A long take is a held breath.

by Cláudio Alves

Long takes are a constant subject of fascination for filmmakers and film lovers alike. The technical challenge inherent to them makes many directors salivate at the prospect of showing off their craft. At least, that's what, as an audience member, it sometimes feels like. Though, to characterize the long take as a mere tool of formalistic showmanship would be wrong. Depending on the case, this mechanism can be transformative, capable of bending the audience's perception of time, their attachment to what they're watching and sentimental engagement.

In 1917, Sam Mendes uses the long take as a key to sensorial immersion and ever-tightening tension. Each cut is a blink, a breath, a repositioning of the eye and recalibration of the senses. It's something that's a convention and brings comfort to the viewer. When you take it away, one feels as if the action never stops, like there's no time to breathe or to disengage with the narrative. A long take is a held breath and it can be a gloriously suffocating thing to experience…

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The New Classics - Y Tu Mama Tambien

Michael Cusumano here to add a title that is near and dear to my heart to the New Classics pantheon 

Scene: Epilogue
The Narrator in coming-of-age stories most often represents a grown-up version of the protagonist. Think The Sandlot or A Christmas Story, or the quintessential example, The Wonder Years, voices looking back, awash in nostalgia. In Alfonso Cuarón’s Y Tu Mamá También not only is the narrator not a character, but the voice is indifferent, even coldly clinical in its omniscience, as likely to note the fate of a passing group of wild pigs as to reveal the deepest secrets of the protagonists.

We get used to the voice as a welcome companion throughout the film. Its flat, objective viewpoint is a welcome respite from the main trio’s frequent emotional upheavals. Little do we realize we are being set up for the emotional gut punch of the film’s epilogue...

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Beauty vs Beast: Our Favourite Fellas

Jason from MNPP here, wishing everyone a Happy Oscar Hangover Monday -- the mood swings last night were particularly violent, but then we live in a rollercoaster world in 2019 so the evening felt par for the course. Personally I had some villains I was rooting against last night but today in the light of day I don't feel like being particularly cruel so I'm going to go another direction with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" competition and celebrate one last time before we move on to new things my favourite red-carpet duo this season -- the fellas of The Favourite, Nicholas Hoult and Joe Alwyn, who trotted out their sharpest looks of the year on the red carpet, Nicky in Dior and Joe in Tom Ford. Nothing diabolical here, let's keep it light -- just choose!

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PREVIOUSLY Two weeks back it was the ladies of ROMA facing off for us, and leading lady Yalitza Aparicio took home your prize with 58% of the vote. Here's a selection of what Jones had to say (I recommend you click back and read the whole comment though because it's boss):

"To understand Cleo's character is necessary to not only understand existing at the margins of society but to be familiar with what it is like to exist at the margins of a household: being intimate without having a voice or autonomy. To people unfamiliar with these class structures and Mexican indigenous people this could read as blank but reflect again..."

Oscar Trivia with the 91st Annual Academy Awards now a wrap

Now that the big show has ended let's talk trivia. Please do share any cool things you noticed in the comments.

PICTURE & DIRECTING

• With Alfonso Cuarón's win we are reminded that Mexico is completely dominant for Best Director prizes in Hollywood of late. Five of the past six winners have been Mexican directors (Damien Chazelle for La La Land being the lone non-Mexican winning). The US is really lagging, and not behind Mexico -- in the ten past ceremonies only two American-born directors have won: Chazelle and Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker

• Alfonso Cuarón is the first and ONLY director to win for directing a foreign-language film. Some trivia listings suggest he's the second after Michel Hanavicius for The Artist but that was a silent film, so language isn't relevant...

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Great Moments in Kissing: "Y Tu Mama También"

We've decided to extend our 'kissing' appreciation series past Valentine's. Not that you were asking but we're having fun and it's a sexy break inbetween Oscar madness. Here's Eric Blume...

In director Alfonso Cuarón's 2001 mini-masterpiece Y Tu Mama Tambien, lifelong friends Julio (Gael García Bernal) and Tenoch (Diego Luna) spend much of the movie talking about girls and sex.  And when they begin a road trip with older, sexy Luisa (Maribel Verdu), most of their focus is on her, her body, and the idea of getting her into bed.  Which makes the climax (yep, I said it) of the film so incredibly surprising:  at the end of their journey, they finally consummate their adventure in one of the cinema's best threesomes... 

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