Very briefly: longer takes tend to reveal, whereas shorter takes tend to conceal. Reveal what? Well, many things. The performance. And often various aspects of the film production itself. As the take develops, you can often “see” the crew on the other side of the camera, in terms of how the shot develops. Here’s one example:

from “Dong” (“The Hole,” 1998), directed by Tsai Ming-Liang

3 minutes 15 seconds
one shot

ON CAMERA
the actor (Kuei-Mei Yang)

OFF CAMERA
. the director (Tsai)
. people to operate the elevator
. the camera crew who are pushing it forward, then backward, on a dolly (cinematographer, camera operator, a lens puller, grips)
. a lighting crew (main lights come down, spotlight comes on)
. someone to work the sound (the finished sound is post-synced, but I imagine they’re playing the song on set so the actor can dance and lip sync)

…plus all the typical people: runners, a continuity person (script supervisor), catering, producers’ rep, insurance, nurse, etc.

…I think there’s also something very human about watching actors perform in long takes. Kuei-Mei Yang’s performance here is rather charming.

By way of contrast, the recent LORD OF THE RINGS films rarely feature long takes. See my recent comment regarding them here.
http://bigother.com/2010/01/02/from-fellini-to-obama/#comment-2683

I find it odd the way the film cuts away from Sean Astin during his monologue. I think the film is rubbish, but Astin is a terrific actor (he really shines in this role, despite how difficult the work must have been). But rather than allow him to perform the monologue on camera with another actor present, Peter Jackson stuck him in some sound booth somewhere to record it. Which is why it sounds so overwrought, I think. (Voice acting encourages one to overdo it–especially when you have nothing present to pitch your performance against.)

I just watched Egoyan’s Calander again. There is a bunch of fast-forwarding and rewinding in it and in many of his early films if I’m remembering correctly.

Cassavetes has long takes. The beginning of THE PLAYER.

I do like the “strangely muted paranoia mixed with ennui” that characterizes CACHE. I think Haneke is best when he’s somewhat mournful, which is to say I like him best when he’s more human. As opposed to being more cruel, which he can also be. From what I’ve seen of WHITE RIBBON, it seems to me that it’s going to be one of his colder, crueller films, but we’ll see. In general, I think he’s been getting colder and crueller ever since FUNNY GAMES was a surprise hit for him (the original one).

I will maintain that it’s a pretty slick production, though. Those dream sequences are sure pretty pretty! And those kid’s drawings were drawn by someone who had fine arts training. I’m betting that Majid didn’t go to the Cooper Union. But this is a nit I always pick with films.

> That first time we see them rewinding what we
> thought was merely an establishing shot was brilliant.

What ruined that for me is that the fast-forwarding effect is so slick! I don’t know how he accomplished that one, but I imagine it’s some effect overlayed in post, and not real fastforwarding. It may seem silly for me to harp on something like that, but I value authenticity. (If you want a fast-forward effect, really fast-forward the film!). It doesn’t work for me. Maybe the Europeans have fancier systems than I’m accustomed to…? But it’s so high-end. It looks like a Fancy Filmmaker effect. Too much of CACHE is like that for my tastes. (Those drawings!)

Compare it with the fast-forwarding effect in FUNNY GAMES (the original). That film, for me, is a good mixture of slickness and grittiness. It’s very professional, and masterfully controlled, but also rough around the edges. I think that Haneke peaked there, in that regard. Since then, he’s been getting slicker and slicker, and letting the air out of his films, rather excruciatingly slowly. This relates to that disappearing sense of humanity that I sense. But I suppose most people don’t agree with me here, or don’t consider it a problem, because he’s more popular than ever these days.

As for the long takes—those I like quite a lot! I love long takes, in general. But I wouldn’t take any of them (pun intended) over any single shot in any Tarkovsky film.

> I liked the awkward dream insertions, too.

Those are very nice.

> I’d love to see a list of films that are built primarily
> of long shots, particularly those where the camera is
> fixed.

TSAI MING-LIANG!!!!!!!!!!!!! Early Sokurov, too (and of course THE RUSSIAN ARK is fairly perverse, though the camera moves). The films of Straub and Huillet. Pedro Costa’s recent COLOSSAL YOUTH is all long, static shots, and they add up to one of the greatest films I’ve ever seen.

