Long Day's Journey Into Night Puns

Bi Gan's sophomore film features what I believe is one of the most stunning use of 3D in cinema. One of the most uniquely assembled arthouse film. The showcase reel of last 59 minutes in one unbroken shot is quite simply breathtaking. The way the dreamy 3D sequence mirrors the non-linear story told prior is astonishing. It would be very interesting to if the picture invokes the same feeling when viewed both sequences on 2D screens. Nevertheless, it's a must watch for any cinephile.

After seeing it twice in theaters I have many swirling thoughts about Long Day’s Journey into Night, and no one seems to have discussed it in quite as much depth as it deserves. It was the richest cinematic work I have seen in a long time and immediately leapt into my personal pantheon of great films. I plan to write in as structured a way as I can about a few of the ways in which this film affected me. I will shift in a rather undisciplined way between speaking in the first person and speaking about the impact of different aspects of the film on “the viewer”, but at all times I recognize that I am only speaking about my own experience watching this movie, and I welcome any other opinions. I hope there’s something in this for everyone who has seen the film to latch onto because I’d love to have a lively dialogue about this film. Surely there are countless things others will think I have missed or gotten wrong.

I’m not sure if there are really spoilers to a film like this but I have tagged it as such just in case.

• Act 1a will refer to the scenes of Act 1 set in the year 2000 featuring Wan Qiwen (the woman in the green dress) and a black-haired Luo Hongwu nominally searching for his friend Wildcat
• Act 1b will refer to the scenes of Act 1 set in the “present” tense where the film seems to begin, where a gray-haired Luo Hongwu returns to Kaili following his father’s death and begins his search for Wan Qiwen
• Act 2 will refer to the final 50-minute shot set in a seemingly parallel or dreamlike timeline where Luo Hongwu is transported after putting on the 3D glasses

I plan first to discuss elements of the movie as a whole that manifest across all the acts, but with a particular focus on Act 1a and 1b, with a final section/discussion on Act 2 as a synthetic whole that puts all elements in relation to each other in a moment of true cinema magic (it’s cheesy but there’s no other way to say it). And I plan to include examples whenever I can but without a copy of the film to refer directly to I am relying on my own memory (how fitting, for a discussion of this movie), so direct quotes will be basically impossible and I may not always be right on the details. Maybe this could inspire someone to watch this movie if they haven’t seen it, or perhaps rewatch it with some of these things in mind.

###The Physical World – Material and Space

This film is, first of all, deeply in touch with and rooted in the physical world – material and lack

Date: May 2012 | London | MP4Cast: ​David Suchet, Laurie Metcalf, Trevor White, Kyle Soller, Rosie SansomNotes: Pro-shot. Captured by Digital Theatre live on May 29th, 30th, and 31st 2012 at the Apollo Theatre in London.

Remove the spaces

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I want to watch this movie so bad but everything I’ve read about it says it’s best experienced in a theater. I live in a rural area so the chance that this will come to a theater near me is slim. To anyone who has seen this movie, is it worth it to watch the movie at home or does it take away from the experience?

A noir-tinged film about a man with an unreliable memory searching for a women he once fell in love with through the dreamy landscape of mainland China. It felt like somewhere between A Wild Sheep Chase and South of the Border, West of the Sun.

Here's the trailer

It's a slow film, though Gan is a filmmaker obsessed with duration and the way in which time can make you unsure of the reality around you but it's absolutely mesmerizing and culminates in a 60-minute long 3-D tracking shot that kind of has to be seen to believed. I also highly recommend his first film, KAILI BLUES, if slow cinema is your thing.

So while everyone here is (understandably) focused on Aquaman's monstrous run in China, a local movie by the name of "Long Day's Journey into Night" has also grabbed headlines in China, though for all the wrong reasons.

The movie is an indie arthouse movie that made a historic and whomping 267 million yuan (ranked as the 5th best opening for a domestic movie), which would be extremely extremely impressive for any movie, let alone for an arthouse movie in a country that has historically eschewed them. Hollywood Reporter also did an article on its impressive presale numbers: (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/long-days-journey-night-nabs-record-15m-presales-china-1171629)

However, the movie almost immediately collapsed in both ratings and box office on its release day, dropping to a historic low score of 2.9 on Maoyan (honestly anything under 8 on Maoyan is a terrible score, for those who aren't familiar), a 6.8 on Douban (pretty subpar for a site that loves indie/arthouse fares). Its second day box office haul totaled only about 11 million yuan, a 96% second-day drop (largest drop for a wide-release in China, maybe the world?)

