favorite long take in movie history.

I can't believe no one mentioned Snake Eyes with Nicholas Cage, sure the movie wasn't anything to write home about, but I remember all the fuss about the 20 minute shot.

There's also a really long take in Saving Private Ryan when the squad takes out the half-track right before we meet Matt Damon (insert team America voice).

Children of Men was 100% inspiring, I loved loved loved that movie, it was so different. I think the car scene with that crazy rig is even more impressive than the battle scene. Both the car scene and the last battle scene have a seamless transition.

- Greg
 
Elephant by Gus Van Sant has some great long takes as well as the last scene in Taxi Driver where the camera goes form over head in an apartment to out on the street.
 
Just watched Match Point and i noticed how many long takes there are in that movie. Most Woody Allen movies tend to do this when I think about it, but it's impressive how naturalistic it seems.
 
FYI - they did "cheat" on "Children of Men"; many of the long takes were stitched together, they developed software in post that sort of "morphed" the seams.

But... who cares? The point in "Children" was they wanted a documentary feel and felt that cutting would give a more "hollywood movie" look; in this case, the long takes weren't there to make film geeks say "wow!", they were to produce a particular feeling.

(Watch the scene that culminates in the huge battle at the apartment house; around the time Owen runs through the bus, someone gets shot and a blob of blood splatters across the lens; it slowly fades away for the next few minutes and is gone by the time he's racing up the stairs. Pretty brilliant really - the blood added to the "doc" feel, but would have been distracting for the rest of the scene).

It really amazed me that after seeing the flick in its first week, I started reading articles about the long takes - I hadn't noticed them, I was so wrapped up in the story. Probably my favorite movie of '07. Absolutely loved it; the apartment battle scene was as good as big-cinema gets, and the "egg in the car" transistioning to the attacking crowd had our stomachs in knots.
 
I agree, I don't think COM had the best script I have ever seen but it is first rate filmmaking for sure. It was talked about as the new "Bladerunner" or "Brazil", two of my favorite films and while it shared themes with both, it was much more organic feeling.

My only issue was that the script was too predictable, I felt as if I knew everything that was going to happen, by the end, I had known everything that was going to happen. Great performances, amazing direction, production design, all totally original and innovative. A very, very good film although I am not sure if it will age as well as Bladerunner has.

Even though I felt as if I knew what was going to happen, I agree Michael, it still had me on the edge of my seat through the battle scenes. Anyone who thinks that war is a glorious pursuit should be forced to watch this to see what it will really be like. Heck, I have never been in battle so what do I know? But it surely seemed as if that's what battle must be like, brutal, confusing, chaotic, a nightmare.

Dan
 
the Code Unknown of Michael Haneke. Very long opening sequence, starting in a train, going on in streets with lots of action!
 
These are all fantastic examples. I see so much mention of P.T.'s Boogie Nights, but what about the long takes in Magnolia? For instance, the scene that begins on Stanley and his father walking into the studio, and then the camera follows them inside and wanders through the studio jumping from character to character, setting up a chain reaction of character interactions and motives. It's truly impressive.
 
Donnie Darko. When they go through the school in the beginning and they ramp the frame rate up and down several times.
 
The dinner scene in 4 months 3 weeks and 2 days has one of the more emiotionally draining long takes I've ever seen.
 
The best in my opinion is in Hardboiled when they are in the hospital. The cam shows a shootout, the two characters run down a hall, peek around the corner and shoot two guys, then run into an elevator where the two characters exchange dialogue , then out onto another floor where another gunfight happens, with many stunt falls and squibs set off at just the right time. John Woo really pulled it off.
 
400 blows has a pretty good long shot toward the end where Jean-Pierre Leaud is running. Although another one of my favorites is in the movie "ATL". It happens outside the skating rink, camera cranes down and the steadicam operator steps off and follows the actors inside.
 
Cant believe no one has yet mentioned Tarkovsky or Bella Tarr.

For me, it would be Bella Tarr. His opening shot for "Man from London" was 12 minutes of magical camera movement, and some shots from his epic 7.5 hour movie Satantango are unrivalled in cinema history.
 
zhenya said:
Cant believe no one has yet mentioned Tarkovsky or Bella Tarr.

For me, it would be Bella Tarr. His opening shot for "Man from London" was 12 minutes of magical camera movement, and some shots from his epic 7.5 hour movie Satantango are unrivalled in cinema history.
Click to expand...

got to the party late or would have dropped some bela tarr on the proceedings. this is by far my favorite extended take. something about the way the barkeep looks back at the drunks in his bar at the very end, as though seeing them for the first time, really moves me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFmu7BYbthY

Bela Tarr has jokingly referred to the maximum length of a roll of film as a form of censorship.
 
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