There's been a lot of buzz surrounding Alejandro González Iñárritu's black comedy Birdman. The movie follows washed-up actor Riggan Thompson (Micheal Keaton) attempting to stage a play for Broadway twenty years after playing caped crusader Birdman in a commercially successful movie franchise. Birdman experiments with the blurring lines between fantasy and reality while at the same time, telling a compelling story about relationships and art.
Other than the standout performances, a remarkable feature that has excited cinema enthusiasts and artists is the fascinating camera work. The entire film appears to be one single long shot. There are no visible cuts making one wonder if the movie was actually shot in a single take!
Well, it wasn't. Even so, the illusion in itself is laudable and no small feat. Instead of hard cuts, we see a character exiting one room and walking through a passageway to a different spot where he or she meets another character. When their interaction draws to a close, we shift focus and watch that second character exit the room and follow their movements to a different place and a different scene. The resultant fluidity is as much a pivotal character in the movie as Keaton himself. The cinematographer, the director, the editors, the digital colourist, and the rest of the production team deserve high praise indeed for managing seamless transitions between scenes.
That said, this is hardly the first time the long shot is being used in cinema. Alfred Hitchcock in his 1948 thriller Rope attempted a similar illusion to make the film appear like a play staged without breaks or cuts. The result was not exactly perfect given that the movie was filmed without the support of modern-day technology—a camera reel held ten minutes of film. One of the tactics used was a shot ending through a dark surface and the next beginning through the same surface. So while a character is delivering his dialogue, the camera would pan close into his or a different character's dark coat. And careful viewers can tell there's a cut there.
Some filmmakers have managed to film entire movies in a single shot. In 2002, Russian filmmaker Aleksandr Sokurov filmed historical drama Russian Ark in a single 96-minute long unedited shot. The Chicago Tribune reports that filming Russian Ark at the Hermitage museum at St. Petersburg using a Steadicam was made all the more stressful owing to time constraints as the venue was open to the makers for one day. The single shot required meticulous planning, months of rehearsals with over 2000 actors, assistant directors and choreographed camera moves, and was successful on its third take.
In 2013, a Swedish director Anette Skahlberg went beyond Russian Ark by filming her movie, 7333 Seconds of Johanna, in a 2 hour-2 minute-3 second long single take. (Yes, 7333 seconds is 2 hours, 2 minutes and 13 seconds and not 3 seconds.)
But someone has surpassed this distinction by a whisker. The Guinness World Record for the ‘longest uncut film' is presently held by director Mohammad Issack Zackria for his Tamil horror movie, Agadam. The film was shot one night in Maran Garden in Chennai with the involvement of ten people—the director, the cinematographer, and eight actors. It has a running time of 2 hours, 3 minutes and 30 seconds!
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Sreenidhi Srinivasan is a lawyer, writer and film enthusiast based in Delhi.
