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.
I haven’t seen it again since its original theatrical release in Italy but I remember it as a very unique title in the Italian film scene. Just to give you a bit more of scope, it was based on a novel by the Italy’s star comic book writer Tiziano Sclavi, whose character “Dylan Dog” was at that time at the peak of its success. The novel itself was supposed to be the original seed behind the comic book character, whcih might explain the casting of Rubert Everett – Dylan Dog’s aspect was openly inspired to Everett’s features. It’s a pity director Michele Soavi was mostly active, after that film, in TV-series (usually much better than the average), and only directed a couple of interesting but not unforgettable theatrical flicks afterwards.
Most impressive one-take tracking shot? over 2 years ago
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.
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Cemetery Man over 2 years ago
I haven’t seen it again since its original theatrical release in Italy but I remember it as a very unique title in the Italian film scene. Just to give you a bit more of scope, it was based on a novel by the Italy’s star comic book writer Tiziano Sclavi, whose character “Dylan Dog” was at that time at the peak of its success. The novel itself was supposed to be the original seed behind the comic book character, whcih might explain the casting of Rubert Everett – Dylan Dog’s aspect was openly inspired to Everett’s features. It’s a pity director Michele Soavi was mostly active, after that film, in TV-series (usually much better than the average), and only directed a couple of interesting but not unforgettable theatrical flicks afterwards.
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