For students in Northwestern’s MFA in Documentary Media program, a weeklong visit from filmmaker James Benning offered insight and fresh perspectives on cinema. Benning, a major presence in American experimental cinema known for his rigorous emphasis on duration and looking, screened two films publicly, gave a three-hour masterclass open to Northwestern students, and offered feedback in studio visits with MFA students. The artist’s unique vantage point as an imagemaker and outsider inspired students to explore cinematic possibilities with confidence.  

“Take risks, be radical, have your own voice in film,” second-year MFA student Shawn Antoine II said of his takeaways from a studio visit with the filmmaker.  

Antoine said he was inspired by Benning’s resourcefulness and radical approach to form—the shoestring budget on which he made The United States of America (2022), and the 52 two-minute static shots that comprise its sweeping portrait of the country, for example.  

“He sees himself as an imagemaker, not a filmmaker, and I think that spoke to a lot of students,” said Professor Edgar Jorge Baralt, himself a former student of Benning’s. 

Benning’s time at Northwestern was as a Hoffman Visiting Artist for Documentary Media, a short-term filmmaker residency program presented by The Block in partnership with the MFA in Documentary Media, the Department of Radio, Television, and Film, and the Department of Communications. The program brings one filmmaker per quarter of the academic year for a week of screenings and campus engagements to enrich student learning and present the works of groundbreaking film artists.

“It allows our students to have close, intimate connections with really important filmmakers,” said Eric Patrick, Associate Professor and Director of the MFA in Documentary Media.  

Filmmakers brought in by the program range from those operating in more traditional modes of documentary filmmaking to those prodding at the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction to, in Benning’s case, venturing outside the idea of filmmaking altogether. Recent guests have included Eduardo Williams, Rea Tajiri, Pedro Costa, Jessica Beshir, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul.  

In line with the MFA in Documentary Media’s mission to promote experimental nonfiction filmmaking, the Hoffman residency brings visiting artists to The Block who embody an expansive approach to the medium.

“That’s what’s special about the program – we aren’t a straightforward documentary program, we don’t prescribe one way of making work or one way of looking at the world,” said Assistant Professor of Instruction Christina Nguyen. “We bring in people with different backgrounds who may not fit into a specific category because our program doesn’t fit into a specific category.” 

Sometimes, the selection of filmmakers is intended to dovetail with the interests of students in the program. When faculty chose Pedro Costa as a 2024 Hoffman Visiting Artist, it was in part because his work aligned so well with the cohort.  

“There were multiple filmmakers in the program last year who were really working down that route that Pedro had laid out,” Patrick said.  

But always, the goal is to expose students and patrons to boundary-defying approaches to filmmaking. 

“We try to bring folks who have different views on the way that they make work to Northwestern to show our students what’s possible,” Nguyen said. 

Much as that can look like showcasing formally audacious films like 11×14 (Benning, 1977) and The United States of America (Benning, 2022) – both screened at The Block during his residency – it can also include a demonstration of filmmakers’ behind-the-scenes resourcefulness. At a Q&A following the latter film, Benning spoke about the meager budgeting and one-man-crew on which he made it. Screenings of Pedro Costa’s In Vanda’s Room (2000) and Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie? (2001), along with a conversation with the artist, illuminated the overwhelming impact of his technique in spite of the simplicity of his equipment.  

“We live in this hyper-capitalist world and filmmakers are not immune to it – they get a little too consumed about ‘this gear,’ ‘that resolution,’ or ‘this brand,’” Patrick said. “So to see that none of that stuff really matters if you’re just thinking about idea and image separate from the tools.”  

The quarterly Hoffman residencies also provide different modes of learning outside the standard curriculum of the MFA program.  

“Having these visiting artists from around the world, at different points in their careers, of different interests in topics and form, really opens up what we can offer in a two-year program,” Nguyen said “To have a one-week intensive with these artists can be really refreshing and really enlightening for the students.” 

Public programs at The Block give students a chance to engage with significant works on the big screen, studio visits facilitate filmmaker-to-filmmaker engagements with new perspectives that can reshape the creative process, and masterclasses offer a semi-formal discussion space for visiting filmmakers and students in the program to reflect on the field more broadly.

Benning’s masterclass offered him a venue to showcase lesser-known short works—Fresh Air (2016) and Ash 01 (2016), both of which strip the image back to a single shot or nothing at all—and reflect on thornier facets of artmaking, like negotiating the balance between emotional impact and care for an audience.  

Speaking to attendees from the Documentary MFA program, he reflected on the use of duration in his works:  
 
“I think that happens when you hold an image for a long time… you start to see other things in the image or you drift off, I think there’s something interesting about that confrontation.” 

For second-year MFA student Blake Knecht, Benning’s perspectives on filmmaking helped clarify the process of finishing her thesis film. 

“I think it really challenged me in the work that I’m doing,” she said. 

For Antoine, it was an affirmation to carve his own path. 

“We’re so often urged as filmmakers to have a process, to know the standards on which other filmmakers have been successful,” he said. “After hearing from James, it was ‘Follow your own path, go the way you want to go.’”