>> Speaker 1: When it comes
to directors showing off,
nothing is quite flashy
as a massive long take.
But sometimes they shoot something
that's absolutely perfect.
These are the top 12
long takes ever filmed.
>> [MUSIC]
>> Speaker 1: Kicking us off in number 12,
the restaurant fight
scene in The Protector.
Tony Jaa's Thai martial arts return
saw him leaving home to track down his
family's sacred elephants after
they're kidnapped by poachers.
And nowhere is it more brutal than this
four-minute continuous rampage up four
flights of stairs.
It took them four whole days and
eight tries to pull this shot off.
And they even had to replace
the camera man when the first one
wasn't in good enough shape
to keep up with Jaa's spree.
But they eventually nailed it and
ended up with one of the most badass
fight sequences ever shot to show for it.
>> Speaker 2: [FOREIGN]
>> Speaker 1: At number 11,
the burning barn in The Mirror.
Tarkovsky's most personal film is also his
most complex and least summarizable, so
we won't even try.
But just take a moment to
admire this poetic long take.
Although it's one of the shortest on
this list at just under a minute,
its languid floating fits the dreamlike
tone of The Mirror perfectly.
And what other director besides the man
who brought you the 9-minute-long candle
shot from Nostalgia would dare to
reveal the final burning image
with such restraint.
There's over 300,000 men on this beach,
Private.
>> Speaker 3: You'll
have to wait your turn.
>> Speaker 1: At number 10,
the beach sequence in Atonement.
This five and a half minute tour through
Dunkirk beach is possibly one of the most
complex tracking shots ever staged.
But the shot only became a long take
because the production couldn't afford
the obligatory 1,000 extras for long
enough to shoot the scene conventionally.
In order to cover the quarter
mile that the shot required,
the steady cam operator went from the back
of a golf cart to on foot, onto a rickshaw
via a ramp disguised as a bomb crate, and
finally back on foot to finish it off.
All to create the incredibly
staged living painting scene here.
Coming in at number nine,
the traffic jam scene in Weekend.
Political commentary, black comedy,
or intentional frustration, for
over seven minutes, Jean-Luc Godard's
camera tracks horizontally as Corinne and
Roland pass an increasingly
surreal line of cars
on their way to ensure that
Corrine's father is in fact dead.
The shot is full to the brim with
bourgeoisie life in miniature,
visual gags and a final, harrowing image
that is ultimately blazed by and leaves us
with a portrait of the French middle
class that only Godard could create.
[SOUND] At number eight,
the hospital shoot-out from Hard Boiled.
If you're looking for reasons why John Woo
is the undisputed master of action,
look no further than this sequence.
Hard Boiled follows
plays-by-his-own rules cop
Tequila as he attempts to take down
a crime syndicate, ultimately finding
himself here in a hospital rescuing
newborns and innocents from the mob.
This two minute, 40 second long take
shootout perfectly captures the sense of
flow between these two cops
as they clear the corridors.
The gun fighting is almost a ballet.
And although it looks like they go
up an elevator to a second floor,
they actually come back
out on the same set,
leaving the crew exactly 20 seconds
to clear and redress the entire floor
>> [MUSIC]
>> Speaker 4: [SOUND] Quiet on the set.
>> Speaker 5: [SOUND] Okay,
that's quiet on the set.
>> Speaker 4: Scene one, take ten, marker.
>> Speaker 1: Next up at number seven,
the opening of The Player.
The Player is a hilarious satire of
the Hollywood backlot as it follows
Griffin Mill,
a studio executive who begins receiving
death threats as he struggles to maintain
his career, relationships, and life.
Robert Altman's sweeping title
sequence clocks in at 7:47,
and manages to introduce every relevant
subplot and relationship in the process.
Altman wanted to prime the audience to
sit up and pay attention to the plot that
would soon unfold in a typically
disingenuous manner of Hollywood.
And the criss-cross conversation snippets,
which were entirely improvised by the way,
do this perfectly.
>> Speaker 6: The pictures they
make these days are all MTV.
Cut, cut, cut, cut.
The opening shot of Welles' Touch of
Evil was six and a half minutes long.
>> Speaker 7: Six and a half minutes.
>> Speaker 6: Three or four, anyway,
he set up the whole picture
of that one tracking shot.
>> Speaker 1: At number six, the famous
bomb sequence from Touch of Evil.
Orson Wells's timeless noir
about a Mexican border town and
the corruption and crime within it was
also his middle finger to the studios.
