Reading // Binging // Benning
How much can you see of a movie you can't see? A speculative video essay on the film READERS by James Benning. By Chloé Galibert-Laîné and Kevin B. Lee. Commissioned by the 2018 International Film Festival Rotterdam Critics Choice Program.
IMPORTANT NOTE: It is likely that a number of the Benning films found on YouTube are copied from officially distributed sources. For example, 13 Benning films are distributed on DVD through the Austrian Film Museum.
Irrespective of deliberating the virtues or violations in the accessibility of these films on YouTube, the labor and efforts of those who first made these works available in a digital format deserve acknowledgement and support.
Specific links to James Benning DVDs via the Austrian Film Museum:
11x14 | One Way Boogie Woogie/27 Years Later
American Dreams | Landscape Suicide
Discussed at length in The Video Essay Podcast
“A dynamic, good-humoured video essay about how we watch and how we read.”
- Tara Judah, Desistfilm
Selected by Sight & Sound as one of the best video essays of 2018 in a poll of 47 contributors
“In this creative and most of all playful ‘speculative video essay’ on the film Readers by James Benning, stream of consciousness meets artistic research meets desktop documentary.”
- Miklos Kiss, Sight & Sound
“Possibly my favourite desktop essay so far. “
- Stanisław Liguziński, Sight & Sound
“The video essay folds over itself while trying to address multiple questions regarding the way we receive and experience cinema. It is also a moving and in-depth ‘desktop essay’ about the influence and relevance of James Benning’s cinema.”
- Luís Mendonça, Sight & Sound
“Illuminating and perfectly paced.”
– Nelson Carvajal, Free Cinema Now