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12 Best Long Takes in Film History

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Volimar

Member
Wasn't the opening shot of the first Halloween a long take?


p3nA04k.jpg

This scene from Irreversible is on a different level

Oh God. That scene was so hard to watch. And still not the hardest scene to watch in the film. The guy that walks by in the background, sees what's going on, and walks away. I always wondered if that was scripted.
 

Switch Back 9

a lot of my threads involve me fucking up somehow. Perhaps I'm a moron?
So glad the Protector is in there. I'm making my GF watch all my favorite martial arts movies from the 2000s, and Tony Jaa is just fucking amazing.
 

Gold_Loot

Member
To be fair, the two big long takes in Children of Men were digitally stitched together from a couple of a takes, and also used a ton of CG to hide the ways they pulled off the illusion, like having to add in a roof to the car since the original rigging required them to remove it.
The only part that was stitched was in the war escape scene when they first entered the old building..Probably why it was omitted. The car scene had no stitches or cgi to assist it.
 

Ridley327

Member
The only part that was stitched was in the war escape scene when they first entered the old building..Probably why it was omitted. The car scene had no stitches or cgi to assist it.

You sure about that?

the car ambush was shot in "six sections and at four different locations over one week and required five seamless digital transitions"
 

Einchy

semen stains the mountaintops
control + g "Children of Men"

I approve.

That movie is full of amazing long takes.

The car one is good but my favorite is when
Theo is being chased down the city while the army is fighting against the rebels. That's one of the best scenes in movie history for me.
 
Long takes are overrated.

Yeah a lot of people hold them up simply because they are long--easy to notice in a film, and technically difficult to perform. As this list shows, their are obviously plenty of great long takes whose function warrants their length. But there are plenty of unremarkable ones that exist seemingly only for show.
 

Gold_Loot

Member
Wasn't the opening shot of the first Halloween a long take?




Oh God. That scene was so hard to watch. And still not the hardest scene to watch in the film. The guy that walks by in the background, sees what's going on, and walks away. I always wondered if that was scripted.
It was indeed part of the script.

Fun fact. Gasper Noe wasn't happy with the original bystander walking by. Instead of reshooting the scene though they added in a new bystander via CGI.
 

Cosmic Bus

pristine morning snow
In terms of complexity and timing, Atonement is most likely the best modern example. Wright and his DP stepped it up big time for the beach sequence, using so many actual extras (over 1,000 actors) and physical effects, whereas it always bugs me when Cuaron's movies get such high praise for shots that aren't even true single-takes and employ tons of CGI to work correctly.
 

Einchy

semen stains the mountaintops
I guess technically the scene in Gravity is a long take but I think that's kind of cheating.
 
I guess technically the scene in Gravity is a long take but I think that's kind of cheating.

Idk making a film is all about cheating in any way possible, so as long as the end result is effective than props to whatever method was used to achieve it.
 

sarcastor

Member
They chose the wrong Children of Men scene.

CRAZY to omit Hunger.

An article about the best long takes in cinema and you don't include Russian Ark? worthless list

It's just a list made by a handful of people, folks. It's not the bill of rights.

it always bugs me when Cuaron's movies get such high praise for shots that aren't even true single-takes and employ tons of CGI to work correctly.

The car scene was one take. And it was all practical effects. There's bts video of it in YouTube.
 

John Dunbar

correct about everything
In terms of complexity and timing, Atonement is most likely the best modern example. Wright and his DP stepped it up big time for the beach sequence, using so many actual extras (over 1,000 actors) and physical effects, whereas it always bugs me when Cuaron's movies get such high praise for shots that aren't even true single-takes and employ tons of CGI to work correctly.

didn't atonement use cgi as well?
 

Ridley327

Member
In terms of complexity and timing, Atonement is most likely the best modern example. Wright and his DP stepped it up big time for the beach sequence, using so many actual extras (over 1,000 actors) and physical effects, whereas it always bugs me when Cuaron's movies get such high praise for shots that aren't even true single-takes and employ tons of CGI to work correctly.

I think that even though they're not true single-take shots, the amount of planning and the incredibly difficulty of the execution is more than commendable and I find it hard to not include them in a discussion like. Even with something that's as heavily CG-assisted as Gravity, Cuaron and Lubezki still shot Bullock and Clooney, they still had to figure out how in the hell a camera "works" in a zero-G environment, and it still required some incredibly brilliant people to pull off all the CG elements to look so convincing. For me, plain great fucking filmmaking is plain great fucking filmmaking no matter how it's achieved.
 

DonasaurusRex

Online Ho Champ
Wasn't the opening shot of the first Halloween a long take?




Oh God. That scene was so hard to watch. And still not the hardest scene to watch in the film. The guy that walks by in the background, sees what's going on, and walks away. I always wondered if that was scripted.

oh yeah they were almost out of film, they had no choice lol.
 
No Turin Horse?

That movie is excruciating to watch. But, in hindsight, it's a gorgeous statement of a movie. The bleak atmosphere, the soundtrack, that slow creep of death. It's fantastic yet painful to watch.
 

Cosmic Bus

pristine morning snow
The car scene was one take. And it was all practical effects. There's bts video of it in YouTube.

Incorrect. From an interview with the vfx company that handled the film:

http://www.awn.com/vfxworld/children-men-invisible-vfx-future-decay
The most complex shot of all probably was a nine-minute long scene in which the characters have an extensive dialog while driving a car, and are then ambushed by a group of anarchists, resulting in one of the character being shot dead on its seat. The shot was filmed in six sections and at four different locations over one week and required five seamless digital transitions. Moreover, the camera records the action with a continuous movement that would actually be impossible to create in reality.

didn't atonement use cgi as well?

Oh, certainly there's cg imagery in the sequence, but it's not what allows the single shot to exist unlike with Cuaron's scenes. Atonement's beach scene is a true 5 minute shot.

http://www.steadishots.org/shots_detail.cfm?shotID=298
 
Thank you. I'm glad someone said it.

Which shot tho. I wouldn't count the whole thing, because where stuff like Children of Men were seamlessly stitched together into one take, the transition shots in Rope are really bad. "Whoops just gonna dolly in on someone's back until it fills the screen for the 4th time, nothing to see here folks".
 
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