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I saw this movie last night and loved it. However, my one criticism was the far too lengthy "tracking shot" at Dunkirk Beach. While this scene is stunningly beautiful for its cinematography (kudos to both Messrs. Wright and McGarvey), I, like A.O.Scott, thought it did very little to make "a strong connection between the fates of the characters and the ideas and historical events that swirl around them." For me, I wanted more of the characters Cecelia and Robbie and less of the hundreds of extras. I wish Wright and McGarvey could have cinematically conveyed more of the human condition enveloped in Cecelia"s and Robbie"s subjective love for one another¦ that not only existed among the class divisions of the "40s (that are still prevalent today), but also transcended a world war.

Maybe that is too much to ask of any director and/ or cinematographer. That said, though, I think a prolonged 5 ½ minute "tracking scene" is easier. It also felt like this scene was done not for character development for the audience"s sake, but as an act of self-aggrandizement (perhaps, for the selective benefit of the film industry"s "in-the-know-crowd"). Bottom line: If I look at my watch during a movie like I did during the Dunkirk Beach scene, it is just too damn long a scene¦ no matter how beautiful.

Hey! You forgot my personal favorite. A 2:57 one shot in Boogie Nights that opens the film and introduces the main characters.

I have seen a few of those long tracking shots and they really are something to behold. I'm going to go look up a few of those mentioned.

My favorite has always been the shot from GoodFellas. When I first saw it in the theatres it was about halfway through when I realized we were seeing a single shot. That it tracked as well as it did considering everywhere it went was amazing.

The oddest thing about the Goodfellas tracking shot was how at the end Henny Youngman kept screwing up his one lousy line and they had to redo it. AND it was one of his one liners he kept screwing up.

Love those single shots.

I'm glad the PT Anderson and Robert Altman pictures were mentioned... and I'm still trying to figure out how that tracking shot in The Passenger was done!

Oh, please!

Children of Men had one that was about twice as long! And that included tanks, rockets, multiple interior and exterior shots, and one sequence where a blob of "blood" accidentally hit the lens. They thought the shot was ruined, but on film it looked so great that they kept it.

Let me find a link...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/24/AR2006122400809.html

"Aside from its chilling familiarity ("I told the art department, 'Stop imagining. It's not about make-believe, it's about referencing' "), what will leave filmgoers slack-jawed in "Children of Men" are two scenes, one a 12-minute car ride that looks as if it was shot in one take (and involves an amazing stunt involving Owen, Moore and a ping-pong ball), and a chase scene through an embattled refugee camp that was shot in a 10-minute uninterrupted tracking shot. So seamlessly are they woven into the narrative of the film that it may take viewers a moment to realize just what they are witnessing."

Nothing could compare to Hitchcock's tracking shot down several flights of stairs and into the street in Frenzy. It perfectly contrasted the evil being done in an upstairs flat as the everyday life of the world continued.

Umm, if memory serves, there was a Russian movie a fears year back that was entirely one shot. It was done with a handheld camera, and so it may not be considered a 'tracking' shot, by I'm not certain how this would matter.

Antonioni's "The Passenger" from 1975 (starring Jack Nicholson) also had a long, famous one-shot (I think it was at the end of the movie). I saw "Atonement" last night and, certainly, the tracking shot was astounding. What makes it even more memorable than the other ones cited in the article is that there were so many extras -- hundreds of them -- all with the potential to screw up the shot. Yet no one does...not one of the extras looks into the camera.