A Long Time Between Edits
Submitted by bertie on Tue, 08/16/2005 - 01:48
Tags:
- Russian Ark (2002, Aleksandr Sokurov. No edits. Running time: 96 min.s)
- Rope (1948, Alfred Hitchcock. There is a disguised edit every 8 minutes when each reel of film runs out.)
- Week End (1967, Jean-Luc Goddard. Includes a tracking shot that lasts about 10 minutes.) [Thanks to lukeprog]
- The Player (1992, Robert Altman. The opening tracking shot is about 8 minutes long.)
- Soy Cuba / Ya Cuba (a.k.a. I Am Cuba, 1964, Mikheil Kalatozishvili. Includes a shot of about four minutes duration. And apparently a film worth seeing.) [Thanks to pianoshootis]
- Boogie Nights (1997, Paul Thomas Anderson. The opening shot is three minutes long, so says IMDb.) [Thanks to Critico]
- Touch of Evil (1958, Orson Welles, A tracking shot near the beginning is about three minutes long.)
- Snake Eyes (1992, Brian De Palma. There is a take in the opening sequence that lasts 2 min 47 sec.) [Thanks to Jim}
- Once Upon a Time in the West (1968, Sergio Leone. There is a shot that goes for about a minute and a half.) [Thanks to grandpa_chum]
- The Third Man (1949, Carol Reed. The famous closing shot is about a minute long.)
Author Comments:
Special Mention:
Running Time (1997, Josh Becker. With the use of hidden or disguised edits, this is made to look like one continuous shot. I don't know how long the longest shot is, so I can't rank it on the main list.) [Thanks to Cosgrove]
There's the opening scene from Brian De Palma's Snake Eyes.
Jim, the "trivia" page for Snake Eyes at IMDb talks about the opening sequence, but I can't make sense of it. How long a shot is it, roughly? The reason I ask is I want to rank the items on my list by their duration.
Yeah, the formatting makes it tricky. I think this is how it breaks down:
TakeDurationStartStart ImageEndEnd ImageFirst 2:19 0:18 TV screen 2:37Rick Santoro by the monitors Second 2:41 2:37 Rick starts to walk 4:18 Rick follows Cyrus Third 1:43 4:18 Rick on the stairs 6:01 Rick shouts "Go Tyler! Go Tyler!" Fourth 1:02 6:01 Rick enters Arena 7:03 Rick meets Kevin Fifth 2:47 7:03 Rick starts to talk with Kevin 9:49 Kevin looks on redhead woman Sixth 2:22 9:49 Redhead on the Arena 12:11 Blonde talks to Kirkland Seventh 0:18 12:11 Rick watching the fight 12:29 "Here comes the Pain!!" Eighth 0:21 12:29 Rick watching the fight 12:50 Rick answers the phone from a girl with number "7"
The cuts are all hidden to make it look like one long seamless shot. I'm not sure if this list of cuts is definitive.
Ah! now I understand. Thanks muchly for clearing that up. I'm going to count the longest of the 'takes' for the purpose of my list.
I've heard Satantango is like this, but I haven't seen it yet. The longest shot in Godard's Weekend is 10+ minutes, I believe.
luke, I'm not sure I should thank you for bringing this movie to my attention. Sounds depressing. I need to know the approximate length of the longest shot in order to rank it on my list. I might have to put it on the Special Mention list.
I should have made clear that the movie I was talking about in the above post is not the Goddard but the other one.
Bruce Campbell starred in a film called "Running Time" which was filmed in the all-in-one-take style of "Rope" and takes place in real time. Don't have any info on how many edits were hidden, but it is pretty seamless-looking.
I've given Running Time a "Special Mention". Thanks again.
What about the opening shot of Boogie Nights?
It's in! I'll really have to watch BN one of these days, being as I'm such a big porn fan :-D
90+ seconds(thats the number that comes to mind but i'll check it out)... Once upon a time in the west, jill follows the camera, goes into the station(we're watching through a window) after she talks with a man the camera lifts up over the building as the music swells and the booming western town is revealed as we pass over the rooftop.
It wouldn't take much to make me watch my dvd of OUATITheWest again. I really love Morricone's score.
I got to see "I Am Cuba" recently and it has a number of long shots, including a very impressive one going down the side of a building and in and out of water. According to Wikipedia, the longest is four minutes over a burning field.
Added to the list. Thanks for contributing.
"Rope"...God, what a brilliant film. Hitch WAS the master, was he not?
I know THIS film is no classic or anything, but how about the Tarantino sequence from "Four Rooms"? I know the initial shot of that scene was all done in one very long take...although I have no idea the specifics of it. I'll get back to you if/when I do.
Also, I'm surprised "Heaven's Gate" didn't make this list somewhere...or perhaps that film just FELT like it took forever to watch.
How about the flashback in "Citizen Kane"? The pan around the nightclub in "Goodfellas"? Several shots in Gaspar Noe's "Irreversible" are extremely long takes, as well.
Heaven's Gate never appealed to me, probably won't ever see it - but if you can give me info. on specific scenes (for any movie) I'll put them on the list.
Um, I seem to recall that Citizen Kane is pretty much one big flashback, so I'm not sure what you're referring to there - do you mean the 'Mrs Kane's Boarding House' sequence?