James Benning’s first film called The United States of America was a 1975 trip across the country, capturing its scenery through a car windshield. This second one also crisscrosses the nation, but without a car, carving it up instead into a series of static shots of just under two minutes, one for each state, presented alphabetically, from Heron Bay, Alabama to Kelly, Wyoming. The names of the places are nondescript, but the images attached to them are anything but, immaculately composed shots of landscape, cityscape and the spaces in between. As we move from A to Z, the images coalesce into a portrait of today’s USA, tracing out its fault lines almost in passing: fenced-off facilities, a river bed running dry, factories and refineries, run-down streets and gas stations, a camp under a bridge. The past is there too, seeping up through the songs and speeches that sporadically pierce the background noise or the motifs that evoke a whole career; the clouds, trains and cabins are stand-ins for films, not just states. As always, there’s time for more abstract thoughts too: each image may stand for a state, but representativity is slippery. Which state is more cinematic than the rest?

《美利坚合众国》由詹姆斯·班宁导演指导拍摄，集结了未知演员参演，并于2022在美国地区上映。美利坚合众国点播资源分别由 1 家资源方提供，作为一部“纪录片”类型的影视作品，目前在本站获得了°C的关注热度，于5个月前更新，可作为您的观影参考。喜欢本站请多多分享，流萤剧场~追剧看电影的好地方！