| Landscape Suicide | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | James Benning [1] |
| Written by | James Benning [2] |
| Produced by | James Benning |
| Cinematography | James Benning |
Release date |
|
Running time | 95 min. |
| Country | United States [3] |
| Language | English |
Landscape Suicide is a 1987 American crime and drama film directed and produced by James Benning. [4] The film stars Rhonda Bell and Elion Sucher in the lead roles. [5]
Prior to the release of Landscape Suicide, Benning had already built a reputation for his exceedingly long, stationary camera shots of landscapes and industrial scenes. Landscape Suicide sought to combine his structuralist approach with documentary filmmaking. [6]
The film recounts and parallels two murders that took place 30 years apart. The first half of the film is based on the murder of Kirsten Costas, who was stabbed by her high-school friend Bernadette Protti in Northern California in early 1984. The second half is devoted to the infamous homicides and taxidermies committed by Ed Gein in Wisconsin in the 1950s.
In a contemporary review, Chicago Tribune film critic Dave Kehr awarded the film three and a half stars and wrote: "It's part of Benning's project in Landscape Suicide to reclaim these deaths from the realm of popular fiction and place them again in a real world. His method is, alternatively, both to refuse to look (the killings, made familiar and even banal by their endless cinematic representation, are not depicted) and to look harder than anyone else. ... The prosperous California suburb is linked to the depressed Midwestern farm town through a shared sense of isolation, desolation and quiet despair. We finally come to understand that both of these towns are located in the same place, somewhere in the dark recesses of the American Dream." [7]
Norman Bates is a fictional character created by American author Robert Bloch as the main antagonist in his 1959 horror novel Psycho. He has an alter, Mother, who takes from the form of his abusive mother, and later victim, Norma, who in his daily life runs the Bates Motel.
Edward Theodore Gein, also known as the Butcher of Plainfield or the Plainfield Ghoul, was an American murderer, suspected serial killer and body snatcher. Gein's crimes, committed around his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin, gathered widespread notoriety in 1957 after authorities discovered that he had exhumed corpses from local graveyards and fashioned keepsakes from their bones and skin. He also confessed to killing two women: tavern owner Mary Hogan in 1954, and hardware store owner Bernice Worden in 1957.
Spellbound is a 1945 American psychological thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, and Michael Chekhov. It follows a psychoanalyst who falls in love with the new head of the Vermont hospital in which she works, only to find that he is an imposter suffering dissociative amnesia, and potentially, a murderer. The film is based on the 1927 novel The House of Dr. Edwardes by Hilary Saint George Saunders and John Palmer.
James Benning is an American independent filmmaker and educator. Over the course of his 40-year career Benning has made over twenty-five feature-length films that have shown in many different venues across the world. Since 1987, he has taught at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). He is known as a minimalist filmmaker.
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Swamp Water is a 1941 American film noir crime film directed by Jean Renoir and starring Walter Brennan, Walter Huston and Anne Baxter. Based on the novel by Vereen Bell, it was produced at 20th Century Fox. The film was shot on location at Okefenokee Swamp, Waycross, Georgia, USA. It was Renoir's first American film. The film was remade in 1952 as Lure of the Wilderness, directed by Jean Negulesco.
Donna Murphy is an American actress, best known for her work in musical theater. A five-time Tony Award nominee, she has twice won the Tony for Best Actress in a Musical: for her role as Fosca in Passion (1994–1995) and as Anna Leonowens in The King and I (1996–1997). She was also nominated for her roles as Ruth Sherwood in Wonderful Town (2003), Lotte Lenya in LoveMusik (2007), and Bubbie/Raisel in The People in the Picture (2011).
Bradley Mark Stewart, known by his stage name Gidget Gein, was an American musician and artist. He was the second bassist and co-founder of the rock band Marilyn Manson. His stage name is a combination of fictional character Gidget and serial killer Ed Gein.
David Kehr is an American museum curator and film critic. For many years a critic at the Chicago Reader and the Chicago Tribune, he later wrote a weekly column for The New York Times on DVD releases. He later became a curator within the department of film at the Museum of Modern Art.
Pennies from Heaven is a 1981 American musical romantic drama film directed by Herbert Ross, based on the 1978 BBC television drama of the same name. Dennis Potter adapted his screenplay from the BBC series for American audiences, changing its setting from London and the Forest of Dean to Depression-era Chicago and rural Illinois.
The Running Man is a 1987 American dystopian action film directed by Paul Michael Glaser and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, María Conchita Alonso, Richard Dawson, Yaphet Kotto, and Jesse Ventura. The film is set in a dystopian United States between 2017 and 2019, featuring a television show where convicted criminal "runners" must escape death at the hands of professional killers. It is loosely based on the 1982 novel of the same title written by Stephen King and published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman.
James Vincent Russo is an American film and television actor. He has appeared in over 150 films in three decades.
In the Light of the Moon is a 2000 crime horror film directed by Chuck Parello, and written by Stephen Johnston. It is based on the crimes of Ed Gein, an American murderer who killed at least two women in Plainfield, Wisconsin during the 1950s. It stars Steve Railsback as Gein, and Carrie Snodgress as Gein's domineering, fundamentalist mother, Augusta.
A Friend to Die For is a 1994 American psychological thriller television film directed by William A. Graham. Written by Dan Bronson, the film is based on the real-life murder of Kirsten Costas, who was killed by her classmate, Bernadette Protti, in 1984. The film was the highest-rated TV movie of 1994.
Kirsten Marina Costas was an American high school student who was murdered by her classmate Bernadette Protti in June 1984.
Tough Guys Don't Dance is a 1987 crime mystery comedy-drama film written and directed by Norman Mailer based on his novel of the same name. It is a murder mystery/film noir piece. It was screened out of competition at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.
Housekeeping is a 1987 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Bill Forsyth, starring Christine Lahti, Sara Walker, and Andrea Burchill. Based on Marilynne Robinson's 1980 novel Housekeeping, it is about two young sisters growing up in Idaho in the 1950s. After being abandoned by their mother and raised by elderly relatives, the sisters are looked after by their eccentric aunt whose unconventional and unpredictable ways affect their lives. It was filmed on location in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada. It won two awards at the 1987 Tokyo International Film Festival.
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