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by BRETT MCCRACKEN

The long take is, in my opinion, the most cinematic of all cinematic devices. It gets to the heart of what cinema is: a series of moving images that captures time as it happens. It has recently been used in gimmicky and show-offy ways (Children of Men, Atonement, etc), albeit to spectacular effect. But the long take is far more than just a tactic for the skillful filmmaker to use and exploit to wow his or her audience. No, the long take is the heart of cinema. Or, at least, it is the heart of cinema’s potential for the transcendent.

Cinema as a medium is unique in its relationship to time, and thus its potential for transcendence has a lot to do with its temporal nature. Of course, this all has roots in photography—itself an art of temporal orientation. Susan Sontag, in her influential book On Photography, spoke of photography as “an elegiac art, a twilight art,” suggesting that “to take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.”

Russian filmmaker/theorist Andrei Tarkovsky believed cinema went even further than the still photograph, and was the first medium to allow man to take an impression of time as it unfolds. He wrote about this in Sculpting in Time:

“I think that what a person normally goes to the cinema for is time: for time lost or spent or not yet had. He goes there for living experience; for cinema, like no other art, widens, enhances and concentrates a person’s experience—and not only enhances it but makes it longer, significantly longer … As he buys his ticket, it’s as if the cinema-goer were seeking to make up for the gaps in his own experience, throwing himself into a search for ‘lost time.’” (Sculpting in Time, 63, 82). Read the rest of this entry »

So, Into the Hill readers, you are still here, still reading, still listening, still watching. And we thank you for that. If you’re new to The Hill then welcome, and we hope you’ll join us on our journey.

As our About page says, ITH is built upon community, creation, and a passion for good art. In other words, our intent is to find out what good art is through community and creation. We feel that our job is to provide you with quality content from independent artists in the various artistic disciplines, from music to film - and maybe a little in between. But we don’t want to just say, “alright folks, this dude is rad” or “this chick rocks,” or, on the other hand, “these guys suck” or “this film totally blows.” No, we want to learn about art and discernment and discretion. We want to explore, to study, to learn. That’s what we hope you will do along with us.

With that in mind we have a slew of new features, including the following: Read the rest of this entry »