So what happened? The movie was screened at the Cannes and nominated for several Golden Horse Awards (one of the big three Chinese-language film awards), it was directed by Bi Gan, a well-regarded director with a good reputation and starred big local names like Tang Wei. How did the movie get slammed, and how did an arthouse movie make so much wave in the first place?

Turns out the movie benefitted from a massive, if misplaced, marketing campaign that positioned it as a traditional romantic movie that would be popular for the general audience. It heavily utilized Douyin (TikTok in the rest of the world) in its campaign and urged people to watch it on New Year's Eve with their partner for a kiss scene or something. Anyways, the marketing campaign was highly effective, presale numbers shot up, discussion of it on social media exploded, and everyone predicted historic records for the movie. Nonetheless it was completely not appropriate for an arthouse movie like this. Bi Gan is known in his previous movies for long and "artsy" shots, and that definitely didn't change with this new movie. One scene that only showed the characters eating an apple apparently took minutes.

Needless to say, many of the people who brought tickets

Apologies in advance if this is the wrong place to ask (and please let me know if there is a better one)- but where can I watch the film "Long Day's Journey into Night"? I am referring to the Chinese film from 2018.

I quite literally cannot find a means to watch this film, legal or otherwise. Currently I am located in Canada. Maybe that is part of the problem. In any case, I've heard the film is spectacular and I'd love to know where I can find it...

Start Date: 29/Dec/2019

Excited to take part in this since the sub seems to be fostering quite a nice little community! I will be linking the movie to its Letterboxd page because that's my preferred movie 'database' if you guys don't mind.

Long Day's Journey into the Night (2018) directed by Bi Gan.

Synopsis: Luo Hongwu returns to Kaili, the hometown from which he fled many years ago. He begins the search for the woman he loved, and whom he has never been able to forget.

Depending on how you see it, this film is either the greatest offender of the Kuleshov effect or its greatest student. While I personally belong in the latter camp, I can totally see why someone would hate this movie. The narrative, although beautiful and mesmerizing, is very non-linear with director Bi Gan leading the audience into different periods of the main character's life without setting up any sorts of juxtapositions. The result forces the audience into inventing the context for themselves, discerning facts from illusions using only slight, subtle hints like hair colours and clothes. The movie feels fairly disjointed and broken, which I'd argue fits perfectly into its idea of memories and tracing your own past. Very inaccessible as it's an arthouse film but I have to say it's one of my favourite releases this year. Highly recommended especially for those who are fans of Tarkovsky, Wong-Kar Wai or Apichatpong.

While I was watching Long Day’s Journey Into Night, I was becoming incredibly frustrated as I didn’t really understand where the narrative was going. We were constantly jumping back and forth in time and the pacing was so slow, it was putting people to sleep. No lie though, some viewers did actually walk out of my screening. But after the hour long, 3D one shot ended, and the credits began to roll, I feel like I “kind of” got what was happening but definitely needed to see it again to fully understand. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I knew there was something really special hidden in all the confusion.

Quickly doing a Google search for some sort of explanation to this film surprisingly turned up nothing. This basically prompted me to buy the Chinese DVD and take my first crack at breaking everything down. Lots of things will become more obvious on the second viewing and I felt similarly after watching David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive” or Shane Carruth’s “Primer”. If you watched this film and you were just as lost as I was, then take a look at this review as I unravel the plot into a chronological order and add some analysis of what I think director Bi Gan might have been trying to say.

Grab a beer, read the spell from your green book, and watch the drink along review and explanation HERE.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2EPhsidX7ji03FgX4kuGGs?si=aoLngNcJSh6dI2D0J2Nk5Q

Just got out of a screening of A Long Day’s Journey Into night and am absolutely ecstatic! It’s the first film in years that not only takes notes from Tarkovsky’s aesthetic, but also many of his themes and vision of cinematic poetry. It was a gorgeous film that any fan of Tarkovsky owes themselves to see on the big screen if they can and it just hit the US for a theatrical run!

I've been reflecting on the title of episode 1, "Journey Into Night". This was the title Ford gave to his new story he was meant to debut on the night he was shot. This is likely a reference to the Eugene O'Neill play "A Long Day's Journey Into Night".

