Long take The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) - The Steadicam opening
Film title: The Bonfireof theVanities
Year: 1990 (US release: December 21, 1990)
Director and producer: Brian De Palma (Warner Bros.)
Screenwriter: Michael Cristofer (who had just written The Witches of Eastwick, 1987)
Original novel: Tom Wolfe's * The Bonfire of the Vanities * (1987), a bestseller adapted by Warner Bros. for $750,000
Country: United States
(DP of Photography): Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC, HSC - one of the greatest DPs of the golden age of New Hollywood (Oscar for Close Encounters of the Third Kind, already DP for Cimino, Altman, De Palma on Blow Out)
Steadicam operator (camera stabilized by an articulated harness): Larry McConkey - first collaboration with De Palma; he would later operate Carlito's Way (1993), Mission: Impossible (1996) and Snake Eyes (1998)
Camera assistant (focus puller): Larry Huston
Production Designer: Richard Sylbert (Oscar for Dick Tracy, Chinatown)
Costumes: Ann Roth
Editors: David Ray and Bill Pankow
Composer: Dave Grusin (already composed for The Bridges of Madison County, Tootsie, The Firm)
Main actors: Tom Hanks (Sherman McCoy), Bruce Willis (Peter Fallow, the voice-over narrator), Melanie Griffith (Maria Ruskin), Kim Cattrall (Judy McCoy), Morgan Freeman (Judge Leonard White), F. Murray Abraham (prosecutor, uncredited after contractual dispute)
Format: 35 mm, color, 1.85:1 ratio
Film magazine per shot: 500 feet = approximately 5 minutes 30 seconds
Opening sequence duration: 4 minutes 58 seconds according to Art of the Title (direct comment by McConkey); 330 seconds (5 minutes 30 seconds) according to English Wikipedia, roughly the length of an entire store.
Distance covered by McConkey: 120 m on the electric cart + 71 m in reverse + 76 m on foot = approximately 267 meters
Number of takes: 12 (the first one failed due to the ice sculpture, then 11 more takes until dawn)
Filming locations: Palm Court at the Winter Garden (interior), LA Natural History Museum (larger gala scenes), Bronx County Courthouse (courtroom exteriors)
Budget: $47 million
Worldwide box office: $15.6 million (a legendary commercial failure, one of the biggest financial flops of the early 1990s)
Awards: 16% on Rotten Tomatoes, one of the worst-received films of its decade
Main sources: Julie Salamon, The Devil's Candy (1991, reissued 2021); Larry McConkey on Art of the Title; TCM podcast The Plot Thickens season 2; IMDb Trivia; ScreenCrush (2021); Wikipedia
A limousine pulls into an underground parking garage. Peter Fallow (Bruce Willis), a drunken English journalist carrying a book he hasn't even half-written, staggers out. A security guard speaks to him on a walkie-talkie: "Now arriving Area A."(That guard is Brian De Palma. He had to shave his beard for the role because it was physically trapped in the shot.) Fallow climbs onto an electric trolley, is driven through service corridors, gets off, takes a service elevator, gets out, puts on a tuxedo shirt handed to him by a publicist, grabs a handful of salmon mousse from a buffet, twirls once, and emerges into the packed Palm Court at the Winter Garden, where the crowd awaits to celebrate his book launch. 4 minutes 58 seconds. No cuts. 267 meters traveled by the camera. You're swept up in the guy's intoxicating allure, quite literally, without having time to ask yourself who he is or why you should care. The deal is done.
Why this scene is iconic
This shot opens a film that nobody liked. Box office: $15.6 million on a $47 million budget. Rotten Tomatoes: 16%. The shoot was disastrous enough to produce a seminal book on Hollywood fiascos, *The Devil's Candy* (1991), still considered the best account ever written of a production gone wrong. But, taken out of context, this single-take shot is a pure tour de force, which has become a benchmark for all Steadicam operators.
