I’m a sucker for long tracking shots. Orsen Wells, Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scrosese, Brian DePalma, Paul Thomas Anderson, and most recently Alfanso Cuaron had a few all-in-one tracking shots in last year’s Children of Men. One of the big buzz talking points at the Toronto Film Festival was a five minute sequence from Joe Wright’s Atonement. Even people who didn’t love the film were talking about this one shot.
Our friends at Mad About Movies have pointed us to PVC-1, a film which premiered at Cannes. The movie tells the story of a Colombian woman who is taken hostage and turned into a ticking time bomb, all in one 85 minute tracking shot. To me it sounds like heaven.
LatinoReview has the full trailer for your viewing pleasure.
There was a film a few years ago called Russian Ark, that was also shot in one continuous steadicam take, but I found that to be more gimmick than anything else. Don’ get me wrong, it’s a beautiful piece of art and russian history. The choreography is amazing. But s a story it suffers.
September 25th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
I could be wrong, but I think the Alfonso Cuaron shot was actually stitched together with some CGI.
September 26th, 2007 at 7:45 am
Yeah the children of men shots were all computer-controlled / tracked and re-shot several times, and it was a composite of the different takes which made it in to the final cut. Or something. Another good one-take film is mike figgis’ Timecode, which actually uses 4 single-shot (as far as I could tell) POV ‘films’ and splits the screen into quarters to show them all at once.
September 26th, 2007 at 10:16 am
They show the making of that scene on the Children of Men DVD.
The official movie site is here: http://www.pvc-1themovie.com/film.html
BTW, the story should read “Colombian woman”, as in from the country of Colombia (not Columbian).