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explain events, deliberately leaving it open-ended. I wanted the viewer to be able to add to the basic information: if forty people watch the film, they'll have forty different stories. That interested me.
MacDonald:
Why the title?
Benning:
It was supposed to refer to the fact that the script was typed on eight-and-one-half-by-eleven paper, and it also refers to a perimeter or an area, text and form at once. "8 1/2 × 11" is more obviously a dimension than a reference to typing paper, and that's the way the film is supposed to work: the narrative is removed and the formal elements come forward. So many people ask me what the title means that I think [laughter] I'm the only one who understands it.
11 × 14,
of course, came out, of this film. It's something of a joke that the title refers to a larger format and that: film is, longer; but at the same time it isn't a joke because I thought of
11 × 14
as being less narrative and more photographic [11 × 14 is a photograph paper size] than
8 1/2 × 11,
even though there are more stories in it.
MacDonald:
In one section of
8 1/2 × 11
you handhold the camera. Why only one?
Benning:
Those pans across the bodies in
8 1/2 × 11
are so different from the rest of the film that I don't like it. I wanted the film to pivot around that point, but it does more than pivot around it: the scene jumps off the screen at you. When I filmed two people in bed for
11 × 14,
I used a static camera. My approach to film is generally conservative. I don't think of the camera as an extension of my eye. I don't have that kind of romance with the camera. I use it as a precise tool.
MacDonald: 9-1-75
uses the illusion of a candid, continuous shot filmed in a busy campground, but it's as fully fabricated as
8 1/2 × 11
.
Benning:
Yes. Usually I choreograph the movements of the characters within the frame, but at the same time I like to incorporate the random movements of unaware passersby.
9-1-75
has no controlled actors, only "documented" campers. However, the soundtrack is completely contrived and post-synched.
MacDonald:
It creates an illusion that is immediately recognizable as an illusion, particularly since you're tracking through the campground in slow motion and the sound is played at a normal speed.
Benning:
The day before I shot the film I recorded about four or five hours' worth of sound at the campground; different parts of conversations and a lot of ambient noisepeople putting up tents and things like that. I also manufactured sound: I wrote little lines and had people say them; I used some sound-effect records that I knew would be recognized as such. I wanted to combine "real" and "manufactured" sounds, so that the audience would question each sound.
MacDonald:
There are funny sections, like the orgasm when you pass the little pup tent. Do youset out to make funny films?