OK, as an adjunct to the epic movie thread, I’ve always had a fondness for movies where the events take place over one night (or one day) or even real time. When someone has a life-altering journey in a short period or even real-time, I find this has an oddly amplifying impact.
I think I noticed this when watching John Landis’ Into The Night, where Jeff Goldblum (?) and Michelle Pfeiffer run around L.A. fleeing baddies.
My favorite example is probably Miracle Mile—even though there’s a slight intro and break where the lead character takes a nap—where Anthony Edwards receives a misdialed phone call from someone in a missile silo saying all out nuclear war has started and the nukes will land in the morning. (This also features people running around L.A., but I’m not sure that’s remarkable enough to be a factor.)
Extreme examples would be the excellent One Cut of the Dead (Japan), where a zombie attack plays out in real time, and Victoria (Germany) where a girl is picked up at a night club by a guy who is about to pull off a heist, and she ends up mixed up in their many adventures (like the Goonies!).
The first thing that popped into my head was Cléo from 5 to 7 from the great Agnès Varda. It’s a 90 minute movie, about a woman awaiting the results of a cancer test, from 5 to 6:30. (I’m guessing 5 to 7 rolled off the tongue better than five to six thirty, hence the title?)
Russian Ark was pretty incredible, all shot in one take
Hitchcock’s Rope does the same, but due to the technology, he had to fake it.
Exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about. It’s not that movies like this are necessarily good, but they somehow gain a certain momentum for being closer to real-time. (And then if you consider how poorly your average cheesy movie handles time jumps, and it makes a little more sense.)
There’s one other one I saw which is not only realtime but a single continuous take. It’s a woman wandering around a city at night and includes all kinds of strange encounters. The movie ticks a third box as well by coming back around to where it begins. I can’t recall the title or find it, it’s a very indie film, but interesting.
Oooh, I love this one. During the pandemic, I got on a Burt Lancaster kick and “The Swimmer” definitely fits here. What a strange flick! I’d love to hear the pitch meeting for that.
I think we’ve got a small problem because we’re talking about two different kinds of movies here- movies where, for lack of a better phrase, the gimmick is that it’s done in real time or even in one shot and movies that just happen to take place within a 24 hour period. There are a lot more of the latter obviously.
My father used to show The Swimmer in his film classes and have his students read the John Cheever short story it was based on to show how a written story can be translated effectively into a film.
Well, for “happens in a span of one day & night”, yes, there are many that qualify. Quick Change, for one, which is a good comedy. Or the nastier film Very Bad Things. And for the most part Halloween is just one night. For that matter so is the first Terminator.
Realtime films are a much smaller pool and thus more interesting as a focused topic.
Well, of course, Marguerite Duras’s The Atlantic Man! (A bit of a joke: the screen is mostly or entirely blank [can’t remember, although I actually saw it in a theater for some reason] and the only “action” is narration). Not saying the movie is necessarily a joke, but I’m just goofing off with the premise.
Which is a fantastic idea for a thread; I’m just drawing blanks from cold memory.