James Benning interview by Scott Mcdonald

Well, there are many different ways to enter one of my films. Certainly the formal and aesthetic level is the most apparent, and perhaps the most immediately challenging. From the very beginning I tried to define a new film language, a new way of giving information (or telling a story). When I first showed 11 x 14, I lost half my audience because they didn't know how to watch the film, but it always pleased me when people would tell me they'd almost left but instead had stayed with the film and felt that the experience had taught them to look differently, to pay more attention and become more proactive as viewers, to look around the frame for small details and not wait for the film to come to them.

I have a very simple definition of an artist: The artist is someone who pays attention and reports back. A good artist pays close attention and knows how to report back. I teach a course called "Looking and Listening." The class and I practice paying attention Noun 1. paying attention - paying particular notice (as to children or helpless people); "his attentiveness to her wishes"; "he spends without heed to the consequences"
attentiveness, heed, regard . I take them to many different places, often for a full day, and we look and listen. Sometimes we go to an oil field in the Central Valley, or to a mountaintop moun·tain·top
n.
The summit of a mountain. to watch the sky brighten as the sun begins to rise, or to a homeless neighborhood in downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles is the central business district of Los Angeles, California, located close to the geographic center of the metropolitan area. The sprawling, multi-centered megacity is such that its downtown core is often considered just another district like Hollywood or , or to the port at Long Beach. We gradually learn that our looking and listening are coded by our own prejudices, that we interpret what we see through our own particular experiences, and we learn that we need to confront our prejudices and learn to see and hear more clearly. And to learn more about what we do see.

Yes, I do think people want to know more about things after they learn how to really hear and see. Yes, I do hope they will go on to interrogate not only what I show in my films but what they see and hear in their everyday lives. Paying attention can lead to many things. Perhaps even to a better government.

Testing your patience: Scott MacDonald talks with James Benning