Check out this article on the “20 Greatest Extended Takes in Movie History.” Two of the takes really stood out for me. These were fight scenes from two action movies, Oldboy and The Protector.
Most fight scenes these days seem to be shot in the Bourne Identity style, featuring quick cuts and a shaky camera. I actually enjoy this style in movies where the fighting is supposed to be brutally realistic. It can capture the confusion of a real fight. But in some films, like the Batman movies, the quick cuts just annoy. The movie is about a guy who wears a cape and rides the Batmobile, for God’s sake! Show us what is going on.
Words cannot express how much I love this scene from Oldboy:
The camera slowly drifts down the hallway as Min-Sik Choi’s protagonist battles his way through multiple protagonists to reach the elevator at the end. But this isn’t your typical martial arts movie where the bad guys considerately charge at our hero one at a time. No, Choi must fight his way through the whole crowd over the course of three solid minutes. It's exhausting. Even the music sounds tired. Just a terrific scene.
The other extended take I wanted to point out is from The Protector:
In contrast to the scene from Oldboy, this camerawork here is almost playful, occasionally leaving Jaa to glance down at the people streaming through the lobby below, and allowing Jaa to slip behind a wooden screen, revealing his location periodically by shoving an unfortunate guy’s head through the carving. I say playful, but a lot of work went into this shot. I can’t even imagine how difficult it must have been to film. According to the article, this take took one month and five takes to shoot. If there’s one flaw, it’s that Jaa never really confronts more than one guy at once. Not a surprise—Jaa has never been like Jackie Chan, who likes to choreograph elaborate fight scenes with multiple opponents.
John Scalzi wrote an interesting article awhile back that argued that Bourne-style jump-cut scenes may become less common as more and more action films are shot in 3D. In Avatar, you may have noticed that Cameron shot a lot of long takes and avoided quick cuts as much as possible. That’s because rapid cuts in 3D require your eyes to repeatedly refocus. Think Transformers gave you a headache? Believe me, it would have been much worse in 3D.
Long live the long take!
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