By Filmmakers operate differently – some like to improvise and let things run their course, others plan their shots out to the last detail well in advance. Some get what they need in just one or two takes for a scene, others are perfectionists who require dozens of takes.
The latter is an approach that “Challengers” and “Call Me By Your Name” filmmaker Luca Guadagnino sees no appeal in. In a recent New York Times interview (via Indiewire), Guadagnino says he generally only needs one or two takes of a scene:
“I hate pushing. If it’s great, why do you have to torture people? It’s exciting when you observe performance. I will quit the moment in which I know that I’m going to be lazy or bored or I don’t have this energy of seeing performance happening – which, by the way, doesn’t need to take 90 takes. I think this movie is an average of one or two.”
The comment seems a playful swipe at various filmmakers who do a borderline ridiculous number of takes of a scene to get what they want. The poster child of that movement is David Fincher, who is famous for having done over 100 takes of some scenes (he is said to average 25-65 takes).
The use of so many takes is seen by supporters of the technique as a way to get past any artifice from the actors and deliver natural scenes as well as making sure the filmmaker’s vision is ‘perfect’.
Guadagnino says such a chase for perfection is distracting and results in potential lifelessness to the narrative:
“Sometimes when I talk to my production designer and they show me something, I say, ‘That’s something that belongs to ‘cinema,’; we shouldn’t do that. We should do something that belongs to the reality we’re describing’. The lead aspect of cinema must be performance, it must be character. If you put your imagery in front of the performers, then the movie becomes kind of stilted and a bit rigid.”
The approach is working for Guadagnino whose “Challengers” is not only set to top the box-office this weekend with around $14-15 million but has received some of the best reviews of the year.
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