James Benning
Known For: Directing
Gender: Male
Date of Birth: December 28, 1942 (82 years old)
Place of Birth: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Over the past thirty-five years James Benning (b. 1942) has played a central role in the history of American independent cinema by offering his rigorously structured yet wonderfully graceful films as extended meditations on the American landscape and its social and environmental histories. Benning’s life and work have been shaped by his passionate wanderlust—born in Milwaukee, he lived for intervals in Colorado, the Missouri Ozarks, Illinois and Oklahoma before settling in Val Verde, California in 1987, with car and motorcycle journeys around the country generating such films as I-94 (1975) and Four Corners (1997). His career has been equally restless, ranging from his early experimentation with an avant-garde aesthetic to his embrace, during the 1980s and 90s, of explicitly autobiographical elements and increased human content. With his “California Trilogy” (2000-2001) Benning entered a new phase, refining his formalist style and political concerns while distilling his abiding interest in place and exacting organizational structures.
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2012
Director
The War
Director
Stemple Pass
Director
Nightfall
Director
Easy Rider
Director
Postscript
Director
One Way Boogie Woogie
Producer
Stemple Pass
Director of Photography
Stemple Pass
Editor
Stemple Pass
Director
20 Little Films
Writer
Easy Rider
Editor
Easy Rider
Producer
Easy Rider
Director of Photography
Easy Rider
Writer
All That She Surveys