This was O'Neill's final play. He meant for it to be published 25 years after his death, but his wife published it almost immediately after his death, because she felt it was too good to wait. It earned him a posthumous Pulitzer.

The story is a very autobiographical one of Eugene O'Neill's real life, and real family. It's set on a single day and night in 1912. The family has gathered at their vacation home to deal with the mother's addiction to morphine, which they think she's finally kicked, but by the end of the night, she's back on the drug.

The play is about this family and their bitterness towards each other. Everyone has bitterness towards everyone else, and they confront each other and get angry, then forgive each other, then fight again. It's about this inescapable cycle, and how we're all trapped by our memories, unable to move on or escape them. In a sense, we're trapped by our past, because of memory, and because of that we're trapped in the past, unable to progress. The characters in the play seem to struggle to really communicate. Everyone is talking around things, and at the wrong people with complaints about someone else.

"Journey Into Night" was Ford's final story, "published" after his death. His family, as we see them in the host representation, seem to be a similar type of angry family life. He was the younger brother in that family, the guide boy who helps those who are lost in Westworld. Eugene O'Neill is the youngest boy in his play, reflecting back in his last years on his childhood experience of his family, though he changed the characters name.

The theme of being trapped by memory is reminiscent of the hosts experience when they become awakened, or at least on their journey toward awakening. Dolores seems to be driven by her memories, haunted by them last season, and now is driven by revenge based on her much clearer memories now. Whereas all the hosts are trapped in their loops by their cornerstone memories. Maive is driven by her memory of her daughter.

Is this "journey into night" what's happening now? is this Ford's new story playing out as planned? Is everyone still on a loop, or did he "plan" it based on what he expected of behavior, but nothing is ex

Heya, first post on this Thread. Since Redemption is such a well consolidated band, that had some pretty talented and well known vocalists in the prog scene (Both Fate's Warning's Ray Alder and Evergrey's Tom Englund) Have you listened to their latest Record? What are your Thoughts about it?

I personally loved the vibe the album delivers. It's has that latent Dream Theater vibe at the bottom end of their sound without losing originality. Tom was a great addition to the band, even thou there are a few people saying that his talent remains unexplored in Redemption and he is singing not that passionately. I think the exact opposite of that. What ou guys think?

https://i.redd.it/gbzfd603ae031.png

In what seems like a pointless scene, as Luo is driving to the hotel, he’s passed by a truck that has a large image of a lady and a tiger on the back. This is a famous story that has no ending. In The Lady or the Tiger, we don’t know if the princess helped her lover choose between being with another woman, or his own death by a tiger.

Similar to how this movie is presented to us, it feels like we’ll never get to find out if Luo sees Wan again or ends up all alone.

This movie is playing in a few independent theaters around the US right now and it definitely splits people down the line. A few movie goers actually walked out of my screening. I was actually really frustrated while watching it but when the credits finally rolled, I feel like I was almost fully understanding what director Bi Gan was trying to say, just needed a few more viewings.

I'm curious what Chinese people thought of this film. I know that it was advertised as a romantic movie you could watch with your significant other during the New Year and many people saw it because of that. Once word was out that it was actually more of an art house movie, the numbers definitely dropped. I think some people felt like they were misled from how it was promoted but I hope that some people were able to appreciated this complex story.

I think it's a beautifully shot film that has many many layers to it that you're definitely going to miss the first time. I wanted to know more so I actually purchased the Chinese DVD and deconstructed the film as much as I could into an explanation video. Anyone who was just as lost as me can check this out as I thinkkkkkkk I broke it down correctly but would love anyone's thoughts on it who have also seen the film.

EXPLANATION

chinese film, rented it on amazon video yesterday. Very very very well shot. phenomenal cinematagrophy and directing, but the entire film was very dreamlike so im not sure i understood it. what do you think, if youve seen it?

Should I watch this film?

So I hear many good things about Bi Gan’s Long Day’s Journey into night. Apparently the centrepiece of the movie is a 50 minute long single take, which, unlike the rest of the movie, is shot in 3d. So for people who saw this in theatres in 3d: how important is it to view it this way? Is it worth watching on streaming site Kanopy, where it won’t be rendered in 3d? Or is it best to wait and hope that there will be a screening of it somewhere at some point?