Quarterbacks throw "Hail Mary" passes. Tightrope walkers work without nets. Opera companies tackle Wagner's complete Ring cycle.
All these showboating moves are risky yet surefire crowd-pleasers.
But when filmmakers want to display their skills, no other camera trick impresses quite as much as the tracking shot, a long sequence that runs several minutes without an editing cut.
Many top directors are masters of the art, such as Martin Scorsese (his best is the trek through the Copacabana in Goodfellas) and Paul Thomas Anderson (the opening of Boogie Nights).
The latest filmmaker to impress with such a bravura segment is Joe Wright, whose tracking shot arrives midway through Atonement, a tragic romance set during World War II starring Keira Knightley and James McAvoy.
The 51/2-minute tour de force depicts thousands of Allied soldiers — dazed, drunk, disgruntled and determined to go home — crowding a bombed-out beach in France while awaiting the evacuation of Dunkirk in June 1940.
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