Aleksandr Dovzhenko, before any of them.

Jane Campion’s PORTRAIT OF A LADY is also fairly languid. It turned off a lot of viewers when it came out, but I think it moves too quickly, if anything. I’d love to see an even longer, more dreamlike cut.

Greg, I really like your question “How can we be connected with such bloodshed going on?” That’s something people in the States aren’t asking enough, I fear. HOW CAN ANYONE BE CONTENT THESE DAYS?@!!?!?!?!?!?@??#!? Even though we have a lot of great cinema available on DVD.

Michael Snow’s WAVELENGTH is unbearably brilliant. See it any way you can—although preferably projected. And multiple times; it only improves (although I know people who can’t bear it).

Cheers, Adam

I’m reminded of Mock Orange

POEM
Mock Orange by Louise Glück

It is not the moon, I tell you.
It is these flowers
lighting the yard.

I hate them.
I hate them as I hate sex,
the man’s mouth
sealing my mouth, the man’s
paralyzing body—

and the cry that always escapes,
the low, humiliating
premise of union—

In my mind tonight
I hear the question and pursuing answer
fused in one sound
that mounts and mounts and then
is split into the old selves,
the tired antagonisms. Do you see?
We were made fools of.
And the scent of mock orange
drifts through the window.

How can I rest?
How can I be content
when there is still
that odor in the world?

ROPE by Hitchcock is all long shots. Michael Snow the Canadian has a long film in one shot – Wavelength – I havne’t seen it but it has quite a reputation.

The White Ribbon, the new Haneke film, continues in the tradition of Cache. A film of half seen actions and lies.

I haven’t seen Haneke’s other films so I may feel differently going backwards.

I’d love to see a list of films that are built primarily of long shots, particularly those where the camera is fixed.

Sorry for the delay in my response. There was some kind of holiday or something, and I found myself buried under fruitcakes. Family!

> I agree the Antichrist sags in the middle,
> but then the end? I couldn’t call that boring you know.

There may be something funny with my brain, but I found the whole thing boring, including the ending. Sure, some of the shots are, uh, visceral, but even there I was like, “Yawn—show me something I haven’t seen, Lars Von Trier!” Which is perhaps my own fault for having watched too many Takashi Miike films.

Not that I’m a gore-hound or anything! I’m not! But I think it’s a problem when the entire movie is built on a graphic final reel, and then that reel doesn’t include anything that hasn’t already been shown in, like, HOSTEL. Meaning that a European art film is *behind* a mainstream US Hollywood release. Meaning that it’s *reactionary*. Way to go, European avant-garde!

To me, this exposed two things:
1. Lars Von Trier is a commercial filmmaker (not a real revelation, but)
2. The “outcry” at Cannes over the film was calculated, a PR ploy designed to get the film into theaters. Well, that’s hardly a revelation, either… (Man, am I cynical these days!)

That said, the first half is definitely the most excrutiatingly boring part—the five or so hours of shakey-cam of Willem Dafoe saying things to Charlotte Gainesbourg. I fell asleep more than once during that. Although I imagine some people might like all that—people who like Willem Dafoe talking, for instance. (I’d rather watch NEW ROSE HOTEL.)

> You think Haneke was trying to say
> something in Cache?

Yes, I think it’s all a pretty obvious metaphor for the guilt Europeaners carry for colonialism. Specifically, for what the French did in Algiers. And how everyone bears some responsibility for that, for their inaction, if nothing else. And he then draws a direct connection with contemporary US imperialism in the Middle East.

And he argues, also quite literally, I think, that the only recourse that the victims of colonialism often have is the destruction of their own bodies. Like in Algiers. Like in Sri Lanka. Like Palestine. Like in Iraq. (And how what’s changed with Iraq, for example, is that insurgents have access to things like video and the internet to reach a broader audience.)

I don’t disagree with any of that, necessarily, but I thought it was all pretty simply presented by the film. And I thought it was heavy-handed and, well, whatever. I was like, “Sure, Haneke.” Meanwhile, the movie didn’t do much of anything for me. Although, once again, his production design was excellent. A little too excellent, in fact. When those chicken drawings arrived I was like, “Oh, the mystery man has the art department draw those up for him.” Same thing with his videotapes: nice when you can have Haneke step in and direct those for you with super-duper cameras. Well, it was all really slick, and over-designed. Like so many things these days, really.

