Most impressive one-take tracking shot?
May I? I believe if we are discussing the longest one-take ever filmed, the palm should go to Mike Figgis’ “Timecode”, which features 4 simultaneous one-take shots on 4 separate quadrants. The interaction from each one continuous take with each one of the others make for some really stunning effects – at times creating 4 similar images in each frame, sometimes using two contiguous images to form a wider one, sometimes giving you a shot and the reverse shot at the same time.
Besides this unbeatable exploit, I have never seen a more spectacular long take than the one in “Soy Cuba” where the camera starts at the street level of a huge funeral and climbs up a 5-stories building, crossing over to another building, travelling in the middle of workers rolling cigars and eventually flying out a window and watching the funeral from high up in an unbelievable plongée. Pretty amazing, even more so if you think it was shot decades ago. (Speaking of “Soy Cuba”, the long take in “Boogie Nights” that ends up – or in fact, down – underwater in a swimming pool is done, here, way more spectacularly)
My favorite long shots, though, are those which contradict the tenet about a long take being somehow the proof of the truthness of a shot. There is a brilliant one at the end of Pasquale Squitieri’s otherwise not unforgettable “I guappi” which starts in the 1800s and during a long travelling out a tribunal’s hall ends in Italy in the Seventies to prove nothing much has changed when it comes to camorra and mafia. A more recent one which blew me away is the scene in the French Edith Piaf biopic “La mome” where Piaf wakes up to the kisses of her lover and, with no cuts, slowly slides into the shocking revelation he in fact is not there because he has died in a plane crash.
The beginning of Boogie Nights. No question.
Just watched The Cranes Are Flying and there are several absolutley stunning tracking shots throughout the whole film.
boogie nights comes to mind. so does the shining.
I agree with those who mentioned I AM CUBA and THE CRANES ARE FLYING.
It may be impossible to have a completely informed
appreciation of tracking without seeing those two films.
Same crew involved, if memory serves.
Barton Fink
The first 3 that jumped to mind instantly were all said in the first 2 posts; Atonement, Children of Men, Weekend. The other single takes that Iove aren’t really tracking shots though. Most are just a steady shot that goes on for a really long time. Like the one in Ingmar Bergman’s Shame with the three main characters sitting at the table? Amazing.
EDIT: How did I forget to mention the first shot in Touch of Evil?? The best, period.
SECOND EDIT: Seriously…. I also don’t know how I forgot the entirety of I Am Cuba. I am scatterbrained….
My first and second thoughts went to the swimming pool and demonstration scenes in “Soy Cuba”, mentioned twice already. And it’s true that in a completely different genre, the opening scene of “JCVD” is impressive and witty.
Any shot from The Man from London – Bela Tarr makes Martin Scorsese and P.T. Anderson look like clowns.
1. I nominate KANAL (Poland 1957 B&W) Director: Andrzej Wadja – The one-take tracking shot begins the film and is truly impressive considering the amount of rubble and the primitive film equipment that challenged the camera crew.
2. The film’s background story is the Warsaw Uprising of WW2. The first half of the film is shot above ground and the 2nd half takes place in the tangles of sewers which is a fully realized Hell. KANAL scenes in the sewers is a close second to the underground sequences in the THE THIRD MAN.
3. Google the film title and you won’t find much information.
4. NONE of online sources mention the shot nor the fact that KANAL’s musician-poet is the actor who plays the doomed Chess Master in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.
5. I checked Netflix and KANAL is available to rent. I highly recommend this gem to all of you. A MUST SEE film IMHO.
Cheers!
Children of Men and Boogie Nights jump to mind for me.
Raising Arizona has some pretty cool tracking shots (even from the baby’s perspective)…and has anyone mentioned Rope? Not flashy, but it’s ALL tracking (LOL)
Regarding Tarr, probably the scene in Werckmeister Harmonies where the rioters trash the hospital, gut-churning and accomplished in a single unbroken tracking shot that moves from room to room. Everything happens “on the mark.”
