The Long Take

1. I have to be honest, when I saw the link for the long take and the mention of musicals, I really, really hoped it would be La La Land -- and it was! Another great example of this is the hilltop scene, which was intentionally filmed as one continuous dance number to mimic those of the '50s with Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. These continuous takes really draw you into the dances and the spectacle of the whole scene because you focus on the smoothness and grace or spunk of the dancers and there are no breaks to cut your eye away from the fluidity of their movements. We've also all heard of 1917's no-cut look as of late, which was an intentional artistic choice to make the audience feel as immersed in the war zone as possible; they're not getting out of the trenches any time soon, and neither are we. Audiences want to feel a connection to the characters and the story they're investing in, maybe even more so now than ever because of all the CGI and editing to make situations and characters more other-worldly than ever, and a continuous take where your eyes stay with them makes you feel just as bogged down or increasingly elated or whatever emotion as the character because there's no escape from the moment; you're sort of forced to subconsciously empathize with them. 

2. Using long takes can enhance themes, be technologically innovative, create tension, capture realism, and spark energy. 

3. The establishing long take, the tracking long take, the exposition long take, the action long take, the stationary long take, the fake long take 

4. The limitations of a long take are basically the lessened amount of control the director can have over the emotions experienced by the audience. Because editing can splice together shots of actions and reactions in a way that almost works like Kuleshov Effect, the director allows the viewer to make assumptions about characters because of intentional edits that guide what we see. Without editing in a long take, we lose the associations between characters and situations through close ups or rapid fire back and forth, so some of the intensity is lost and the storytelling ability of the director is sometimes narrowed. 

5. I think that if the director had chosen to film this scene with cuts, it would have felt too chaotic. It would have become about the overall experience of Birdman walking in his underpants through Times Square and not about Birdman centrally. We'd lose the urgency and humiliation he feels because he'd only be a player in the larger scene. I haven't seen the movie, but I assume that we're supposed to see most of the movie through Birdman's eyes. He seems sort of crazy, so I think it's an artistic choice to try and mediate some of the craziness and allow for some level of understanding by inviting us into the crazy person's POV. For instance, when he realizes he's trapped by his robe and can't go anywhere unless he leaves it behind, we feel some of that conflict, too, because we're only following him -- if he doesn't go anywhere, neither do we. So, when he then has to walk the streets in his underpants, we're able to better understand the humiliation that he feels because our eyes are pretty much locked on him the whole time. 

6a. I think the third take is the most impressive because of how long it was and how coordinated the key shooting moments and killings were with the location of the camera and main character. For that whole take (although I think there was a cut right before he went up the stairs, because the blood spatters on the camera disappear), everything around him had to perfectly line up with where the camera was on-set. 

6b. I also think the last take did the best job of making the audience feel the most alert, panicked, and queasy. Because that take was so long and we're essentially seeing the scene play out through the perspective of the main character, if he dies, it's like we die with him; the camera won't have anyone to follow. By virtue of this, we can feel more viscerally how high the stakes are, and respond to this by holding our breath when the man sneaks around a corner, flinching out of fright when the man flinches, and grimacing when the man lays his eyes on a bloodied corpse. There are no cuts to take us out of the scene and give us some distance from the gore because there is no way out for this man, either. He's making a run for it and sneaking around as best he can to stay alive, but he's still living in this hellish reality, so we live in it right next to him. I think more manicured cuts from corpse to chicken to man to shooter to broad scenery would have felt too organized and controlled; this is absolute lawless chaos, and the editing (or lack thereof) needs to reflect that. 

7. I really, really like long takes. I've seen a few movies where that's one of the big appeals of the movie, so I've never felt like it was used more as a gimmick than a storytelling device. Like I mentioned in the first question, I admire the use of long takes in movie musicals where cutting up big, choreographed dance numbers would break up the feeling built up by the dance. I mean, these songs and dances happen when character's emotions become too strong to express in regular conversation, so to chop up this fluid expression of feeling would make it kind of pointless. I keep thinking of the hilltop scene in La La Land when they had to run the 7-8 minute take that led them down the hill, towel of their sweat, compose themselves and return to that casual frame of mind that the scene starts with, and run back up the hill to do it again. They build emotionally to the height of the number, and letting us just follow them free through it makes us feel the charm and spark between them more authentically. It's so great. Here's the link. Also, like I mentioned, 1917 really makes use of the long take by following the main characters so intimately for so long in order for us to feel so emotionally in-tune and connected with them.