While Citizen Kane (1941) is the film most famously associated with Orsen Welles, Touch of Evil (1958) is as good as they come, complete with Charlton Heston playing a Mexican and Welles himself as one of the stars. Here is the famous opening long shot. Note how the camera never cuts away, as the scene is fluid. Easier said than done to choreograph this type of shot and make sure every single detail moves in unison. Welles, as the director, was groundbreaking for this technique earlier in Citizen Kane, and Martin Scorsese will later pay homage with a very famous long shot of a his own in Goodfellas (1990).
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[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg8MqjoFvy4 550 412]
Nice!
That opening shot is like someone singing a song all the way through in one take, hitting every note.
Sure, they could do it all over, but there is no edit button.
Thanks Chess. One that I’ve never seen. (How did that happen?) It’s now on my must see list. It’s coming soon to TCM in August.