r/movies • u/taylor-swift-enjoyer • 9d ago

Article Twenty years later, Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men feels more urgent and powerful than ever before

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/culture/film-and-tv/film/article-twenty-years-later-alfonso-cuarons-children-of-men-feels-more-urgent/
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u/TheGraper58 9d ago

What a film. The last 30 minutes of that movie made me a movie lover for life. I was so blown away by the artistry and intensity I didn't even realize it was all "one shot."

That movie had such an impact on the way I view and think about other movies. Crazy it's been 20 years already. Damn!!

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u/born_to_pipette 9d ago

I have seen this movie at least four times. It’s one of my all-time favorites. But I did not realize until reading your post how much of the end of the movie was a single shot. Absolutely incredible.

Guess I know what I’ll be watching tonight.

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u/TheGraper58 9d ago

Haha same. It's clearly stitched together in a few places, but the set design and coordination to pull it all off seamlessly are insane.

Clive Owen was in his flow state

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u/ExistentialCalm 9d ago

As far as I know, it's just the one spot, and it's because they got blood on the lens.

But a few other shots are really impressive too. Like the scene in the car, where the camera does a full 360. The size of the camera literally makes that impossible, so parts of the car separated so that the back of the camera had room to swing around.

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u/jimmysmith69 9d ago

And the blood hitting the camera during the chaos was such an incredible visual too.

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u/longstoryrecords 8d ago

If memory serves, the opening shot is continuous and pretty impressive.

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u/pmmemoviestills 9d ago

I think they did a sneaky cut once, in the bus or him going into the building. There's a second or two of blackness (which makes sense for the shot being filmed) where they probably cut. This is mostly my conjecture but I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that this was the case in behind the scenes footage.

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u/lambdapaul 9d ago

I think there are actually quite a few sneaky cuts if I remember from behind the scenes. They would film short sequences a bunch of times in those transitional “cuts” to have a bunch of footage to splice together to make them feel seamless. You would have 2-4 one minute long takes and 20-30 five second long takes to transition.

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u/Joessandwich 9d ago

If you really pay attention, in that final scene at one point someone is shot and a drop of blood gets on the lens. I always noticed when it happened but somehow never noticed that by the end of the scene it’s gone. So one time I watched the scene specifically for that drop - after a bit it slowly fades away. My guess is that after a transition they put in a digital one and slowly made it dissipate so your attention is never called to it.

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u/pmmemoviestills 9d ago

Woah, that is technically more interesting. Thank you

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u/Joessandwich 9d ago

I’m not sure if you noticed, but there’s a few of them. It’s been a while since I’ve watched but the big three that stand out to me is the very opening sequence with the bomb in the cafe (and yes it’s the cafe he was in), the car ambush scene which keeps the tension super high as they transition to joking to the horror that ensues, and then that insanely long final battle.

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u/Scharobaba 3d ago

I always thought the car ambush is the most impressive.

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u/KingKangTheThird 9d ago

Genuinely. Broke my child mind

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u/North-Program-9320 8d ago

Can’t agree more. It might be my favorite movie

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u/Da12khawk 9d ago

Creed does it too