James Benning's EASY RIDER + Secret Screening

(New Experimental)
The Nightingale (1084 N. Milwaukee Ave.) - Friday, 8pm
Borrowing both the title and locations from the iconic 1969 film, the comparisons between James Benning's and Dennis Hopper's films end there. Following a formula for landscape films that he's used for some time, Benning's static camera captures elegant frames, as he loosely follows the same route of Wyatt and Billy through New Mexico and New Orleans. Each take in this version is timed out to equal the length of a single scene in the original movie and, with some notable exceptions, it works to remind one of the energy of the original, and serve as a comment on contemporary America. Unlike much of Benning's recent work, the synchronous sound in these long takes is occasionally supplanted by non-diegetic music--four recent indie rock tunes by female vocalists--as well as dialogue from the movie. As a mood and space changer, this works, but it also comes off as canned. Much of the frustration in a feature-length Benning work comes from the tightly structured length of each delicate composition, and it can feel that there is no counterpoint within the rhythm of each shot. Change does happen, and there is a nice usage of off-screen sound to create anticipation for cars, trains, and other objects passing through our scene. Some of these cues result in a lovely payoff, others never materialize on-screen, and still others happen eventually, but lack the cathartic impact that was promised. Flaws aside, there is a meditation on the change in America since Hopper's EASY RIDER was originally released, a meditation on the lost promise of a mass-underground movement, and a lament for the derelict in society, both as landscapes and characters. EASY RIDER will be followed by a screening of a film about Pussy Riot and Voina whose title can't be listed. (2012, 95 min, Digital File) JH