The Long Take

I, like many film buffs, find long tracking shots fascinating. Alan Bacchus, over at Daily Film Dose, has collected together an impressive list of examples of the art, many illustrated by clips. The list is headed, quite rightly, by the spectacular tracking shot from Welles’ Touch of Evil (and someone in the comments mentions the comedy homage to that in De Palma’s Phantom of the Paradise). There’s some discussion about whether trickery disqualifies an entry from the list, for example where two or more shots are stitched together to make the audience think it is one. Personally, I’m pretty relaxed about it – film as a whole is about illusion, anyway. And it would rule out one of my favourite tracking shots that is the opening of The Birdcage (which no-one seems to have mentioned) – the shot taken from a helicopter far out to sea flying towards the Miami skyline that apparently doesn’t stop until we end up inside the Birdcage club itself. 

 

(hat tip to Jason Kottke for the link)