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Rating: 7 stars

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Russia director behind the scenes filmmaking movie about movies

All movies seen on 01/29/2020

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In One Breath: Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark (2003)

Directed by Knut Elstermann

Documentary

Overview

Making of Russian Ark, with on camera personal views by members of the cast and crew of the major film.

Length 44 minutes

Actors

Alexander Sokurov

Viewing History (seen 1 time)

Viewing Notes

After viewing RUSSIAN ARK I definitely wanted to see this documentary about the making of it and no surprise I enjoyed this more than the film itself. It was amusing to hear one of the producers state that when they heard the concept they thought it would be easy! “Oh we film in one long shot and it only takes one day? No problem!” Hahahaha

Turns out there was 4 years of pre-production. Of course! There’s like thousands of extras! All wearing period garb! Plus the storyboarding and staging. The staging really is quite a feat but it was cool to hear the cinematographer discuss the setbacks to operating the customized rig and the exhaustion of carrying said rig to capture each staged area without pause.

This BTS doc is a little dry but still quite interesting just to hear director discuss his plan and vision for the film. I enjoyed hearing about what dilemmas they anticipated and how they overcame them (like going outside in the winter and potentially having the lens fog up when they return inside the Winter Palace). Also they made three aborted attempts before finally getting the one long take that resulted in the final film.

Really hope we get something similar for 1917 when that hits home video.

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