In 4 minutes and 58 seconds, De Palma tells you everything about Fallow: he's a magnificent imposter, propelled by a system that pushes him toward the light as he arrives from the basement. The continuous movement, from the dark parking lot to the dazzling auditorium, is the character's journey condensed into a single camera movement. And the continuous shot does exactly what it's supposed to: it makes you complicit before the story even begins. Traditional editing would have cut to the security guard's face, the publicist's smile, the buffet, giving you time to form your own opinion. The camera that doesn't cut denies you that respite. You're intoxicated until the gala
The shot directly inspired the opening sequences of La La Land (Chazelle, 2016) and Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997). McConkey himself shot the Copacabana sequence in Goodfellas , a direct contender for the title of "best Steadicam shot of 1990," and he described the one in The Bonfire of the Blessing as "the most expensive take I've ever been involved in, times ten times fifty. "
How they filmed it
Larry McConkey had to back away with a Steadicam while following Bruce Willis through the parking lot, get on an electric cart to travel 120 meters, get off, back up another 71 meters through service corridors, enter a cramped service elevator with De Palma and the entire crew, get out, and then walk 76 meters forward to the Palm Court at the Winter Garden. Each take consumed a full 500-foot roll of 35mm film: when the film snapped in the corridor, the take ended. This is what limited the shot's duration to approximately 5 minutes and 30 seconds maximum, the equivalent of a store's run
McConkey fell on the first take. Extras were pushing an ice sculpture in front of the camera to create a wipe effect (an object that sweeps across the frame to add dynamism). During rehearsals, the cart was empty to prevent the ice from melting. On the day of filming, the actual weight of the sculpture slowed them down considerably. McConkey tried to squeeze past them, but the crew behind him—De Palma, Zsigmond, the assistants, the sound crew—got tangled up in a narrow passage. His camera assistant, Larry Huston, tripped. McConkey fell on top of him. Huston suffered a head injury but refused to go to the hospital. The set nurse reopened his wound after each take to prevent it from healing properly before it was stitched up
De Palma, standing over McConkey just after the crash, simply said, "I didn't think you could fall." He had anticipated every possible disaster except that one.
They shot 11 more takes until dawn. Vilmos Zsigmond announced that the last one had to be the one: the natural light at the beginning and end of the shot was perfect. It was the one
In the elevator, De Palma and the technical crew were physically in the shot. There was no hiding. De Palma shaved his beard and played a security guard talking into a walkie-talkie, a cameo forced by logistics. A second elevator ascended in parallel with the rest of the sound crew, synchronized to maintain the wireless microphone link. If the two elevators weren't side-by-side, the signal would cut out completely. It's one of the most invisible and technically demanding moments of the shot: a scene lasting only a few seconds where three teams (camera, sound, acting) work in three different spaces, synchronized down to the meter
One of the underground corridors is lit only by photographers' flashes, with no continuous light. The extras had to trigger their flashes at the right rhythm and time for each shot, adding an extra layer of synchronization to an already nightmarish scene. The exposure calculations for Vilmos Zsigmond were done beforehand, shot by shot, so that each flash provided precisely the amount of light needed for the camera to pass through
What to observe when reviewing it
At the beginning of the shot, in the parking lot, spot De Palma. He's the security guard who says "Now arriving Area A" into a walkie-talkie, then reappears sitting on the back of the electric cart, still talking into his walkie-talkie. When the cart stops, he runs off-screen. The director never appears on screen in his films except here, due to technical constraints.
In the elevator, Willis grabs some salmon mousse and twirls in front of the camera. This gesture was improvised by Willis to give McConkey time to reposition himself in front of him: a choreographic trick disguised as a character gag. Like a stage actor using a gesture to cover a set change backstage.
The final 10 seconds: The movement gradually slows to a perfect stop: impeccable framing, straight horizon, no vibration. This is the signature of a world-class Steadicam operator. Afton Grant of Steadishots noted that this "lock-off finish with perfect headroom (space above the subject), a perfectly straight horizon, and no wobble" is precisely what sets McConkey apart from the competition. The final gesture is just as important as the 4 minutes and 50 seconds that precede it.
Did you know?
De Palma hadn't planned this long take. The opening was initially intended to be a dynamic montage showcasing the vibrant energy of 1980s Manhattan. He changed his mind during production. This last-minute shift increased the cost and complexity of the shoot. It also led to the lightning-fast casting of Rita Wilson: her husband, Tom Hanks, was filming the movie, and she came to visit him on set during a weekend off. De Palma had just reworked the scene and needed an actress to play the publicist escorting Fallow. He offered her the role on the spot. She accepted.
The 1990 Competition: Goodfellas. Larry McConkey operated the Copacabana long take in Goodfellas , 1990. The two shots (Copacabana = 184 sec / Bonfire = 298 sec) were released six months apart, shot by the same operator, and became the two canonical Steadicam shots of the contemporary era. McConkey described the Bonfire shot as "the most expensive take I've ever been involved in, times ten times fifty."
