post number five: james benning

i was really excited for james benning's performance/speech to our class since i've now seen a few of his films and even though i can't say i was totally impressed, i was definitely curious what he'd have for us and what he'd have to say about film and the creative process.  when i heard he was going to do a math performance i was thinking it was only going to be 30 minutes at the most and then he would talk to us about filmmaking so i was a little disappointed when it ended up being only 90 or so minutes of math.  i felt like i was being cheated out of something or just provided with a lack of information as if this was some sort of intervention or joke.  did james benning really think most of us would find 90 minutes of math equations interesting and "beautiful" as he stated.  i can see where he is coming from saying these equations are beautiful but i constantly was hoping this was all going somewhere and unfortunately it didn't.  in fact, many times i don't really think he necessarily knew where it was all going as he'd pace back and forth between the white boards figuring out where he should go next.

this sort of reminded me of the andy kaufman performance at a college where instead of performing what was expected, a set of comedy, he would attempt to read to the audience the entire book "the great gatsby."  of course many would leave the theatre because most people only have so much patience and i can definitely say i was losing my patience with james' performance.  i almost felt bad too because i could see a person or two around me sincerely interested in it so i had to consider where they a rare breed of person entertained by this sort of thing or was i just being difficult and narrow minded?