The Longest Shot in Motion Picture History

Russian Ark will be screened tomorrow, 7:30, at Page Hall.

J. Hoberman, former film guru at the Village Voice, who visited the Writers Institute in December 2012, reviews Russian Ark as one of the key films of the dawning 21st century in his influential book, The Future of Film.

"The ultimate trip, a post-2001 space odyssey, Alexander Sokurov’s "Russian Ark" is the longest continuous take in the annals of motion pictures, a single ninety-six-minute tracking shot in which the invis- ible narrator (Sokurov) and a historical figure, the nineteenth-century French Marquis de Custine (Sergey Dreiden), accompany a lively group of dead souls across several centuries and through thirty-three rooms of the Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg."

Larger excerpt here:  http://www.indiewire.com/article/exclusive-excerpts-j-hobermans-film-after-film-or-what-became-of-21st-century-cinema?page=3

NYS Writers Institute Classic Film Series here:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/cfs.html#russian