The Long Take, the Most Impressive Shot in Film

[JGlass]

So I'm a big time film nerd, and I figured I'd share with you one of my favorite types of shots: the long take. A long take is a shot that lasts for a long time and generally follows a character, the action within the scene, or many different things. The reason it's so impressive is because it is literally just one very long take, so everything has to go right. There are no cuts, no breaks edited in, just one long shot.

What this shot is introduce you to many different things at once, and these things change depending on what happens in the shot.

Let's take a look at the first time the long take was used. Should we be surprised that it was originated by anyone else but Orson Wells?

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As you can tell by the title of the video, this is the opening scene from Orson Well's Touch of Evil. First of all, how amazing is this one long take? The camera work and movement is phenomenal, and the planning that went into it must have been immense. This is a three minute long shot, most shots don't last longer than a few seconds. Like I said before, everything in this shot must have been extremely well planned, and the execution had to be PERFECT... and it was!

So what does this shot do for us? It introduces us to three major things.

1) The plot: Someone plants a time bomb in a car and kills two individuals. Who is the killer? Why did they do it? Why did he target this couple? You're already engulfed by the plot and it's only three minutes into the film!

2) The main characters: We don't know much about Miguel Vargas and Susie, but we know that he is some sort of police officer involved in busting big gangs. We also know that they are madly in love, and that they'll be playing some sort of role in the future events of the film.

3) It introduces us to the area. We know that we're on the Mexican-American boarder, and that this town isn't exactly the most civilized place in the world. While it is fairly developed, you still see some odd sights like goats in the middle of the road and a man with a wagon pedaling his goods.

Lets take a look at a scene that pays homage to the Touch of Evil opening, the opening of Boogie Nights.

[YOUTUBE]33C65V9JdbE[/YOUTUBE]

I like this opening even more than the one in Touch of Evil. Putting Best of my Love in the background sets the perfect vibe as we take a 2:45 tour of the valley in California in the 70s. While it's not exactly as glamorous as Hollywood, there is a sort of style about it. Guys and girls alike are all dolled up to go to Luis Guzman's club, and they're all waiting in line to get in. Burt Reynolds and Julianne Moore don't have to wait though, and they seem to be involved in some sort of film industry. We also get introduced to the dumb but sweet John C. Riley, and the cowboy obsessed Don Cheadle. We then learn that Julianne Moore has taken an interest in Heather Graham, and finally, we settle in on Mark Wahlberg, and the final shot is clearly framed so that we know that he is the star of this movie.

One of the most impressive long takes (due to the sheer magnitude of things happening in the shot) is the Dunkirk Beach scene from Atonement.

[YOUTUBE]Pi9aA8CDXwI[/YOUTUBE]

I love this scene because there's so much going on. We see hundreds, if not thousands of British troops on this beach doing nothing and everything. This shot conveys the feeling of isolation as well as claustrophobia. You feel the isolation of the British soldiers being stranded on the beach, but you feel claustrophobic because everywhere you look is packed with British soldiers looking for ways to pass the time. It's chaotic, yet the shot flows beautifully. This shot is truly a work of art.

The fourth and final long take I'm going to post is from The Shining. It should be no surprise that Kubrick worked this shot into perfection, but this shot is totally without dialogue, but it is still one of the most chilling shots of the entire film. It's amazing what a genius like Kubrick can do with some camera techniques and sound alone.

[YOUTUBE]bCeBeS_OGso[/YOUTUBE]

We follow Danny around the empty halls of the hotel and some very disturbing music starts to creep in to accompany the lonely sound of his big wheel rolling around the carpeted floors. We finally get to a room that Danny is interested in for some odd reason. We already know that Danny is a strange child, but we don't know his connection with this room yet, but it becomes obvious that we will soon learn.

So I hope I have impressed upon you the beauty of a well executed long take. These are just four classic examples, but there are plenty of other ones out there. What are some of your favorites? What do you think of these shots?

