Landscape Suicide 1987 Directed by James Benning
Benning continues his examination of Americana in this film through the stories of two murderers. Ed Gein was a Wisconsin farmer and multiple murderer who taxidermied his victims in the 1950s. Bernadette Protti was a California teenager who stabbed a friend to death over an insult in 1984.
This is one of the best films I have ever seen.
On one side we are in June 23, 1984, along Bernadette Prott, a teenager from California who stabbed a friend to death over an insult.
On the other side we "remember" December 16, 1957 from the perspective of a present time and are along Ed Gein, a farmer from Wisconsin and multiple murderer who taxidermied his victims.
In the middle and above it all we have James Benning applying his philosophy called "landscape as a function of time". Benning utilizes the space-time continuum not as a theoretical background to play with scientific hypotheses, but as an element of our perception of time and existence. One of the courses taught…
Formed from the clay that comes from the earth, we self-harm in the form of homicide. Landscape Suicide is about the chilling phenomenon of murder and our perspective of such a thing.
Split into two halves and using actors to re-enact transcribed confessions, Benning chooses to focus not on anything salacious but rather casts that myth down. True-crime can be fascinating to us despite such leery matters because we feel the need to understand, to scrutinize and psycho-analyze such cases as if they were test subjects, as if there is some grand scheme that allows us to understand the mind of the killer. But the act of killing is one often illogical, compulsive, and haunting not because of motives or…
All filmmakers play within the never-ending realms of space and time, whether they are aware of it or not. Doesn't matter who you are, what you are shooting on, or anything else. Space and time make up everything around us. But when a director is aware of this while making a film and make space and time more than just concepts or ideas, magic happens and this is what James Benning does with Landscape Suicide.
Does the world revolve around us and our actions or does our actions revolve around the world? Landscape Suicide brings up this question in many different abstract and interesting ways, almost from the very first scene. Benning's unbiased and undismayed look at two different murders…
There's no way I'm going to top this review by one of my top three favorite reviewers on here, especially since I only have a few minutes to log this. However, one aspect of the film I'd like to highlight in addition to his observations is the experimental nature of Benning's shot structure. The opening five minutes - the only use of shot/reverse-shot in the entire film - reveals the conceit of this piece in two ways: by focusing solely on the tennis player for the first several volleys, Benning draws our attention to his isolation from the viewer (we look at him, not with him), further accentuated by the use of the reverse-shot, which becomes a critical political instrument;…
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You know what James Benning does with Landscape Suicide? He makes Errol Morris look like Gore fucking Verbinski. And I *like* Errol Morris.
Fascinating. I'm not sure I've ever seen a film like this. Utterly cold, practically fact-based with a complete non-biased look at two murders. This is my first Benning film and based on what I've read about his work in a way I expected something like this but nowhere near as chilling yet thought-provoking as Landscape Suicide ultimately is.
The film focuses on the murder of a teenage girl by her classmate Bernadette Protti, and a murder by the notorious, infamous Ed Gein. Split up into two parts, both examinations follow a very similar structure. Benning seems to want to focus on the question of nature vs nurture. The titular landscape that encompasses the two killers is a constant as his…
Benning understands that through the manipulation of image, sound and time, cinema can work to uncover truth within the mundane.
What creates violence? Is it born from our environment, or ourselves? If we live in a world in which everything that surrounds us is now man-made, is the violence which results from these surroundings man-made also? In the end, does that really matter?
Disturbing, tragic and illuminating. A revelation.
Also contained a scene which for me, seemed to completely capture the essence of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.
