For example, the long take, which forces you to look at something for longer than the narrative requires and therefore takes you out of the narrative, might have the effect of turning your gaze inward. I think Antonioni often does it this way.
Another example: the very long take at the end of "Third Man," shows a woman walking toward a prospective suitor, and the camera holds her in its gaze for a good long while. Will she accept the suitor (representative of the good/innocent post WWII American) or will she walk past, dismissing his good intentions? The long take forces the audience to think about her choice and what it means.
A long take is not a single thing.
(Speaking of long takes: Are Chuck and I the only members of LBO left?)
Joanna
----- Original Message ----- Below is link to a New Yorker photoessay on a vast empty development project in Spain. It struck me as a near perfect Antonioni set
``Orson Welles regretted the Italian director's use of the long take: ``I don't like to dwell on things. It's one of the reasons I'm so bored with Antonioni - the belief that, because a shot is good, it's going to get better if you keep looking at it. He gives you a full shot of somebody walking down a road. And you think, `Well, he's not going to carry that woman all the way up that road.' But he does. And then she leaves and you go on looking at the road after she's gone.''
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo_Antonioni
I think that is a classy quote because it is true, and yet completely misses the point. Funny actually. The above photos are perfect because I (maybe you) want them to continue, and somehow can't quite get enough of the emptiness. It's an effect that should not be over done, but set now against all the economic frenzy, fury, smoke and mirrors, there in the miles of concrete and asphalt are the consequences of turning the world over to economists.
CG
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