Movie Essays and Reviews

2007-Nov-20 - The Long, Continuous, One Take

    The long, single shot take is an art that isn't used often. It is usually disregarded as being boring, even sometimes labeled with the most thrown around word in the history of art criticism, "pretentious." Most movies today are riddled with a barrage of cuts, the average shot length being two to four seconds. Rarely is the camera left alone to linger on the characters in a scene, and rarely do we ever get to follow characters moving somewhere without seeing every angle of their bodies. The long single shot is a technique that is disregarded but should absolutely be looked into.

   Certain movies have their style. Fans of movies like Domino and The Bourne Supremacy will argue that they are "fast paced," which is why they are always jumping from shot to shot. Unfortunately, that's nothing but an excuse for a director that wants to shove things down an audience's throat. By having so many cuts (especially in scenes that don't include shoot-outs and explosions), the director refuses to give the audience a chance to think about what is going on. It's an insult. Maybe some find it exciting, but there is no reason why a woman looking through a folder in The Bourne Supremacy should have more than three different angles, if even that many. Had this been in one-shot, however, there'd be plenty for the audience to look at and take notice of all at once. These include the woman's face while going through the folder, the contents of the folder, where she gets them from, how she gets them, the other things in the room, etc. By cutting fifteen times, we are shown exactly what the director wants the audience to see, and there is nothing interesting to take from the scene. In fact, why even show the inside of the folder? Let the audience put two and two together. Once again, many cuts often equals insult to the audience.

   Usually, the long single shot adds to a movie's atmosphere. Regardless of the often negative feelings towards Gus Van Sant's Elephant, the technique used throughout the movie added another layer to the movie. Van Sant knew very well that people would think the long shots would be boring (as they often do), and he used this technique to show the average high school life. The film accurately portrays what it's like to go to high school on a seemingly normal day. Also, when given a chance by the audience, the long shot often builds up anticipation for something explosive to happen. Van Sant cleverly used this technique, making audiences wish that the shootings would just happen already, just so that something would happen. Bored with typical high-school life, the audience is ready and even anticipating the shootings because it'd be exciting. Then, of course, the murders are so horrific that the audience is left wishing that they could just go back to the mundane high school life.

   Using the long one-shot to lead to something explosive is a great technique that isn't widely used. Michael Haneke makes great use of it in most of his films, such as Cache and Time of the Wolf. However, in Elephant, the shooters were expected to arrive at the school and begin murdering students and faculty. Because of this, the audience awaits this action, even anticipates it, and is sent into regret when the characters make it a game and find joy out of the gruesome murders. In Haneke's movies, there is no expectations for something explosive to happen, so when it does happen, it completely takes the viewer for surprise. This is thrilling, as whatever happens ends up being truly scary. Because of his use of long takes, the audience becomes accustomed to spending time with the characters in certain scenes and thinking into whatever the characters are doing or saying. Then, out of nowhere, something explosive happens and the audience is left to deal with the consequences, just like the characters. There's no formula to it, either - the explosive points in the aforementioned movies come at completely different times, and they don't lose merit upon further viewings.

   Although it's doubtful that the three movies mentioned would be awful if it had the same directors but no long takes, they would be very different and certainly not as great. The build up would be different and forceful. Long takes tend to give a choice to the audience, which makes it a tricky technique to use. The style only works with audience participation and full attention, and if anything below one hundred percent is given, the film doesn't work out. Not everyone is thrilled to give a hundred percent to a film that could be (and possibly will be) boring for a good chunk of it.

   Boring on purpose, though, is an interesting concept. Elephant certainly was boring on purpose, as stated above, and for a good purpose. It's finally time to be honest with ourselves and think about a regular high school day, one where nothing happened. Then realize that that was most high school days, and that they were all pretty much boring. Both Haneke and Godard don't care if audiences think their films are boring or irritating, as they believe the method they choose to show things is not only realistic, but the only way to show these important ideas. This is especially true for Godard, whose film Week End is a fantastic black comedy that follows a rich couple on a road trip to pick up inheritance money. In the film, the main characters become stuck in a vehicle where two other characters speak to the camera of their world views. When one character is speaking, the character has a long static shot of the other eating bread. Occasionally, the camera shows the main characters sitting on the truck, bored. The result is annoying and tedious... exactly what Godard wanted. By using these long takes and not only inducing boredom, but also inducing frustration, and also showing the two main characters sitting around bored, Godard holds a mirror up to the audience. This also gives the audience a connection to the two main characters, two vile people who spend the entire movie on a trip to collect inheritance and don't mind murdering the person to get it. To invoke any sort of affiliation or understanding of these two detestable characters is almost impossible, but Godard manages to do it brilliantly. This is, in fact, an even greater statement on how audiences connect with certain characters that they shouldn't, such as villains who are "cool" or even heroes that kill. Given the right scene or scenes, a director can make an audience care or like any type of character.

   However, this method of film-making doesn't always produce gold. Sometimes the long take isn't used properly. The film Dan in Real Life used many one shot long takes without doing anything interesting with them. That's not to say that it made awful use of them and the film was bad for doing it. The style was implemented lazily, and you often couldn't even tell that the whole scene was in one shot. One can argue that this is good, that it used a new technique so well that it wasn't noticeable, but that's not the point of it. To properly use it, the shot needs to focus on something intriguing or real, some sort of action that a character or multiple characters are doing. Unforunately, Dan in Real Life rarely has any moments of interesting action, just has the characters vocally interacting with one another. Those scenes could have been interesting, but they seemed prepared for more angles to be thrown into the equation. It was more of a wide shot than a one shot.

   Although it's use wasn't very interesting, it takes a lot of guts to even shoot a scene in one or two angles. Unfortunately, the world today seems to think that movies should look like music videos. A colleague of mine once said that studios and directors always wanted to use more angles and more cuts, but it was too hard on the old flatbeds. Therefore, when things started going digital, it was easier to do and therefore they did it. This theory (or truth, as he insists) is nothing but silly- if Kubrick and Coppola would have shooting days for months at a time, then extra time spent in an editing studio would most definitely happen. Early soviet cinema weren't strangers to many cuts, either (though never to the shameless degree of movies like Domino and U Turn). Our culture has changed, maybe it is the favoritism towards music video editing, maybe it's just bad directors not knowing how to pace something on their own without having to rely on editing.

   Fortunately, the fast editing style seems to be diminishing a tad, and the films that still use it are (mostly) using it well and/or sparingly. More and more directors seem to be employing the long one take, such as Dan in Real Life and Michael Clayton. Because of these films, hopefully audiences around the world grow more accustomed to the relaxed editing and start appreciating the long takes more, because long takes are the most real film will ever get.

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Includes film essays and reviews written by Chris Bell.

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