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The Bonfire of the Vanities
Produced and directed by Brian DePalma
Director of photography Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC
There's a scene in The Bonfire of the Vanities wherein Brace Willis emerges from a limo and works his way through a 5 minute, 20 second moving shot. It starts in an underground garage at the New York World Trade Center. WiIlis steps onto a golf cart which carries him down a long tunnel. His entourage continues on foot. They ramble through a kitchen and cram into an elevator.
"Brian[DePalma] wanted to direct the scene from inside the elevator, so he shaved his beard and mustache off and played a bit part," says director of photography Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC.
Before the shot is over, Willis knocks over a tray of champagne-filled glasses while snatching a drink, dips his hand into a salmon mousse, and accidently smears food over his jacket and shirt.
Willis' character (Peter Fallow, a journalist who writes a sensational book) is drunk and disheveled. A few aides are dressing him in a clean shirt and jacket as he walks and talks.
Finally, resplendent in a stylish tuxedo, Peter steps into the middle of a party. The setting is the lush palm garden in the trade center. The occasion is publication of "The Real McCoy/' a seething book he has written about an incident which shook the city. Peter is immediately surrounded and swallowed up by a surging crowd of hundreds of admirers, press and dilettantes.
DePalma guided the cast and crew through 13 or 14 takes of the complex shot before he was finally satisfied. It was around 2:00 a.m. The cast and crew were bone-tired, and tomorrow was going to be another long day.
If s a wrap, right? Wrong.
Zsigmond turned to DePalma: "In another 90 minutes it will be dawn. The sky behind that window will be gorgeous."
So, two hours later, the final take was completed just as the sky was turning a light shade of blue, signaling the end of one day and the dawn of another. On film, it's the visual equivalent of turning the first page in a new chapter of a book.
Don't misunderstand. This isn't like Akira Kurosawa waiting for the wind to blow the...