With a bad reputation for
going over budget and schedule,
the long takes in Touch of Evil were a way
for Wells to prove his critics wrong.
He wouldn't tell the studios how he
planned to shoot a certain scene.
So that they would hear he'd spent
a whole day just rehearsing and
send someone over in a panic,
only to arrive and
find that he'd staged a long take
which put him days ahead of schedule.
But there's no disputing
Welles's technical mastery.
The level of suspense achieved in
the very first shot is astounding,
from the first close-up
to the soaring wide,
the entire shot absolutely pulses with
anticipation for that final explosion.
[SOUND] Coming in at number five,
the long take from Boogie Nights.
When most people think Boogie Nights, they
think of this spectacular three-minute
shot from the crane down through the club
that establishes the entire movie.
But we prefer the three-minute long
take later on in the film that follows
Little Bill as he slowly searches for his
wife, finds her sleeping with another man,
walks to his car and then murders her.
Where the opening shot is spectacular for
all it shows us at once, this one
is spectacular for all it doesn't.
We know something important is happening
because the camera is still following him,
but the plot comes so
slowly we're left to dread what it is,
till [SOUND]
>> Speaker 8: Explorer, this is Houston.
>> Speaker 9: Go ahead, Houston.
>> Speaker 8: Mission abort,
repeat, mission abort.
>> Speaker 1: At number four,
the very first shot of Gravity.
Clocking in at an astounding 12 and a half
minutes, the opening shot of Gravity
captures the beauty, breathlessness, and
feeling of space like no film before it.
Here, the long take makes audiences feel
like they're in that world, floating along
like an astronaut beside our heroes
until the tension gradually ratchets up
as the film literally hurtles into action,
setting the pace for the story to come.
>> Speaker 10: Thank you, Sir.
>> Speaker 11: All right,
I'll see you later.
Thanks.
>> Speaker 12: What do you do?
>> Speaker 1: Closing in in number 3,
the Copacabana Lounge from Goodfellas.
Scorsese's most famous of long takes,
and he has done quite a few,
actually came about as an accident
when he wasn't allowed to use
the front entrance to the club.
Goodfellas is the story of a man who
always wanted to be a gangster, and
nowhere is the seduction of that lifestyle
more apparent than this one shot.
For Henry, life is smooth, fluid and easy.
And this long take is
the perfect way to show that.
Just like Karen we're thrilled to be lead
down a back corridor into the life of
a wise guy.
Scorsese wouldn't have it any other way.
>> Speaker 13: Good evening everyone and
welcome to a Powell pay
per view television event.
It's hard to believe but tonight's
heavy weight fight is the swan song for
the grand old Atlantic City Arena.
>> Speaker 1: At number two,
the boxing match from Snake Eyes.
Brian De Palma is pretty much obsessed
with long takes, and not always for
the right reasons.
But it's hard to find one more intricate,
massive, and absolutely insane
than this one from Snake Eyes.
Nic Cage is bouncing off the walls and
going way over the top in
typical Nic Cage fashion.
And what better complement for
his insanity than a completely
gratuitous tracking shot.
This 12-minute long tour of
an Atlantic City boxing arena
perfectly sets in motion
the conspiracy thriller to follow.
And although the movie definitely
collapses under its own weight,
this first scene is
always worth the watch.
>> [MUSIC]
>> Speaker 14: Hey, you're snoring.
>> Speaker 2: No I wasn't.
>> Speaker 15: Yes you were,
you always snored.
>> Speaker 1: And finally at number one,
the car scene from Children Of Men.
Alfonso Cuaron's bleak sci-fi apocalypse
tale contains this shot here,
possibly one of the most
immersive long takes ever created.
And instead of tracking
across a massive beach or
along a huge traffic jam,
all it does is move around within a car.
But that precision is so
much more difficult than the grand expanse
of some of the other shots on this list,
and the effect is that much
more gripping and intimate.
Most people who saw the film,
didn't even notice that the camera
never cuts their first time through.
The shot itself took 12 whole days, and
take a look at the rig they
had to build to pull it off.
There are four people sitting on
top of the car as it's moving,
operating the camera.
But the results speak for themselves,
which is why we think this is
the best long take ever filmed.
>> Speaker 1: Before you jump to
the comments to let us know which long
takes we left out,
can you say Russian Ark?
First, try and figure out which three
long takes on this list actually cheated
by stitching together
multiple shorter takes.
And as always, subscribe to CineFix for
more IndieWire movie lists.
>> [MUSIC]
