First, my twitter play!
[Curtain up to reveal a desolate wasteland. A heroic looking man in torn clothes emerges from the darkness.]MAN: This war isn’t over yet! True-- everything may have been taken from us, but I vow it: friends, as long as I have these two hands and this fire in my heart we shall persevere!
[Hand falls off of MAN and speeds away offstage.]
MAN: Shit.
[Blackout]
I dunno, guys. Midterms are turning my ass even more nihilistic and absurdist than it normally is.
Sometimes Making Art Can Be a Long Shot
Get it? It's a pun! Yay!
First, I shared this with Dharmik in my week's digest but I think it bears repeating: the fight in Oldboy (2003) that lasts over three minutes in one, continuous take is mesmerizing and exhausting to watch. This usage of time has a profound effect emotional effect on me unlike anything I've felt before when watching a fight scene. This is brutal and unromantic. This is relentless. Something with more conventional methods (jump cuts, angle variation, etc) wouldn't have been so impactful. You may have seen an homage to the scene in the Netflix Daredevil and for good reason! Park Chan-wook's team devoted 3 days and 17 takes toward making something truly iconic. Hold on to your Schechner articles! Here it is:
I'm not the only one saying this is something special, by the way. It gets some solid attention in the Washington Post, from Rodger Ebert, and in the Guardian (from the latter: "He then takes on dozens of aggressors, and Park's camera tracks along the narrow corridor watching the pitched battle in profile, right-to-left, like a video-game graphic or a Bayeux Tapestry of urban warfare: another extraordinary coup du cinéma").
But Surely We Can Have Longer Takes Than Three and a Half Minutes!
Hell, let's get the whole damn movie in one shot. If you haven't heard of Russian Ark, I'll break it down like this: a ghost with a tragic history guides you through 300 years of Russian History, it's a single 96 minute long take, it made cinema history, and it's bloody gorgeous!
Here's the trailer:
Oh, and in case you're in Meisner-brain and think it still sounds too easy to do, guess what? They only had four hours on a single day to shoot this in the museum. No pressure, team! If nothing else, it is an impressive and gargantuan feat. That said, I can't reiterate enough how positively stunning it is! Here is the entire film if you want to watch it and want to watch it NOW (the audio isn't always the best on this upload, though, so I'd recommend streaming it instead if at all possible):
I'm in Grad School. I Need Something Short.
Fine. Then, it is important you know about the comedic genius of the 30-Second Bunny movies of Jennifer Shiman. Most of her re-enactments are of R-rated films of a certain brutality... which makes the juxtaposition of cartoon bunnies performing them... well, frankly, hilarious. And I doubt they would be as funny or interesting if they were, say, 30 minutes. Or feature films in their own right.
Here are some of my faves. Bask in the leporine glory:
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