Also, the long tracking shot of the traffic jam in Weekend, and the best part of Tout Va Bien, the long track back and forth in the supermarket as mind-numbing routine slowly gathers into a violent protest.
You wonder how many times they have to rehearse and film these kinds of tracking shots, because if one actor misses cue or one detail is off, they have to start all over again. It’s probably the bane of everyone’s existence.
1. Touch of Evil
2. The Player
3. Weekend
That’s what I think of when someone says “tracking shot”
4. Russian Ark counts, but considering they had to use editing software to make a 90minute take actually work…I don’t count it
5. Basically anything by Bela Tarr
Been a while since I saw it (and actually probably was handheld, not tracking — I think we derailed that aspect of the thread a while back), but wasn’t the opening of Strange Days a really long POV shot?
Thorston Mentioned Sunrise and I second it. One of the first great moments in cinema.
I adore Sunrise, every shot is perfection. But the first I thought of was Atonement, that was a stunning shot on the beach (which was nice since I felt the middle of the dragged a little, so this shot was very welcome).
In Nostalghia, when he’s in the pool and trying to make it to the other side with the candle lit—three times! Heart-wrenching, anxiety-laced, suspenseful and emotional five minutes in length (or so, I can’t even tell how long that shot was, it took forever and was devastating until he succeeded). Tarkovsky controls freakin’ weather in that movie, it’s maddening in the sense that trying to figure out how he does that stuff can make you go insane.
—PolarisDiB
This is only stadistics. Anyway, I find it interesting. Bela Tarr beats it! 
Godard’s ‘weekend’, traffic sequence
There is a great tracking shot in Kurosawa’s Rashomon, as the guy is walking through the forest.
It is very complex and swoops around the actor and through the trees.
I cannot believe that this was not mentioned before.
Raging Bull – When Jake enters the ring for his championship fight. Maybe not the longest track, but it’s technically flawless and very emotional.
I’m a big fan of the opening shot of “Touch of Evil” but I’d have to give mention to Zemeckis’ opening shot of Contact where he zooms to the far reaches of the universe from the earth, then into the reflection of a little girl’s eye. Trickery, yes, but fun… especially the way you zoom out and eventually pass all of earth’s original radio and tv signals on the way out. (Not technically a tracking shot… but impressive all the same)
I think the final tracking shot of The Sacrifice is among the most stunning ever filmed. While they recorded it didn´t Sven Nykvist´s camera work properly and the material couldn´t be used, so the crew had to build the house again which had already burned down during the filming, what made Tarkovsky become really desperate. The second time around they filmed it with two parallel cameras and fortunately there were no more problems since it wouldn´t have been possible to repeat the scene again.
I’m surprised no one’s mentioned the clever tracking used in Hitchcock’s “Rope”. I couldn’t find any of these clips on-line, but I’m thinking of one shot from the living room through the dining room, into the kitchen and its swinging door, the motion of which he used as a place to switch reels. Also the many tight shots in the living room from person to person and of various eyes going to the large chest in the foreground.
Another film that sprang to my mind is Robert Wise’ “The Set-Up”. There are great shots first following Stoker across the street to the arena, then later long shots following his wife in the street, and then I think there’s a long single shot when Stoker’s coming out of the alley back into the street (don’t want to put any spoilers in). That whole streetscape becomes a character in the film, to me.And one more: the opening sequence of “The Birdcage”, the camera rushing along the coastal water toward land, into the street and then into the club’s front door, through the crowd, and up onto the stage. Very fun and exciting!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV3aHWCB7e4
Does the shots in “The Evil Dead” count?
Stalker
The running scene in “The Virgin Spring.”
Does the shots in “The Evil Dead” count?
Stalker
The running scene in “The Virgin Spring.”
Russian Ark obviously.
gutfiddle
The 3 minute opening shot to Boogie Nights. Brilliant.