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March 2004, Week 3

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Subject:
From:
Jessica Rosner <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 14 Mar 2004 16:01:11 -0500
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I have not paid much attention to this thread so I apologize if this has
already been posted but Amos Gitai is another director who works virtually
exclusively in long takes. In his latest ALILA (In the interest of full
disclosure my company distributes the film) each of the scenes is one long
take and while I found this distracting in some of  his previous filmw , I
think it works here and I would DEFINATELY call it a realist film.

He came from a documentary  making back round which may explain his style

--
Jessica Rosner
Kino International
333 W 39th St. 503
NY NY 10018
[log in to unmask]
212-629-6880

> From: "Phufas, Ellene" <[log in to unmask]>
> Reply-To: Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2004 14:33:58 -0500
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: long takes
>
> Alexander Sokurov's magnificent Russian Ark ---longest take and not a gimmick.
> Eleni
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Tetzlaff [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Sat 3/13/2004 2:31 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Cc:
> Subject: long takes
>
>
>
> One of the central principles of film studies (or so it seems) is the
> distinction between a Bazinian realistic aesthetic on one hand, and a
> more Eisensteinian montage/presentational style on the other, with
> classical Hollywood film, or at least classical cutting, somewhere in
> the middle. The realist style is said to favor long takes and
> deep-focus cinematography, to preserve 'the ontology of the
> photographic image' by avoiding editing where possible.
>
> However, I can't seem to bring to mind any specific films that employ
> long takes that seem particularly realist to me. Most of the
> interesting long takes I can think of call attention to themselves by
> virtue of their length. For example, the long takes in Stranger Than
> Paradise seem more formalist to me than realist.
>
> So i have two questions. The first is practical:
>
> Can people recommend specific fiction films (and better specific
> scenes) where long takes are employed toward the end of a Bazinian
> realism?
>
> The second is theoretical:
> Have the representational markers of 'realism' changed. Is the
> absense of editing still what enables the integrety of a photographic
> images 'realness' (if it ever was)? I am thinking especially of
> 'Dogme' influenced films, which seem very invested in a kind of
> realism but have lots of cuts, and very obvious ones at that. My
> hypothesis would be that all this descends from Direct Cinema
> documentary, which established certain conventions of how
> moving-picture photography is used to capture
> life-as-it-actually-happens. The pragmatic necessities of Direct
> Cinema dictated often jerky, hand-held camera work, narrow depth of
> field, and often jerky edits -- which now seem almost universally
> deployed in any narrative that wants to seem 'real' and 'urgent',
> from the TV show 24 to the film Thirteen, just to take examples with
> numbers instead of names.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
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>

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