I didn't want to hijack the pretentiously deep thread so I may as well start a new one in OT

Ornette wrote:

Eva Yojimbo wrote:There's very few films (anymore) that blow me away with cinematography - that was one of them. The extended shots in that are something else. Watch the car scene again and notice how there are NO EDITS. I imagine that must've been nearly impossible to set up and film.

Children of Men was a really awesome movie, but as far as continuous camera shot goes (originally started by Hitchcock's "Rope") it has nothing on "Russian Ark", a 2 hour long continuous shot with no edits, also a really awesome movie, spanning 300 years of Russian history and art in a 2 hour continuous shot of the Hermitage.

http://imdb.com/title/tt0318034/

I just recently got to watch this again in a theatre, it's been maybe a year or two since I last saw it and it still completely blows me away. The first time I saw it was on DVD and after watching the commentary and reading about it, I had to watch it a few more times just to catch all the historical nuances that were added in, but on the big screen I was left completely breathless. Unlike Hitchcock's "Rope" which was an attempt at a single continuous shot but was limited by the film reels only being 17 or so minutes long (don't quote me on that number) he was forced to make cuts. Also unlike "Rope", which only consisted of a cast of 7 or 8 and occupied 2 rooms, "Russian Ark" had a cast of 2000 people and spanned 33 rooms. One of the most amazing scenes was the ballroom dance which mimicked the final dance held in the exact same room in 1913, the last dance of Csarist Russia, which consisted of a live orchestra, hundreds of people talking, dancing, running around, as the camera sifted through everything. It really is mind boggling how the director was able to coordinate all those people and the camera, which was on a dolly followed by a second dolly that held the hard drives and power supply. Even though this was my 5th or 6th viewing of this film, I left the theatre completely awestruck and dazed, as if I just got clocked in the head with a gold brick.

Tagline: 2000 Actors. 300 years of Russian History. 33 Rooms at the Hermitage Museum. 3 Live Orchestras. 1 Single Continuous Shot.

I highly recommend this to anyone whose interested in film, history, and/or art.

How does one show 300 years of history in one take?

BrikHaus wrote:How does one show 300 years of history in one take?

You'll have to watch it and see, and it doesn't hurt to know a bit about Russian history. The first time through I wasn't able to recognize everyone, just the big figures like Peter the Great, and the 2 Catherine's, but a lot of other political and historical figures I didn't catch until I went through the commentary

I hated this film. It drove me nuts. It's cool to see a long take every so often, like in Children of Men, or Touch of Evil, or Boogie Nights. But when it lasts more then 5-10 minutes, I start getting a headache just thinking about the logistics involved.

There was also the fact that I like to see edits and more finessed shot composure. I hate when a film feels like you're watching a stage play, and Russian Ark did especially.

Mind boggling, awesome, but thorough unenjoyable for me.

This film is amusingly ironic. Russians like Sergei Eisenstein penned much of the theory for editing and montage. And decades down the road, Russians are creating films without editing at all.