The Circuit

by Lisa Nesselson
Continuing Vienna's unabashed love affair with iconoclastic American filmmakers, on Nov 1 the Archive began a complete month-long retrospective of the films of James Benning, whose faith in both 16mm and the power of a well-framed landscape has attracted a near-rabid following in Austria and Germany.  The series is accompanied by a lovely book in German and English, examining Benning's oeuvre from 1971 to the present.

As a fitting finish to an event that treats the margins with no less deference than it does the mainstream, the Viennale hosted the world premiere of a specially commissioned muti-media experience called "Evening's Civil Twilight in Empire of Tin," in which films by Jem Cohen (including images recorded in Vienna in the ten days preceding the live performance) were accompanied by nine musicians led by singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt.

The city's gorgeous Gartenbaukino -- a free-standing cinema whose proud mid-20th century architecture elevates almost any film that graces its pleasantly huge screen --  resonated to Cohen's visual meditation on the folly of dying empires.  Cohen explained that Joseph Roth's "Radetzky March" was a major inspiration in channeling his anger at the pointless horrors initiated by the Bush administration.

Next year's Viennale runs Oct 17 - 29.