For James Bond’s latest movie, director Cary Joji Fukunaga opened up about how he got Daniel Craig to shoot long takes. The story of the film revolves around a now-retired James Bond who left active service and is living peacefully in Jamaica.
But his peace does not last long when an old friend asks for help in retrieving a kidnapped scientist. Then Bond is knee-deep in a situation because of the mission and faces a new threat. The movie features few cast members who are returning like Léa Seydoux, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris; Ben Whishaw, Jeffrey Wright and Christoph Waltz; alongside newcomers to the franchise Lashana Lynch; Ana De Armas and Rami Malek, who plays the principal villain, Lyutsifer Safin.
Cary announced himself as the director which came after his HBI series, True Detective. His other movies were also well-received like Beats of No Nation and Maniac. He became the first American filmmaker in 2018 to direct a Bond film after original director Danny Boyle stepped down because of creative differences.
The director’s unique visual style includes the frequent use of long takes. This includes long takes where the shot is not cut to enhance the impact of a scene. He brought the same cinematography approach to the 007 series. As he sat down with Slashfilm, the director opened up about everything that went into the movie. He talked about the long takes which he is very passionate about.
Daniel’s Perfectionist Style Does Not Suit A Long Take
The director did find a way to convince Daniel to include a long shot but said it does not suit the actor’s “perfectionist” style. Daniel prefers the scenes to be shot in cuts rather than a long cut. Cary said, “Daniel’s a perfectionist, so he wants every punch, every shot, everything just to be, on a physical level, flawless. And even just that early fight in Matera, where he does three or four combos with Primo (Dali Benssalah) before he wraps the laundry line around his neck, Daniel would have preferred to do that in cuts, just so he can make sure every punch looked good “.
The director continued that this comes from his desire to make sure people watch. He added there is no suspension of disbelief issues and no doubts that those aren’t real hits landing. Cary continued that they talked about that at length with the producers and stunt coordinators. However, this isn’t the first time a long take technique is being used in the Bond series.
It was recently implemented in the previous Bond by director Sam Mendes in the opening shot of 2015’s Spectre. Cary utilized it in a different way by focusing it on action sequences. We can see the beauty of the long take when Daniel single-handedly takes on a myriad of Safin’s goons on the stairwell.
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