Landscape Suicide

James Benning's 1987 film continues his examination of America through two murderers: Ed Gein, the Wisconsin farmer who taxidermied his victims in the 1950s, and Bernadette Protti, the Californian teenager who stabbed a friend to death over an insult in 1984. The film treats both cases not as sensation but as geography. Benning's method is severe: long static shots, images of the places as they are now, and real interrogation statements read verbatim by actors. There is no explanation and no psychological interpretation. The claim is that the murders cannot be separated from the landscape itself: empty roads, identical houses, silence. For some viewers that method sits at the limit of endurance. Who it's for: viewers interested in experimental American cinema, structural film and the social geography of crime. Who it's not for: anyone expecting narrative, tension or explanation, or who will find long static takes unbearable.