The long take, the unbroken tracking shot, “the oner” — whatever you want to call it, filmmakers agree that it’s one of the most difficult technical achievements in cinema. It’s a feat of creativity, but also great coordination and choreography when a single, tiny mistake can ruin a shot.
Some famous examples: the casino scene of Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas; more recently, the action sequences in Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men and the entirety of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman. Even a recent episode of The Studio titled “The Oner” — which captures the difficulty of filming a long, unbroken shot — was itself presented as a oner. Seth Rogen’s character calls it “the ultimate cinematic achievement; it’s the perfect marriage of artistry and technicality.” (He then name-checks the three movies I just did, maybe a sign that the continuous single take is something only a certain kind of film bro cares about.)
Yet none of these examples compare to the work of Chinese filmmaker Bi Gan, who is responsible for the most ambitious and impressive long take of the year. His new sci-fi film Resurrection — a labyrinthine expedition through 20th-century China — is capped by an extraordinary 30-minute tracking shot, one that was actually accomplished as a single take. (For comparison, the longest cut in Sam Mendes’ war film 1917 is nine minutes long, each segment stitched together to make the film appear contiguous.) Taking the viewer from nighttime to daybreak, Bi’s oner trails its characters from a violent gang fight on the docks through rainy alleyways to a raucous karaoke bar before returning to the port, where the romance between two leads takes an unexpected, monstrous turn at sea. The effect is dazzling, destabilizing, and unlike anything else you’ll see on screen this year.
What Bi has achieved with Resurrection is an extraordinary technical accomplishment, but also familiar territory for him. His debut feature Kaili Blues culminated in a 41-minute trek up, down, and across the rural mountain town of Dangmai; his last film, Long Day’s Journey into Night, ended with a dreamlike, unbroken 59-minute long take shot in 3D.
Though he spoke through a Mandarin interpreter, Bi, only 36 years old, was extremely talkative and maybe even a bit sly. The long shot might be a tremendous effort of collaboration and coordination across cinematographers, set designers, and a horde of extras, but for Bi, it’s kind of his thing. He’s gotten pretty good at it. He told The Verge how he pulls it off.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
The Verge: You’re strongly associated with the long take. What effect does the long shot have on the viewer?
Bi Gan: For me, I really think about long takes and its impact on the audience. By using long takes, the audience will understand time much better. Because of the fact that when you are watching this in the long duration and because of the mise en scène, that might actually force you to stop thinking about using the kind of jump cuts or fragmented way of telling a story. Now, you are experiencing time in real time, along with the camera.
And when something is a single take, do you want viewers to notice that it’s one long shot?
It doesn’t really matter whether or not they notice that it is a long take, but I do think that most of the audience will. They know that this point of view somehow is moving along with you. The most important is for them to understand time, somehow being uninterrupted because of the long take. but also that time is being compressed in such a way that you experience it as it evolves.
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