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sense that you might have mixed feelings about what kind of filmmaking career you wanted. the specifics of the route, particularly the fact juxtapositions of sound and image made me wonder whether you were thinking of going into commercial filmmaking.
Benning:
Not at all, although now I'm closer to that than I've ever been. At that time, I was interested in defining new ways of using narrative.
The United States of America
is very formal, but we used the radio to develop stories: recurring songs tie scenes together; there's a whole thread about the Vietnam War ending; as we get closer to the west coast, the Communist troops get closer to Saigon
Gordon:
I think the film is more interesting as you get further from 1975its historical natures becomes evident. When we finished the film we were disappointedsomehow it wasn't what we had conceived. Now it's more powerful because those events are part of this country's past.
MacDonald:
I assume you decided on the route in advance.
Benning:
Pretty much. We were living in Madison, Wisconsin, at the time, so one weekend we drove to New York and back in four days. About a week later we drove to Los Angeles and back in a week. We made the film in eleven days. Eight thousand miles of driving! It was awful.
MacDonald:
You look relaxed in the film.
Benning:
It was fun, but it was awful
Gordon:
Most people who travel take a camera to make "home movies." We went on this trip to make inverse of a home movie, the trip was created
for
the film. The viewer never knows anything about the people in the car, except what can be assumed from where the go, what they look like from the back, and what they listen to on the editing that creates a linear whole, Its creative geography, like Kuleshov, [Soviet filmmaker and theoretician Lev Kuleshov was a pioneer in the exploration of the potentials of film editing. Among his explorations was the combination of imagery from different locations to create the illusion of a single place: "creative geography."]
MacDonald:
Were the sounds and visuals recorded at the same time and put together later.
Benning:
We didn't have a synch-sound camera. We had a switch so that we could turn on the camera, which was mounted in the back. Periodically we'd pull over and record things from the radio. Then we'd write down approximately where those things were. When we put the film together, we put recorded in an area with images from the same area.