Director

James Benning

Directing

Career Snapshot

Explained

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Directed credits

Prolific

Very extensive directing filmography.

TMDB popularity

0.1

Low visibility

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Directed movies: 73Directed series: 0All crew credits: 79

TMDB ID: 1012088

IMDb ID: nm0072159

Known for: Directing

Born: December 28, 1942

Age: 83

Place of birth: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA

Gender: Male

Adult content flag: No

Career span: 1972 - 2026

Years active: 55

Average TMDB rating: 6.47

Wikidata: Q1680032

Also known as

제임스 베닝 • 제임스 배닝

Frequent jobs

Director (72)Director of Photography (1)Thanks (4)Writer (2)

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Biography

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.