The Place Beyond the Pines (2012) - Opening sequence shot
Film title: The Place Beyond the Pines (Cruce de caminos / Place beyond the pines)
Year: 2012 (Toronto IFF) / 2013 (public release)
Director / Co-writer: Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine, 2010)
Co-writers: Ben Coccio and Darius Marder
Country: United States
Director of Photography: Sean Bobbitt (BSC - Hunger, Shame, 12 Years a Slave; already in this collection with Hunger 2008)
Originally slated to star: Andrij Parekh (Blue Valentine) REFUSED the film 2 months before filming because of the Globe of Death: "I dreamt I would die making this film"
Actors: Ryan Gosling (Luke Glanton), Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, Ben Mendelsohn
Editors: Jim Helton and Ron Patane
Music: Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle)
Camera: Arricam LT (35mm handheld)
Film: 2-perf - 400-foot stores, or 8 minutes 30 seconds per store
Total film used: 14,000 feet on a single handheld camera
Optics: Arricam main series (mixed zooms and primes)
Stabilization: handheld + Steadicam for transitions
Technical detail: Texas Switch - Gosling steps out of the frame and a stuntman takes his place on the motorcycle without a visible cut
Opening sequence duration: ~3 minutes
Method: continuous plank (assembled on a single 2-perf magazine, no sewing required)
Principal stuntman: Rick Miller (Globe of Death rider)
Filming incident: Bobbitt was knocked unconscious during the second take when a motorcycle fell on him inside the cage. He was saved by his RoboCop gear.
Gosling's preparation: learning to ride a motorcycle from scratch (he didn't know how to ride one before the film)
Film duration: 140 minutes
Filming location: Schenectady, New York State
Budget: $15 million
Box office: $47.1 million
A carnival caravan. Schenectady, New York. Dusk. The camera enters through the door. A man sits on a bed, shirtless, covered in tattoos. He twirls a butterfly knife in his right hand, opening, closing, opening, closing. His name is Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling). He puts on a T-shirt, a jacket, and leaves. The camera follows him. Not in front, BEHIND. It walks behind him, a meter away, without hurrying. Outside, the carnival is in full swing. Flashing neon lights. The sounds of rides. A laughing crowd. Cotton candy vendors. And Luke walks on, lights a cigarette, crosses through it all without looking at anyone, as if he's already somewhere else. The camera never leaves him. It moves through pools of colored light, brushes past running children, weaves between visitors who turn to photograph him. Luke arrives in front of a large tent. The announcer shouts his name into the microphone. Luke enters. The curtain closes behind him. The camera continues. Inside: a sphere of steel bars, 4 meters in diameter, the Globe of Death. Luke gets on his motorcycle. Starts it. Two other motorcycles enter the sphere. And the camera ENTERS with them. Into the center of the cage. While three motorcycles circle it at 80 km/h. You are in the middle. No cut. Not a single cut for 3 minutes. And the camera never left Sean Bobbitt's shoulders, a man who could have died during that shot.
Why this scene is iconic
Cianfrance explained his philosophy to SBS What's On: "Every time you cut, there's an inherent lie in the cut. So we wanted to have that moment that draws you into this world and reveals this character." The key word is "lie." Classic editing builds a character for you: a close-up of the tattoos, a close-up of the knife, a close-up of the eyes. Cianfrance rejects this construction. He gives you Luke as a whole: a body, a movement, a back. You see him the way the carnival sees him: a guy silently walking through the crowd and entering a cage to risk his life.
And then there's the craziest decision in the plan: Bobbitt insisted on going INSIDE the Globe of Death. Cianfrance hesitated: "Sean, it's going to be a little dangerous in there, there are three motorcycles in that space." Bobbitt replied: "We have to go to the center." Not for the sake of daring, but for consistency. If they cut outside the cage and then came back inside, the contract made with the viewer during the carnival ride would be broken. Luke goes into the cage. The camera goes in with him. It's the only way to keep what was just promised.
