When you compare directors James Benning and Richard Linklater don’t seem to have a lot in common. Altough they both work in the movie industry, they both do that in completely different ways. Benning is relatively unknown and experiments a lot with film. The last couple of years he has focussed in films without a story, inspired by the silent movies and wants emulate that feeling. He shows a landscape without actually doing anything else, having the viewer focus on the nature and nothing else. He thinks people do that way too little.
Richard Linklater on the other hand is well-known, of course of his recent movie Boyhood, but also his “Before” trilogy (Before Sunrise, Before Sunset en Before Midnight) and movies like Bernie, Dazed and Confused, Slacker and A Scanner Darkly. In this documentary these two men meet and talk about making movies and the way they feel about film in general.
It quickly becomes clear that these men have a lot in common. Both of them have a lot of love for baseball (Linklater actually wanted to play in the Major League, but was forced to stop playing because he had problems with his heart) and they both are looking for new ways to make movies which results in the medium of film growing. Both play with time and Benning is very interested in Linklater’s Boyhood, which was still in the process of being edited while this documentary was shot. Director Gabe Klinger uses clips from their movie to show how they play with time, but also shows how specific subjects keep returning in their work (for example dreams keep coming back in Linklaters films).
Double Play is a documentary which will be interesting for those who are fans of the work of these two men. It gives a better understanding of what drives these men. It was surprising to hear that Benning actually isn’t a fan of movies and because of that is looking for something which is “refreshing”. It is clear that these two men have formed a long and close friendship and that they both bring there own unique vision to grow the medium.
