MovieChat Forums > 1917 (2020) Discussion > are long takes even impressive anymore?

are long takes even impressive anymore?


Ever since Birdman, Hollywood's had a raging hard-on for them. Resulting in at least 20 or so movies released in the past couple years that's had at least one really showoffy one (The Revenant, La La Land, Spectre etc).

Personally, I'm bored of them at this point. It's no longer impressive when everybody else is doing it, and even less so when everybody knows how they're done (hidden cuts, anyone?). This long take trend, reminds me of the 90's lesbian kissing trend. Remember when every other movie/show ever tried to shock us with it back then?

Discuss...

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[deleted]

The 4 minute 'long take' in Goodfellas, when they enter the nightclub via the kitchen, is a Terrific use of the Long tracking shot. At the start they hardly know each other, by the end she is kind of dizzy and aware that he is a powerful guy.

It had a Meaning.

2 hours of it can just feels like a technical exercise.

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Bingo ☝️

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This!

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I love long takes/shots. I began to get bored with the long trench takes as they basically just showing the same scenery over and over. Yeah its impressive to consider the technical achievement but I felt it would have been ok to cut some of them down.

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The point of a long take in this movie is to get the same personal experience as the main guy.

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Yeah... and?

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Experience the pain or some shit, don't know lol, didn't feel anything inside

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I think it was largely unnecessary in this film, but it didn't really detract from it either, which I suppose is impressive on its own. So, while I thought it was an interesting shooting technique, I wasn't impressed per se - just found it peculiar. It did keep the plot relatively focused and simple though -
I'm thinking maybe Nolan could learn a bit from that, but knowing Nolan, he'd skip all the fun parts and just have a dude walking for 120 minutes without saying anything, with no music - nothing - and then everyone would proclaim it as being a masterpiece ^^

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Well, real-life is one single lifetime take, so if anything, even longer takes are desirable!

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Its not. Theres a cut every time you blink.

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[deleted]

Yes they still are. Victoria, Russian Ark and this film are all great examples. I found the one shot gimmick in "Birdman" to be unnecessary.

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why? it's essential

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I didn't feel like it added anything to the story. Russian Ark felt like you were a ghost floating around, Victoria took place in real time while you slowly saw how quick the craziness unfolded, and 1917 worked with the slow suspense sequences and felt more "a race against the clock" type of movie.

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I think it was effective for some of the long shots such as through no man's land and through the enemy trenches and then again during the 'run' though the destroyed town. Or the end run for him to get to the commander (forget the guys name and ranks the Cumberbach guy). So if they would have done the same thing for those individual shots but then broke the rest up like normal films I think it would have flowed better because at times it did seem to drag unnecessarily.

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