In his ruminative, four page essay entitled
Observations on the Long Take, philosophical filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini compares this well-worn, naturalistic cinematic device to life itself. Using Abraham Zapruder's grainy footage of the Kennedy assassination as an example, Pasolini argues that life is always lived in the present and from a single, subjective point of view. Life is
"a chaos of possibilities", he says,
"a continuous searching for links and meaning" that can also be seen as an infinite (that is, without the intervention of death) long take on reality through the eyes of one person. The long take also resembles an ideal, natural and entirely unblemished form of cinema. The act of cutting and editing this pure strain of cinema allows us to add a past and/or future to the aforementioned present, turning it into something that is in contrast fragmented, discontinuous, finite: film as we know it. In much the same way, the act of dying turns our lives into stories: into history, ancestry, and ultimately into something with meaning. Death, as we are always told, arrives with a montage of significant moments from one's life. Thus, life is converted into a story with meaning. The instabilities, incoherencies and uncertainties of life -
the long take, if you will - are transformed into something more stable, designed to withstand the test of time. Pasolini tells us that death is necessary, for only in death do our lives take on meaning. Yet, he also tells us that where everything filmic resembles death, the cinematic long take corresponds to life.
The Corrierino is death. This thread is life.
~ Jedi
If cinephilia can be partly described as the collecting and fetishising of filmic moments, resembling the process of collecting inanimate objects like books and trinkets, then surely the long take is among the most common kind of cherished article in film lovers' nests. The appeal of such single takes isn't simple to describe in general terms; perhaps it's a technical, cinematographic or acting feat, an eschewing of formal conventions, or the maintaining of a rhythm or idea. Some takes beg to be noticed, others subtly generate a placidity or tension subconsciously felt. Jedi and I have formed an eclectic nest of not-necessarily-long takes for your viewing pleasure, ordered by length. Enjoy.
~ Trip