8 x 8 (8 mal 8)

This experimental film, subtitled A Chess sonata in eight movements, is the second of Richter's elaborate collaborations with artists, following Dreams that money can buy (1947) and Dadascope (1961). Taking its title from the dimensions of a chess board, the film pays homage to Lewis Carroll's use of chess in Through the looking-glass and begins with a statement by Richter: We use chess, as did Carroll, as the plane, the board on which all things which happen in life are also happening ... transformed, symbolic but no less real. Richter creates a symbolic, surreal world where kings, queens and other players on the chess board enact life's episodes. Alexander Calder constructs mobiles and sets them in motion. Max Ernst pursues his wife Dorothea through the canyons of lower Manhattan and a western landscape. Jean Cocteau plays a pawn who becomes a queen.