Talk:Russian Ark

Untitled

This article is innacurate. It states the movie was recorded on film. It was actually recorded onto a hard disk. So says the documentary on the DVD. — Hippietrail 03:04, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC) --I think this is referring to some text that has been removed since. --Geke 09:46, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• anyone care to comment on "The information was recorded directly onto hard disk. The disk could hold 100 minutes of information. But it could not be recorded over. - it's a hard drive, not a record. what's the source for this? 192.223.226.6 17:34, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, it doesn't sound right, and I couldn't find any confirmation for it. Also: there were a few false starts during the shoot, so they very probably did record over the previous take. Because it doesn't add too much anyway, I just removed it. There's some details on the production at http://www.russianark.spb.ru/eng/news_archive.html The thing about compressed vs non-compressed is in an interview with Sergey Ivanov at the same site. --Geke 09:46, 4 March 2007 (UTC)Geke 09:32, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• Not only that, but http://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBusiness/minisites/cinealta/shoot/hdwf900r.shtml reckons that far from being 'specifically designed for this film', the camera is an off-the-shelf model. In this case, the 'modifications' required would be to hook its HD-SDI output up to an external, hard disk-based, recorder. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.158.67.188 (talk) 23:30, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, how on earth can the final ballroom scene be in 1913 if Alexander Pushkin is one of the guests? He is shown descending the stairs with this wife. -It's also the same people and costumes as the 1829 segment.

If I understand the film correctly, the final scene with people descending the stairs is not a view of some moment in time, but symbolic. It shows ALL the people that we have seen in the previous scenes leaving the Hermitage, as all animals and people left Noah's Ark after the deluge was over, to go and populate the world. --Geke 10:19, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

It is inaccurate to call this film "unedited." As discussed in the DVD special features, there was at least considerable editing of the image, to achieve various effects (making a scene darker, e.g.). There must also have been audio editing. Its hallmark is that it was one continuous shot, not that it was "unedited," I would say.Davidb0229 03:28, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

"First unedited feature film"

I've removed the claim that this is "the world's first unedited feature film", instead just noting that it consists of a single continuous shot. As Davidb0229 notes above, it's dubious to describe it as "unedited". And it isn't the first film to have a continuous shot running for the entire length. One earlier example is Timecode (2000) where four 90-minute shots are shown in split screen. There may well be earlier films I'm not aware of. From a quick look at the external links I didn't see any claim that Russian Ark was the first to use any particular technique. — Andy Smith (talk) 21:05, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Truly an amazing film. No one still have beat Russian Ark's record of 92 minutes. This movie will be a record breaker for many years to come. I hope the director makes another one shot film like this one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.205.229.251 (talk) 22:33, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

citation

i added the citation for 'single continuous shot', but it's in german, and im not familiar with the way external refs are inserted.

• Hummels, Volker (2003). "Interview mit Tilman Büttner (german)". Retrieved 2008-01-11.

http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fhome.foni.net%2F%7Evhummel%2FFilm%2FBuettnerInterview.html&date=2008-01-10

is my try. There's lots of other information on the movie in that interview.

Maybe someone more knowledgable could format it and post it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.63.43.181 (talk) 00:34, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Citation needed?

Shouldn't there be a citation for the line "The director later disassociated himself from Büttner."? Lichegate (talk) 09:33, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Soviet Montage Theory

I found myself curious about whether this film represents a rejection of soviet montage theory. Some sources I dug up suggest it is, at least indirectly, in the sense that Sokurov was strongly influenced by Tarkovsky, who “made no bones about his dislike of Soviet montage theory” and “expressly regretted that it was not possible to make a one-shot movie . . . longer than about 12 minutes”. A blog article argues that “Sokurov . . . completely opposes the core values of montage theory with his single-take style”, and thereby “quietly acts to contradict” the European′s criticism of Russians, that they lack “their own art heritage.” The New York Press′s review of Russian Ark also mentions “the technical limitations of film cameras and the academic triumph of montage theory” as it argues that “the long take . . . represents one extreme of an old, still-unresolved argument in film theory”.

I think it′s safe to say that Soviet montage theory had a significant influence world-wide. (I will weakly support this opinion by pointing out that Eisenstein is one of only six notable film theorists listed on the “List of basic film topics” page.) Russian Ark is a Russian film about (I don't think there′s any dispute) Russian identity, history and art, and undeniably does not employ perhaps the most significant theory of Russian cinema. So it seems odd not to mention it.

I am not, however, an expert in this field, and am wary of posting what might be largely original research, rather than the actual intents of the creators of the film or the reactions of a significant part of its audience. Perhaps someone with more expertise can make use of my research.

Dan337 (talk) 18:46, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

New digital restoration

When the Siskel Film Center screened Russian Ark in 2013 the format was described as "New DCP digital restoration." [1] It would be useful to note in the article whether this involved going back to the original digital source material, or was it just a new scan of the 35mm master. Mathew5000 (talk) 03:14, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

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