(Remember that movie ONE HOUR PHOTO, where Robin Williams steals photos from everyday people, and every one of the photos was shot by an art school grad now working in the production department for the film ONE HOUR PHOTO? CACHE does the same thing.)

I’m afraid I didn’t see the HURT LOCKER. I was stuffed inside too many lockers when I was in high school; revisiting that would be too traumatic.

It may not matter in CACHE who’s actually sending the tapes, but that’s all I heard people talk about for months on end. And I think Haneke is savvy enough to know that by sticking a shot like that on there, he’ll rope in a certain audience. To me, that’s…well, I don’t know what that is. I guess it’s a commercial move. And I suppose I can’t begrudge him for doing it. Go Haneke! Be successful! But I don’t find it all that interesting. I find it cynical.

> I’m sure Haneke didn’t lobby for NPR.

I’m not so sure. He strikes me as someone who’s very much in control of his own empire. I’m sure he has plenty of PR people who make sure to get him all the right interviews. He has his own film school, you know. He’s a businessman.

He scored the December cover of Sight & Sound, for WHITE RIBBON. And he’s the darling of the European media. Things like that don’t happen by accident.

I never minded the first hour of THE BIRDS. I might even like it better than the second half. But I’m weird like that.

> I’m sure Anderson saw Chinatown
> (He is a movie geek.)

Sure, I’m sure he did. But then why wasn’t he like, “Hey, Daniel Day-Lewis, what’s with the John Huston impersonation? Like, seriously, that’s what you’re going to do throughout the entire film?”

> I consciously missed all whole spate of teen Van
> Sant movies and the Cobain movie. Didn’t he do
> one with Damon walking in the desert lost, or
> am I confusing things? That seemed interesting.

His “walking around trilogy” (actually, his “death trilogy”: GERRY, ELEPHANT, and LAST DAYS) is pretty excellent, IMO. GERRY is the one with Matt Damon, and it’s my favorite by far. But it’s nifty how different each film is from the other two. And how similar they are. Well, it’s a great work of modern cinema. You can consider them all one film, if you want to.

> Before Sunset

I still haven’t seen that, or the other one. Woe is me!

Well, it’s nice to have something to look forward to… At the moment, though, I’m busy rewatching everything by John Carpenter…

Cheers,
Adam

I agree the Antichrist sags in the middle, but then the end? I couldn’t call that boring you know.

You think Haneke was trying to say something in Cache? It felt channeled. Like he didn’t have to think about what he was doing, that it was just there. Something that seems much more to be ‘saying something’ is the end of the Hurt Locker which seemed ridiculous after everything that preceded it. Cereal boxes?

For CACHE you know, even if you took away the final scene I still think the real end is George getting naked and going to sleep. Don’t even need the flashback. We know and he knows that he has is trying to cover up what he did. His ending is pitiful. I don’t think he tacked that ending on for people to puzzle over, I think the point of it is that it doesn’t matter who is sending the tapes, (as in it doesn’t matter who Shakespeare was) the tapes are there for a reason, they exist and the tear down a lovelorn family, a family that doesn’t know how to relate to one another. And that’s the test right? When the shit hits the fan, can you stay come, can you stay true to who you love?

I’m sure Haneke didn’t lobby for NPR.

Yeah, Hitch well – Antonioni was on his own streak at the same time. The tetralogy. But the first hour of THE BIRDS!!! Ooof. Kind of hollow until the Birds really attack – no wonder I remember only those scenes from seeing it as a kid.

I’m sure Anderson saw Chinatown (He is a movie geek.) The 2001 stuff seems more than apt. And the end, the shots of the bowling are basically verbatim homages to the shots of the corridors in THE SHINING. Surely he is getting better, but he can’t pump them out like Altman did (and it seems he picked up something by being shooting PRARIE HOME with him for a few months, what a dream job!)

Oh Hal Hartley where have you gone – but I just saw Daytrippers again and was totally delighted. For the Parker Posey connection. Very literary work though. Andrew Marvell is funny.

I consciously missed all whole spate of teen Van Sant movies and the Cobain movie. Didn’t he do one with Damon walking in the desert lost, or am I confusing things? That seemed interesting.

Before Sunset probably should be on the list. He really out My Dinner’ed My Dinner with Andre with that one.

best

greg