Cinema surviving
Is cinema dead? I mean, as an institution where people actually leave their homes, pay for parking (or not), buy tickets, and settle into an auditorium with a bunch of other people to watch a newly released movie on a big screen as a group. Is that suddenly over?
The news that Cineworld, the globe’s second largest cinema chain, will close its doors kind of makes you wonder. The UK-owned company has 127 Cineworld and Picturehouse theaters in Britain and Ireland, as well as 536 Regal theaters in the United States. It wasn’t DVDs or satellite channels or streaming services or internet piracy that brought the behemoth to its knees. It was a virus. The latest postponement of already-delayed blockbusters, notably the James Bond flick ironically titled No Time to Die, because of the Covid–19 pandemic was the kernel that collapsed the chain’s metaphoric box of popcorn.
Will this accelerate—or even round off—the pre-existing trend to viewing movies online? Ask Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Hulu, Disney+ and Nathan Suher. Like many independent filmmakers, Suher is finding a home for his movies in the online world. His inventive and entertaining paranoid thriller The Assassination of Western Civilization (click this link for my review) will have an online premiere on Sunday, November 1 at 8 p.m. Eastern Time through the auspices of Eventbrite. For more information on that and to register to attend, visit the IM Filmworks web site.
I liked the film a lot and can recommend it to you. From a technical standpoint, what is really impressive about it is that it was shot in a single take. That is a pretty tricky thing to do, even if the movie is, at 75 minutes, a bit on the short side for a feature. Old masters like Hitchcock attempted the feat in the old days, but inevitably they had to cheat because of the limitations of celluloid. Digital filmmakers have no limitation beyond the practicality of rehearsing, blocking, choreographing and actually filming for more than hour with no mistakes.
To prepare, Suher and his cast and crew rehearsed the entire script daily for two weeks. That included choreographing fight scenes and figuring out the best way to light the set and record the sound. The plan was to film the entire thing at least five times over the course of a single weekend and use the best version.
“However,” says Suher, “I started to panic and was advised by some people on the crew that the smart thing to do was film the script in chunks. So at the weekend we used up about 75% of our time filming the movie in about ten parts.”
Phoenyx Williams, Brad Kirton and Sheri Lee in a scene from The Assassination of Western Civilization
So the movie was basically finished, except for the post-production. Except…
“That left me with six hours left to either go back and film some valuable insert shots or to go all in on my original dream vision of a full single-take feature. So we just went for it.”
True to Murphy’s Law, half the time was eaten up with false starts due to things like a boom mic in frame and an actor’s flub. In the end, Suher was left with only enough time for one more attempt. And he got it.
“Yes,” said Suher, “I could have gone with the version that was done in ten parts and edited it together, and perhaps it would have been a slightly better movie.”
Certainly, an edited version would have been very different, definitely less static. The trade-off was that there is a heightened energy to the performances that would arguably not be there but for the pressure of a long single shoot.
“I honestly believe the performances are the best here because I believe the actors were performing with so much urgency. They knew this was the last take of the weekend and they had to deliver the goods.”
Yes, you can definitely feel the tension watching the film, and tension is what you want in a paranoid thriller like this. Even if you’re watching it in the comfort of your own home, as opposed to a cinema full of other people.
-S.L., 5 October 2020
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