09/07/2026
8 x 8: A Chess Sonata in 8 Movements (1957) is an American experimental film directed by Hans Richter, Marcel Duchamp, and Jean Cocteau released on March 15, 1957 in New York City. It features original music by Robert Abramson, John Gruen and Douglas Townsend.
Described by Richter as "part Freud, part Lewis Carroll," it is a fairy tale for the subconscious based on the game of chess.
While living in New York, Hans Richter directed two feature films, Dreams That Money Can Buy and 8x8: A Chess Sonata in collaboration with Max Ernst, Cocteau, Paul Bowles, Fernand Leger, Alexander Calder, Duchamp, and others, which was partially filmed on the lawn of his summer house in Southbury, Connecticut.
☛ Directed by Jean Cocteau, Hans Richter
☛ Written by Hans Richter
☛ Produced by Hans Richter
☛ Starring: Jean Arp, Paul Bowles, Ceal Bryson, Alexander Calder, Jean Cocteau, Willem de Vogel, Marcel Duchamp, Dorothea Ernst, Max Ernst, Richard Hulsenbeck, Frederick Kiesler, Julien Lary, Jaqueline Matisse, Darius Milhaud, Eugene Pellegrini, Man Ray, Yves Tanguy
☛ Release date: March 15, 1957
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager, playwright, artist and filmmaker. Along with other avant-garde artists of his generation (Jean Anouilh and René Char for example) Cocteau grappled with the algebra of verbal codes old and new, mise en scène language and technologies of modernism to create a paradox: a classical avant-garde. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María Félix, Édith Piaf (whom he cast in one of his one-act plays entitled Le Bel Indifferent in 1940), and Raymond Radiguet.
https://youtu.be/zGc6gG-Gz3g
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8 x 8: A Chess Sonata in 8 Movements (1957) is an American experime...