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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