Other scenes like this one from Donnie Darko?
This scene is one of my all-time favorites from the movie Donnie Darko. I really like how it gives you a sense of who each character is, but also how it moves forward through time showing the various relationships and interconnections etc.
Are there other movie scenes that pull off a similar style/effect? Perhaps the into scene from the Goonies during the Fratelli chase (I couldn’t find a link)?
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Cube?
sorry I dunno what kind of particular style/effect you were referring to…
My favorite movie of all time is Magnolia. It has so many characters that you’d expect to lose track of who’s who, but because the director made so many scenes with one, long shot, you follow them around and learn how they act with all the other characters in a much deeper way.
here’s one of the first shots (there are better ones, but this was what I could find quickly):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDMdzg_QmxM&feature=related
@Carly YES, that’s the kind of thing I was thinking about. I’ve never seen Magnolia, so it’s now on the top of my must-watch list (thanks so much).
There’s a clip from Snatch that does a similar thing, although it’s much more explicit that it’s introducing each character and it doesn’t feel as natural as the Darko clip. It does have a sense of continuity between the characters though the way it transitions between each one which is kinda what I’m most intregued by. I think in the Darko scene, it’s the use of long tracking shots that really make the effect work.
I’ve been trying to figure out what makes it so compelling, and I think it’s the fact that the camera almost becomes a character unto itself (kind of like the eye of God or something), wandering around through the scene. Also, we learn so much about the characters without any audible dialogue.
@Carly – Wow, 11 years after it came out and I finally hear of someone else who thinks Magnolia was the best movie of all time. Welcome to Fluther!
Scorsese uses a lot of these long, uncut, shots that set up films rather well. I recall a pretty epic one near the beginning of Goodfellas .
@ladymia69 thanks for the clips. The last two had less to do with the idea of getting a window into lots of people’s lives like some of the others did. But they were still neat to see.
@gorillapaws Have you seen The Player? It has tons of such shots, which is why I lurve Robert Altman’s films so much. 3 Women does the same sort of thing. See ‘em!!
Thanks @Ladymia69 I’ll have to check that out.
I also ran across this long-shot technique (although less stylized than the Darko scene) in the 2nd scene of Battlestar Galactica’s miniseries where they’re introducing you to the crew of Galactica.
I adore Donnie Darko and I own the Director Cut in Blu-ray
I’d look to Torentino
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