December
9
Atonement: Long Shot
The new marketing trend this season seems to be flooding YouTube with film clips. For Sweeney Todd, the thinking was, let's get audiences accustomed to the idea of Johnny Depp singing. Here is one of many shots from Atonement: a bravura five-minute tracking shot showing the thousands of soldiers who retreated to the beach at Dunkirk. Here's American Cinematographer on how D.P. Seamus McGarvey pulled it off.
Like many things about this movie--which played well to mixed response at the Academy yesterday, many love it, some don't, just like the critics--this shot has its admirers and detractors. It's a stunning shot, but does it take the viewer out of the movie, or serve a dramatic purpose? It makes you say, 'Wow, what a long shot! Look what Joe Wright did with the camera! Look how complex this is!' I for one get a kick out of bravura shots like this, whether it's Martin Scorsese, Brian DePalma, Robert Altman, Orson Welles, Antonioni or Alfonso Cuaron.
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Yepp, took me out of the movie. The camera was not steady enough, the setting was just too elaborated (the choir, the Ferris wheel), and the sequence was not combined with any significant dramatic development. Different from Children of Men, where the famous tracking shot indeed was breathtaking.
I've read the book when it came out and loved it (big McEwan fan). The movie is ok but incomparably weaker. A.O. Scott totally nailed the problems in his negative NYT review. Still, all three actresses who played Briony were great and worth the ticket price.
Posted by: Micha10589 | December 09, 2007 at 12:31 PM
I believe the shot came about purely for functional reasons. Basically, they didn't have the budget to stage a series of scenes on the beach, so they devised the single tracking shot, which they could shoot in one day.
Posted by: Edward Wilson | December 09, 2007 at 01:21 PM
I find the negativity surrounding the filmmaking so disheartening. Its very unconventional, yes, but its art. As a viewer, sometime its more fruitful to just back and let the story unfold for you. Let the director tell his story as he sees fit. It works. It serves a narrative purpose. Whether, some people see it or not
Posted by: Liz | December 09, 2007 at 01:24 PM
Actually, watching those 90 seconds made me realize something very specific about the shot that functionally makes it different than say Goodfellas or The Shining. In those movies, the Stedicam movement is motivated -- the camera is following a character(s) moving through a space performing an action. In Atonement, however, the shot is essentially omniscient, drifting around seemingly at its own will. It's about showing as much exposition as possible, but there's very little narrative action to it. I think that's why some people have a problem with it.
Posted by: Edward Wilson | December 09, 2007 at 02:13 PM
Hey Anne, you forgot Hitchcock in your masters list there. We have a clip here with a potent pair of long ones.
http://www.intenseguys.com/intense_guys/2007/11/frenzy-1972.html
cheers
Posted by: Andrew | December 09, 2007 at 05:58 PM
I was so swept up in the story and James McAvoy's great performance that I didn't even realize it was a long, stedicam shot until the second time I saw it and then I was like BLOWN AWAY!
So, no, it didn't throw me out of the film at all at first viewing it pulled me in to it..PLUNGED me into it...And what the dazed Robbie sees... totally overwhelming...great filmmaking...
Posted by: Stephen Holt | December 09, 2007 at 07:16 PM
I agree with Stephen. That shot pulled me into the film more. It's the type of shot that you need to see more than once just to take in all the details and incidents are are happening in the moment.
Posted by: Sergio | December 10, 2007 at 08:09 AM
I think the screenwriter who wrote DANGEROUS LIAISONS wrote another perfect script. I hear laura linney gets to play the Glenn Close role this spring in Broadway. (I must become an actress so he can write for me!) He also writes great plays like TALES FROM HOLLYWOOD and SUNSET BLVD. Actors must love him, I saw leonardo di Caprio in a film Hampton wrote for as a play from his original TOTAL EXCLIPSE. He is much more exciting than David Hare,who can't write that well. I am tired of chi chi jealous precious critics like that NYC TIMES guy. What about the guy in traffic?
GO SEE HAMPTON's ATONEMENT FOR YOURSELVES. YOU BE so-oo GLAD U DID. Oh yes, it's coming to me, his first name is Christopher, first rate English movie that takes us INSIDE and help us never forget the act of betrayal.
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