Free films: Three wild and crazy dudes

Filmmaker James Benning will present two of his envelope-pushing films Monday at the University of Utah.

Of particular interest to Utahns, “Casting a Glance” is a documentary about the aesthetic changes to the iconic land art sculpture “Spiral Jetty,” created by the late Robert Smithson. It will be screened at 7 p.m. in the University of Utah Fine Arts Auditorium, in the Film and Media Arts Building.

The Utah Museum of Fine Art last year joined with the Great Salt Lake Institute at Westminster College and the Dia Foundation in New York to protect and promote the Spiral Jetty, which is located on the northern arm of the Great Salt Lake.

Benning will also screen “Two Cabins” at the UMFA’s auditorium on Monday at 2:15 p.m. For “Two Cabins,” Benning reconstructed Henry David Thoreau‘s and unibomber Ted Kaczynski‘s iconic cabins to explore utopian and dystopian versions of social isolation.

You gotta ask yourself, which of these guys looks squirrelier?

(Photo of Spiral Jetty sign by Andi Olsen.)