The Concorde and the 30-Second Window: Second unit director Eric Schwab wanted to impress his mentor, De Palma. He calculated that the sun aligns with a JFK runway and the silhouette of the Empire State Building onlyonce a year, on June 12, with a 30-second window. He chartered a Concorde from Air France, coordinated with JFK air traffic controllers to land it at the exact calculated moment, and used five cameras to capture everything. Total cost: $80,000. Screen time: 10 seconds. De Palma had bet $100 that it wouldn't make the final cut. He lost.
The casting fiasco began when Mike Nichols, the first director attached to the project, wanted Steve Martin for the role of Sherman McCoy; Warner Bros. refused (Martin was "too old"). Tom Wolfe himself wanted Chevy Chase. Kevin Costner, Tom Cruise, and Christopher Reeve were considered. For the role of Fallow (English in the novel), De Palma offered it to Jack Nicholson and John Cleese, both of whom declined. The studio then imposed Bruce Willis, fresh off the success of Die Hard (1988). Walter Matthau asked for $1 million for the role of the judge, deemed too expensive. Alan Arkin was hired for $150,000, then fired in favor of Morgan Freeman when the studio decided to change the judge's ethnicity to avoid racial controversy. F. Murray Abraham ultimately refused to appear in the credits due to a contractual dispute.
The Devil's Candy, the bible of fiascos. Julie Salamon, a journalist for the Wall Street Journal, obtained complete access to the set from De Palma. The resulting book, The Devil's Candy: The Bonfire of the Vanities Goes to Hollywood (1991, reissued in 2021), is considered the best book ever written about the production of a Hollywood film. De Palma himself, twenty years later: "Very good book. I let her see everything. She described everything accurately. But you see, nobody realized that things were going haywire while we were shooting the film." The TCM podcast The Plot Thickens (season 2) is the audio adaptation, featuring the original recordings of Salamon's interviews.
The Steadicam Legacy: This opening sequence marks the first collaboration between McConkey and De Palma. They would later work together again on Carlito's Way (1993), another virtuoso long take at Grand Central Station, followed by Mission: Impossible (1996) and Snake Eyes (1998), where the 13-minute opening sequence in the Atlantic City casino further enhances the promise of 1990. The Bonfire of the Vanities is where it all begins in this filmography.
Sources
Larry McConkey, commentary on Art of the Title - "The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)"
Julie Salamon, The Devil's Candy: The Anatomy of a Hollywood Fiasco (Houghton Mifflin, 1991 - reed. Da Capo Press, 2021)
ScreenCrush - "What Makes One Long Take Legendary, While Another Gets Forgotten?" (2021)
TCM Podcast – The Plot Thickens, season 2, “Wire Without A Net” (June 2021)
IMDb Trivia - The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)
TV Tropes - Trivia: The Bonfire of the Vanities
Steadishots - Afton Grant, commentary on the opening shot
Wikipedia EN - The Bonfire of the Vanities (film)
Tim Golden, The New York Times - "Bonfire Controversy Fueled By Satiric Touch" (December 1990)
Empire Magazine - Brian De Palma interview (No. 93, December 2008)
ShotOnWhat - The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), technical specifications
Lifts in Film - "The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) Elevator Scene"
Read also
The long take in Goodfellas – the entrance to the Copacabana (1990) – The same Steadicam operator, the same year, the other canonical reference point of 1990. The two shots, released six months apart and both directed by McConkey, demonstrate how the same tool (the Steadicam) can serve both a voiceover for an Italian gangster in Scorsese's film and a voiceover for a drunken English journalist in De Palma's. A comparison is essential.
The long take in La La Land (2016) – Chazelle cites Bonfire (and Boogie Nights) as the blueprint for his highway opening. Sandgren applies the same Steadicam + crane grammar, 26 years later, to a musical instead of a satire.
The long take of Boogie Nights (1997) – the direct heir to The Bonfire. P.T. Anderson adopts De Palma's exacting grammar: entering a place of pleasure from backstage, traversing an impossible space continuously, culminating in the party. The lineage of Bonfire → Boogie Nights → La La Land is the canon of the modern Steadicam opening.
The long take in Rope (1948) – Forty-two years before Bonfire, Hitchcock established the constraint of the film magazine (10 minutes maximum at the time, 5 minutes 30 seconds here) as the formal framework for the continuous shot. De Palma worked with the same physical limitation in 1990, using a different generation of film reels.
