Wednesday, January 04, 2006

I (heart) steadicam shots

I am such a sucker for long, single-shot movie scenes. They make a film more realistic for me. They provide the view you would get from an unblinking look at something or someone.
I saw one of the most famous single-shot scenes just a few days ago. It is the classic steadicam shot of Ray Liotta (Henry Hill) taking his girlfriend into the backdoor of the busy Copacabana nightclub in "Goodfellas." A steadicam is a harness device that enables a camera operator to follow a subject in one stable motion regardless of movement.
In "Goodfellas," we see Liotta
traveling through doorways and up and down steps through the entirety of the restaurant in one continuous shot. It is marvelous! The cinematic device enables the viewer to mirror the experience of a character who has never stepped into the back of the Copacabana, such as Liotta's girlfriend and future wife.
Other single-shot scenes I adore:
1. The famous opening scene of Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil," in which a bomber plants a device in a car and we see Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh walking out of a Mexican border town simultaneously with the car.
2. Jean-Paul Belmondo steps through the offices of a Paris travel agency, one of several innovative shots in Jean-Luc Godard's amazing "A Bout de Souffle." Overdone, of course, such shots would appear as mere trickery and would lose their potency. Judiciously applied, these long, single-shot movie scenes add to the magic of cinema.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home