Bradford International Film Festival: Uncharted States of America Double Bill: Utah on 16mm - Deseret (1995) + Casting a Glance (2007)

Genre:
Documentary
Watched:
3rd April 2014
Venue:
Bradford International Film Festival
Director:
James BenningShown back to back in a double bill at the Bradford International Film Festival, Deseret and Casting a Glance show Utah on 16mm. The films connecting parts of James Benning’s passion for the state. Both are quite different in their approach, one tracing the history of Utah from 1850 to 1995, while the other consists of various shots of the Spiral Jetty, Robert Smithson’s 1,500 ft-long art work that coils out of the Great Salt Lake.

Deseret, in tracing the history of Utah, sees narrator Fred Gardner reading articles that chronicle the state, with each one taken from the pages of the New York Times. The length of each shot is determined by the time it takes for each sentence to be read. The shots themselves do not bare much resemblance to the narration but are all visually stunning. The news stories themselves offer up a parallel between the 19th century, in particular the 1850s and ‘60s, and the present day, the 1980s and ‘90s, as most of the news stories come from these two periods. The insinuation being that there is a direct correlation between the treatment of the natives by the Mormons and the treatment of people in the 20th century by an unscrupulous US government happy to use the state as a testing ground for nuclear testing and biological-weapons development and as a place to dump their toxic waste.

Casting a Glance, in contrast, does not have any obvious political edge to it. Instead, the film is about duration. About taking the time out to observe what is around us. A theme that, having listened to Benning talk on several occasions this week, has so intrigued him. The images are all of Smithson’s artwork, the Spiral Jetty, mapping its history from 1970, when it was completed, through to 2007, showing how the piece has fluctuated in and out of view due to changing water levels. I was disappointed to read in the credits that the film was shot entirely between 2005 and 2007, leaving me wondering how the film can purport to show the changing levels from 1970 onwards. The images are all wonderful though, even if the noise of the lapping waves occasionally induces sleep, distracting the eyes attention from what is in front of them. Smithson has said, “A great artist can make art by simply casting a glance.” Not only does this sentence provide the film with its title, it somehow evokes Benning’s approach to filmmaking as a whole.

Deseret (1995)

★★★★½

Casting A Glance (2007)

★★★½☆

Shane James