Though I don't recall when it began -- maybe with Rope as just discussed? -- I've been obsessed with one-take scenes for what seems like forever. You know the kind. It's that thrilling moment when the editor seems to go out for a smoke break and the director allows the film and/or performances to fully breathe. That free breathing is probably an illusion since the scenes must be rigidly corseted by the technical and performative choreography required to get it all without "coverage".
When you see a great one take scene or film, even if that "one" take is partly a matter of film trickery (examples: Atonement, Children of Men basically the entirety of Alfred Hitchcock's Rope and Aleksandr Sukorov's Russian Ark and a scene we just discussed from 25 years ago in Peggy Sue Got Married) it can be hard to return to the world of "regular" filmmaking with its generic one and a ½ second cuts composed of plentiful coverage. Over the shoulder. Close up. Over the shoulder. Repeat for billions of converszzzzzzzzzz
I'm sorry I fell asleep.
So why do so few film directors trust in the highwire potency of long or single takes? Are they too difficult to pull off? Are film actors that unable to sustain themselves throughout emotional hairpin turns the way stage actors can 8 shows a week for hours at a time? Do people think the audience will get bored (a falsity since these scenes are usually THE talking points of their movies)?
If they're so hard to pull off why do music videos with significantly lower budgets than movies keep selling them so well?
The latest one I saw was the low budget but high entertainment "Party Girl" by XELLE
Absolutely hot. Think of the rehearsal time required just to time things like that glitter blow? But it works, don't you think?
And I've already expressed my love for both Robyn's "Call Your Girlfriend" - just her dancing in a gym but with all the lighting tricks it's just totally a great watch -- and Cosmo's Jarvis "Gay Pirate" which is both sing-a-long fun and actually moving.
Although it's NOT a one take video, this REM "üBerlin" video starring rising actor Aaron Johnson (directed by his partner Sam Taylor-Wood) breathes enough to suggest that it wanted to be one and would have been a classic video instead of just a frisky uninhibited one, if it were.
So I ask in full sincerity...
Why are today's directors so afraid of letting a moment play out without zillions of edits? If music videos -- which were once blamed for shortening the average shot length in movies -- can ironically use them so often now, why can't today's full length pictures?