Films by Sadie Benning, program 1
Now Playing: (1989-1998, Sadie Benning) [seen in theatre]
This is my first exposure to the work of video self-chronicler Sadie Benning, and based on the selection here I'm plenty eager for more. Benning began sharing her innermost thoughts and feelings with a Pixelvision camera while still in her teens, and to watch these early works is to see her growing not only as an artist but as a person as well. The first couple of films have an unstudied poignancy to them, as if the budding video-maker didn't know how to do anything besides tell the truth (she virtually outs herself on camera), and some of the most effective moments in these films come when she can't quite say out loud what she's feeling, i.e. when she writes her thoughts down on paper or simply cuts to something else (the in-camera editing is the polar opposite of an "invisible" Hollywood cut, and the momentary audiovisual feedback of these films' edits does a singular job of driving Benning's points home). Two of the later films on the program- A PLACE CALLED LOVELY (1991) and IT WASN'T LOVE (1992)- are more ambitious, but they retain the filmmaker's lo-fi style to great effect. In A PLACE CALLED LOVELY she captures the difficulties of growing up in the U.S. today, sharing not only her own experiences but also eloquently expressing her feelings about a then-contemporary series of child murders. Just as powerful is IT WASN'T LOVE, her account of a short-lived fling she had with another woman. Donning various wigs and shifting between characters, Benning gets to the heart of her attraction to a glamourous woman, as well as how she feels about it in retrospect. In the end, these films are almost uncomfortably personal, but by design- through the mirror of the camera's lens, free of the artifice of production values, Benning lays her soul bare. As she said in one of her earlier films (I'm paraphrasing), "it's good to be lonely, because then you define yourself by who you are, instead of by those around you," which explains the nature of her films about as well as I ever could.