I recently watched this extraordinary film by Alexander Sokurov. It is set in the magnificent Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and the entire film lasting 1 hour and 39 minutes was done in a single take, even though it has a massive cast of about 1,000 actors and 1,000 extras dressed in elaborate costumes and three orchestras, and moves though 33 rooms of the museum, making it not only the longest shot in film history, but also the first feature film ever created in a single take.
If that was not enough of a challenge, the museum would only close for 36 hours for the making of the film so everything had to be set up, filming done, and then removed within that time. Postponements were out of the question. Filming was begun on the afternoon of December 23, 2001. They had only a few hours of daylight in the Russian winter to complete the film. The first three takes had to be abandoned within the first 20 minutes or so due to glitches and that left them with just one final chance to do it. Furthermore, the camera batteries were also running low. But they managed to complete the last take just in time. There was just one cameraman Tilman Büttner to do the whole film and he had to lug around about 35 kg (over 70 lbs) of Steadicam equipment while walking through the vast museum and up and down stairs. He deserves a huge amount of credit for making it seem so smooth.
And yet the final product is a lush and opulent extravaganza that looks like it was filmed over months.
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