You are here:

Stemple Pass

Name: Stemple Pass
Director: James Benning
Released: 2012
Duration: 121 min

Representation Score

0.5/10

Minimal

2012

Director

James Benning

Runtime

121 minutes

Average Rating

No ratings yet

New Showbiz Analysis

Stemple Pass is an experimental documentary that emphasizes formalist landscape studies over traditional narrative structures. Through long, static shots of the Sierra Nevada mountains and a cabin replica, the film serves as a meditation on time and environment. Since the film lacks human characters, dialogue, or a traditional cast, it does not engage with typical measures of social representation. Instead, it focuses on the relationship between the viewer and the physical landscape. While the audio component incorporates radical anti-modernist rhetoric through archival materials, the film does not engage with contemporary identity politics. Its main goal is to explore light, space, and duration.

Watch this, not that →

Category Breakdown

Does Stemple Pass have LGBTQ+ representation?

Minimal

The film does not depict any gender identities or sexual orientations. Since there are no human characters, it doesn't address LGBTQ+ themes or dynamics.

How does Stemple Pass portray gender?

Minimal

The film focuses on landscapes and lacks human characters, so it does not show any gender roles or dynamics.

How racially and ethnically diverse is Stemple Pass?

Minimal

The film does not include any characters of color. It also does not explore racial or cultural identities.

How does Stemple Pass represent religion and culture?

Fair

The film includes anti-industrial and anti-capitalist sentiments through Kaczynski’s journals and manifesto. These archival materials offer a critique of modern technology and society.

Does Stemple Pass include disability representation?

Minimal

The film does not depict any physical disabilities, mental health conditions, or neurodivergence.

Present on Screen

The film provides a deep reflection on environmental phenomena and the passage of time through seasonal landscape studies.
The use of archival materials, such as Kaczynski’s journals, adds layers of anti-industrial and anti-capitalist critique.

Limited or Absent

The film lacks human characters, so it does not engage with social representation, gender, or racial diversity.
By avoiding human social dynamics, the film becomes less accessible to viewers looking for storytelling that reflects multiple aspects of identity or character-driven narratives.

Official Synopsis

Four landscape shots containing a replica of Ted Kaczynski’s cabin, one shot per season. On the soundtrack, Benning reads extracts from Kaczynski’s journals from the early 1970s, recording his progress at hunting and gathering, and his connection to the Montana wilderness; a hand-written folded sheet of paper detailing his acts of “monkey wrenching” and first attempts at planting bombs; two notebooks written in numerical code in 1985 and decoded by Benning in 2011; two excepts from Industrial Society and Its Future by "FC" (aka the Unabomber Manifesto) as published in The New York Times and The Washington Post in 1995; and a 2001 interview with Kaczynski by J. Alienus Rychalski, special correspondent for the Blackfoot Valley Dispatch.

How are these scores produced? →