 

[Cena's Little Helper]

Interesting thread. The scene from Boogie Nights would is better classified as a tracking shot and its biggest influence is this particular shot:

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Anyway, I think the greatest tracking shot (it could also be classified as a long take) of all time is from Dario Argento's Tenebre:

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Simply amazing. This is the kind of camera mastery that continues today with the likes of Gaspar Noe (Tenebre's influence is evident in Irreversible and Enter The Void, although Zbigniew Rybczynski's work from Angst is also an obvious influence as well).

 

[JGlass]

That Tenebre clip was brilliant. I loved how they shot through the windows, it definitely gave the whole thing a very voyeuristic feel, and the crane work is great.

I always have fun trying to picture how they orchestrate a shot like that. They must draw out a diagram that's like, "So you'll go from this window to this window, then over to this window and you'll dolly in, then back out and go to this window..." etc. The flawless execution that goes into these takes is just amazing.

 

[Mustang Sally]

A long take is a shot that lasts for a long time and generally follows a character, the action within the scene, or many different things.

It's refreshing to see that sort of shot, which contrasts favorably with two features of modern filmmaking that pale in comparison to the long shot:

First, today's films have to cram in as many frames as possible in the shortest amount of time. For instance, they don't just show you the shot of a person; instead, you see fraction-of-a-second shots of the person's eye, their foot, their knee, their shoulder, etc. etc until you don't know exactly what you were supposed to be seeing. This rapid-fire, multi-angle technique is the exact opposite of the long shot.....and it makes those segments of a film impossible to follow.

The second trait of modern movie-making is the puzzling notion of filming the action scenes almost entirely in darkness. The scenes with dialogue are generally filmed in the light, but as soon as the physical action starts, you often find yourself looking at an entirely black screen for seconds at a time. Then, they lighten things enough for you to catch quick views of......well, something. I often think back on these scenes and wind up having no idea what I just saw. As far as I can remember, this "technique" started with "The Deer Hunter" in 1978. It was a 3-hour movie, and when I reflected on the scenes shot in Vietnam, I realize that I had only the vaguest idea of what was going on.

Why these two techniques have become a staple of modern filmmaking baffles me. Like you, I'll take the long shot so I can get a sense of what I'm watching without having to get a headache to do it.

 

[INDYjon22]

I love the long take/tracking shot. I was recently watching Elephant by Gus Van Sant and the tracking shots he used were magnificent. It really allowed for the viewer to watch a character and see what life was like for them in their everyday High School life. That is probably why it made the school so frightening as well. It made the scenes more surreal and realistic. As if school shootings aren't an intimidating topic as it is actually following the shooters around the school as they do what they are doing is down right scary. But, the tracking shots are what make the film so amazingly disturbing to watch. It's brilliant.

 

[JW'sGirl]

I'm so glad this thread exists! I'm a huge film nerd too and I was about to start a thread about long takes, but I'm glad I didn't since I found this. That scene from Atonement is my favorite movie scene of all time! I studied both the scene from Boogie Nights and the one from The Shining that you posted in one of my film classes last semester, great stuff! And to tdigle: the one from Boogie Nights was night done on a track and therefore cannot be technically classified as a tracking shot. It was filmed using a steadicam.

This is from the movie The Player. I haven't actually seen the whole movie, but this is another shot I studied in class. It's 8 minutes, which is almost an entire role of film assuming they were shooting on 16mm or Super 16 which is likely.
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Another shot I really like is the opening sequence of the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice (but I couldn't find it on YouTube )which was directed by Joe Wright (same guy who did Atonement). He's talked about in interviews how he LOVES tracking shots/long takes.

 

[JGlass]

I'm taking a production class, and the professor played the opening of The Player for us. WOW! Nearly 10 minutes without a single cut, and there's so much going on in the take too. Absolutely astounding shot, I'm glad you posted it.