With a nod to Hitchcock's 1948 real-time opus "Rope," filmmaker and writer Allan Bacchus sets up this blog post about some of the most magnificent tracking shots ever projected onto the silver screen. He pays his respects to Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco's brisk kitchen crawl in "Goodfellas," breezes through the kissy-kissy opening of "Boogie Nights," and pauses to describe the steady cam march to the ring served up in "Raging Bull" (all hail Martin Scorsese, the undisputed genius of the long take). Out of control romps like the hospital shoot-out in John Woo's "Hard Boiled" or Tony Jaa's bone-breaking race up a circular staircase in "The Protector" do their best to make the talky flicks seem slow—and both earn "you have to see it to believe it" mentions. The Long Take has drawn a slew of informed comments and our filmic blogger has responded, in some cases with new clips. Settle back and enjoy.