Um dos filmes mais minuciosos da história do cinema. Benning reorganiza objetos e paisagens em uma estrutura tão crua quanto detalhista, todos esses elementos de um imaginário norte-americano que perpassam sua obra parecem que aqui, mais do que nunca, evidenciam uma doença social implícita na geometria de cada espaço, na motivação de cada gesto narrado nos depoimentos, na brutalidade das reencenações que soam inocentes (o que é o plano da garota no telefone?) mas contém toda uma composição sociocultural que já nasce na organização natural da imagem, que está latente na paisagem de qualquer subúrbio, na fachada de qualquer residência, no portão de qualquer instituição, jaz na própria definição comportamental daquelas propriedades, emana suas convicções no espaço público, irradia sua maldição civilizatória no simples plano de uma rua.
Somehow Bennings was able to turn a stationary shot of a piece of paper into a cinematic highlight. Landscape Suicide paints a powerful picture of evil and the irrational emotions and mentality behind it, to the point that this quasi-documentary could be argued to be a Christian film. It hooked me in with its experimental form and stayed with me due to its thematic strengths.
can’t stop thinking about this but i don’t feel confident enough to write a piece on it lol
just love this type of observational film so much because while the camera plays this completely detached outside role, at the same time it feels so personal. kind of a duality between knowing these people ( the fifteen minutes of uncut footage with occasional split-second cuts to black that just envelop us in the stories and thoughts of these killers ) and completely distancing ourselves from them afterward.
another duality i found really profound was that between the communal memory surrounding events like these and the seemingly passive behavior of moving on with one’s life — the latter being something i enjoyed…
this and in vanda's room have something in common in that they're both visceral pieces of docufiction which feature deeply emotional uses of 'memory' from the CATS soundtrack
There are cold movies--Funny Games, there are deadful movies--Antichrist, there are chilling movies--Clean, Shaven, and there are horrifying movies--Angst. Landscape Suicide manages to be all four at once and does so in the most minimal way possible.
Landscape Suicide is a paralyzing movie equivalent to being shot with anesthesia, strapped down to a chair with your eyes wide open like Alex from A Clockwork Orange, and then being cut in half as you witness time and space collapse in on itself in way that makes no fucking sense and is almost impossible to describe.
This is my first experience with James Benning, and my lord was it a brooding, dread inducing, slow burning, and a suffocating experience, despite the movie…
Didn't love this... in fact I don't know if I even really liked it. At first the interviews seemed very genuine but as we went on, it became exceptionally clear that they were artificial. It didn't leave me with any profound thoughts or anything. Oh, well...
“i really feel it wasn’t me. it was weird, it was the weirdest feeling i ever had. it was exactly like i was watching it.”
was recommended this by someone close to me, and thought it would be fitting to be my 100th film. James Benning's execution is so interesting here, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of his work
Rhonda Bell’s performance as Bernadette was phenomenal, she did a great job of really sucking you into the interview and understand who she is as a character, a bone-chilling performance overall
can’t stop thinking about this but i don’t feel confident enough to write a piece on it lol
just love this type of observational film so much because while the camera plays this completely detached outside role, at the same time it feels so personal. kind of a duality between knowing these people ( the fifteen minutes of uncut footage with occasional split-second cuts to black that just envelop us in the stories and thoughts of these killers ) and completely distancing ourselves from them afterward.
another duality i found really profound was that between the communal memory surrounding events like these and the seemingly passive behavior of moving on with one’s life — the latter being something i enjoyed…
Estou completamente obcecado com os filmes do James Benning, os dois American Dreams foram os mais absurdos pra mim até agora.
91 / 100
I don't know why i like this as much as i do but it has a certain lingering magic.
extremely slow movie (short scenes that go on for minutes at a time, talking is about the most exciting thing that will happen ), very easy to fall asleep to..
some nice scenery though!
this was really great but i cant stop thinking about cultural hegemony and "the culture industry: enlightenment as mass deception" by adorno and horkheimer but at least james benning is exempt right haha my brain hurts :D
One of the best pieces of art, ever. No film school class can pervert true cinema.
I was pretty blown away by this but don’t even feel like I’ve scratched the surface of totally understanding what Benning was going for and how he went about doing it. Very excited to explore his work further.
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