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FILM & TELEVISION STUDIES Maste FACULTY OF FINE ARTS SCHOOL OF FILM Secretariat Ikoniou 1, Stavroupoli, 56430 Tel.: +30 2310 990520 email: [email protected] ARISTOTLE UNIVERSITY OF THESSALONIKI FACULTY OF FINE ARTS SCHOOL OF FILM MASTER’S PROGRAM: FILM & TELEVISION STUDIES Master’s Thesis “Spatial and Temporal Continuity in One-Shot Films: Editing Goes Into Hiding” Georgios Dimoglou Prof. Eleftheria Thanouli Prof. Betty Kaklamanidou Prof. Stacey Abbott Thessaloniki, January 2021 School of Film, AUTh ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly, I would like to express my deep gratitude to Prof. Eleftheria Thanouli and Prof. Betty Kaklamanidou for their valuable guidance in regard to my thesis and their unabated support since my undergraduate years. Their passion for research and knowledge of film and television continue to motivate me as a student and aspiring researcher. I also extend my gratitude to Prof. Stacey Abbott for the time she dedicated to the evaluation of this thesis as well as for being a most inspiring teacher. I would also like to thank my talented postgraduate colleagues for motivating me and especially Pavlina, Eva and Paul for their support and friendship. The COVID-19 era has been an extremely arduous one and a lot of my longtime friends came to my aid in numerous ways. I am deeply grateful to Anna, Elena, Sofianna and Efi for having my back when I needed them the most. Maya, Kostas, Vasilis and Vaggelis are another huge part of my years in Thessaloniki and I am most thankful for our shared treasured memories as well as the memories we will create in the future. I would also like to express my deep sense of gratitude to Alkisti for being a most supportive colleague and an irreplaceable friend. I would not have reached this point without her. Finally, I greatly appreciate my family for believing in me, my uncles and aunts Kostas, Mary, Michalis and Marianna for offering their total support, and my father, Dimitris, for understanding me and for inspiring me to follow my dreams. My final thank you goes to my mother, Martina, for her love. In memory of my old friend, Alexandros, who untimely passed away in 2020 School of Film, AUTh Copyright © Georgios Dimoglou, 2021. All rights reserved. It is forbidden to copy, store and distribute this work, in whole or in part, for commercial purposes. Reproduction, storage and distribution are permitted for non-­­ profit, educational or research purposes, provided the source is indicated and the message is retained. Questions regarding the paper’s use for commercial purposes should be addressed to the author. The views and positions contained in this paper express only the author. School of Film, AUTh TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 7 Theory and Methodology: Approaching One-Shot Cinema 11 Narrative Space 12 Camera Movement 13 Classical Continuity and Intensified Continuity 14 Narrative Time 16 The Long Take 18 Rope: A One-Shot Film is Born 20 Birdman: The Manipulation of Space and Time 27 1917: Immediacy in the Contemporary One-Shot Film 34 Conclusion 40 Bibliography 42 Online Sources 45 Filmography 47 ABSTRACT Films that consist of one single uninterrupted shot – or are edited in a way that creates the illusion of a single shot – are typically called one-shot films. In recent years, this kind of cinema has become more and more prominent, evidenced by the critical and commercial success of films such as Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) and Sam Mendes’ 1917 (2019). The history of the feature-length one-shot film, however, goes back as early as 1948, when Rope (directed by Alfred Hitchcock) was released. This thesis aspires to fill the theoretical gap of one-shot films, which, as of yet, remain relatively unaddressed due to their only recent surge of popularity, among other reasons. Specifically, this project is interested in examining spatial and temporal continuity in one-shot films, so as to understand the effect of the technique on the representation of cinematic space and time. To explore our subject, the three aforementioned films come into focus as case studies. These films were selected based on their feature-length runtime, their identity as narrative fiction films and their uniqueness in terms of the execution of the technique. All three are comprised of multiple shots edited into a seemingly continuous whole. This research performs an in-depth analysis of the films, grounded on theories on representation (and manipulation) of classical narrative space and time, spatiotemporal continuity, and camera movements. The ultimate objective is to showcase the technique’s evolution through time and technology, as well as determine the ways in which these films achieve continuity across space and time without the help of perceptible editing. Keywords: one-shot film, space, time, continuity, camera movement, long take Spatial and Temporal Continuity in One-Shot Films INTRODUCTION In 