Observations on the Long Take

Abstract

and nonnaturalistic point of view, it becomes realistic and ultimately naturalistic as soon as we place a camera and tape recorder there: the result will be seen and heard as if by a flesh-and-blood subject (that is, one with eyes and ears). Reality seen and heard as it happens is always in the present tense. The long take, the schematic and primordial element of cinema, is thus in the present tense. Cinema therefore reproduces the Live television is a paradigmatic reproduction of something happening in the present. Suppose, then, that we have not only one short film of Kennedy's death, but a dozen such films, as many long takes as subjectively reproduce the President's death. When, for example, for purely documentary reasons (during a screening for a police investigation) we see all these subjective long takes in sequence, that is, when we splice them, even if not materially, what do we have? A type of montage, 1. The Italian word for lens, obiettivo, also means objective and therefore establishes at once the framework for the play upon relations between subject and object which characterizes this text.-ed. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.113 on Wed, 05 Oct 2016 04:42:26 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

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