
Museum of the Moving Image - Redstone Theater

Dir. James Benning. United States. 2020, 84 mins. If landscape is a function of time as James Benning has held throughout his career, then this serene study of the parking lot, stairwell, corridors, and rear loading dock of the CalArts building where Benning has worked for 33 years comprises more than the sum of its 24 three-and-a-half-minute-long shots, divided sequentially into eight exteriors, eight interiors, and eight exteriors again, recorded in a single day. The suggested rhythm of the filmmaker’s own quotidian life over decades merges dreamily with the real-time rhythms of this institutional space, where sometimes the music of Bob Dylan and Linda Ronstadt is overheard. New York premiere