1948, Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope was released, a crime thriller based on the play of the same name (1929) by Patrick Hamilton, starring John Dall as Brandon and Farley Granger as Philip. The two young men murder a former classmate of theirs (Dick Hogan) in order to find out if they are able to commit the perfect crime. They are not alone in their wish to “experiment”, as Hitchcock intended to create a film without precedent; he decided to shoot the film in a way that generates the illusion of watching a single continuous take, albeit not perfect, as the film actually contains visible cuts (as it will be later discussed). However, most of the cuts are hidden,1 an effect achieved by moving the camera on darker surfaces (such as the back of an actor) and restarting shooting from there. As the film reel could not last more than approximately ten minutes at the time (Babis Aktsoglou 2003, p. 66), it was impossible for Hitchcock to actually shoot the film in one take. Hitchcock’s technique initially received negative reactions from critics and filmmakers, such as Bosley Crowther (1948) and Billy Wilder (Neil Sinyard 1994, pp. 67-68). Even Hitchcock himself admitted it was a failed experiment (Thomas M. Bauso 1991, p. 227), much like the two murderers’ attempt to cover their crime. After Rope, the obscure one-shot technique was more or less abandoned for decades, scarcely found in avant-garde films, such as Andy Warhol’s Empire (1964) and Michael Snow’s Wavelength (1967). Yet shortly after the turn of the millennium, one-shot cinema began to resurface with digital films such as Mike Figgis’ Timecode (2000) and Alexander Sokurov’s Russian Ark (2002). A few years later, this resurgence would culminate in Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Birdman (2014), which became the first (and to this date, only) one-shot film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. The purpose of this research is to study the one-shot technique and its impact on the continuity of space and time in American cinema. David Bordwell describes classical Hollywood cinema as defined by “psychologically defined individuals who struggle to solve a clear-cut problem or to attain specific goals. […] The story ends with a decisive victory or defeat, a resolution of the problem and a clear achievement or nonachievement of the goals” (1985, p. 157). According to Bordwell, classical cinema subordinates both systems of narrative space (Bordwell et al. 1985, p. 50) and time (p. 12) to narrative causality. Furthermore, space 1 The number of cuts in Rope is debated, as D.A. Miller points out (2016, p 87), but it is widely accepted to be somewhere around ten. 7 Georgios Dimoglou and time are unified by continuity editing (Bordwell 1997, p. 133). Kristin Thompson defines continuity editing as “a set of guidelines for cutting shots together”, with the aim of narrating the story in an unbroken manner, “spatially and temporally, from shot to shot” (Bordwell et al. 1985, p. 289). While American one-shot films seem to adhere to the rules of classical Hollywood, they do not make use of classical continuity editing. The question posed by this research is thus formed as such: how do one-shot films achieve to represent narrative space and time in a continuous way, without resorting to classical editing? An in-depth presentation of our theoretical framework and methodological tools takes place in the first chapter. Afterwards, three case studies come into perspective: Hitchcock’s Rope, Iñárritu’s Birdman, and Mendes’ 1917. After a brief introduction to each film, they will be analysed on the two axes of space and time. Finally, the ways that spatial and temporal continuity are established are presented in the concluding section. Another critical point of discussion is cinema’s transition from the analog to the digital era, the related technological advancements and the resulting effects on the one-shot film. Lev Manovich mentions that contemporary digital cinema is informed by past avant-garde filmmaking practices, stating that “what used to be exceptions for traditional cinema became the normal, intended techniques of digital filmmaking, embedded in technology design itself” (2001, p. 258). This thesis believes that the one-shot technique, which was used in an avant-garde context during the latter half of the 20th century, slowly entered contemporary mainstream cinema by way of the digital, along with other avant-garde practices, as Manovich points out. This type of filmmaking remains underexplored to this day. The leading reason behind this theoretical void is the one-shot film’s popularity, which has only grown in recent years, while the still limited number of cases has also played a role in the little attention they have received. Nevertheless, the international acclaim and box-office success of contemporary cases, together with the continuously growing number of one-shot films2 renders the project at hand both needed and timely.
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