Rolling Stone wrote: "What an entrance. All credit goes to cinematographer Sean Bobbitt, who follows Luke from his caravan across the circus grounds to a steel cage (the Globe of Death) where Luke rides his bike like a loop." And Way Too Indie: "The Place Beyond the Pines contains one of the best opening scenes I've seen in a long time."
The narrative function of the shot is threefold. First, it establishes Luke as a solitary force; the camera focuses on no one else. Second, it places suicide at the heart of the character from the very first second: entering the Globe of Death means risking one's life for a few dollars. And third, it introduces the film's recurring motif: the camera following men as they walk toward their destruction. The entire visual grammar of the whole film—Luke, then Avery, then Jason and AJ—is contained within these three opening minutes. Cianfrance shows you how he will film his characters: from behind, walking, unable to stop them.
How they filmed it
The story begins with a nightmare. Andrij Parekh, the cinematographer of Blue Valentine (2010), Cianfrance's first film, had been hired for Place Beyond the Pines. Two months before shooting, he called Cianfrance one morning: "I dreamt last night that I died making this film. So I'm withdrawing." And he resigned. Cianfrance found himself without a cinematographer, two months before shooting, with few options.
He met Sean Bobbitt, whom he knew from his work on Hunger (2008, also in this collection, the 17-minute still shot with Bobby Sands). Cianfrance asked him directly: "Do you think you're going to die making this film?" Bobbitt replied that he had been a war photographer for eight years and thought he could survive. He accepted the job.
His first decision was a technical one: to shoot on film, not digitally. Not for the look, but for his own health. Bobbitt explained to British Cinematographer: "I'm glad we shot on film because a 2-perf magazine lasts 8 minutes and 30 seconds. Digital film lasts 23 minutes, and at that length I would have been a wreck." The 2-perf format (where each frame uses only two perforations instead of four on standard 35mm film) allowed him to use 400-foot magazines, which were significantly lighter and didn't wear him out as quickly. Cianfrance shot the entirety of Place Beyond the Pines, 140 minutes of film, on a single handheld camera, using 14,000 feet of film. That's extraordinarily little for a 2-hour and 20-minute feature.
The opening shot fits into a single take, roughly 3 minutes out of the available 8 minutes and 30 seconds. No stitching required, no hidden seams. A true, single continuous shot on physical film. The Texas Switch—the trick where Gosling steps out of the frame and a stuntman (Rick Miller) takes his place on the motorcycle the exact moment the camera enters the cage—was necessary because Gosling couldn't perform the Globe of Death stunt. He had learned to ride a motorcycle from scratch for the film, but riding at 50 mph on the walls of a steel sphere requires years of training.
Bobbitt geared up to enter the cage. Cianfrance described it: "Sean got dressed and looked like RoboCop with a camera, he had a helmet and all his gear." Imagine: a man with a full-face helmet, a protective vest, knee pads, elbow pads, carrying an Arricam LT camera on his shoulder, IN THE CENTER of a 4-meter diameter steel sphere, with three motorcycles circling him at 50 mph. Bobbitt was looking at the monitor through a helmet visor.
During the second take, a motorcycle fell. On Bobbitt. IMDB Trivia confirms the incident: "Director of Photography Sean Bobbitt was nearly killed; fortunately, he was only knocked unconscious when a motorcycle fell on him during the second take of the scene inside the cage. At the time, he was wearing heavy protective gear and a helmet." The RoboCop gear probably saved his life. Andrij Parekh had dreamed of dying on this film. Sean Bobbitt almost got killed in his place.
The plan is in the film. Bobbitt made it out. And the result—you in the center of the cage while the motorcycles spin—couldn't have been achieved any other way. No special effects, no stunt doubles, no CGI. Just one man in a cage with three motorcycles.
What to observe when reviewing it
The Butterfly Knife (~first second) Before Luke even gets up, the camera enters the trailer and finds him twirling a butterfly knife. The movement is quick, expert, dangerous. You don't yet know who this man is, but you already know he handles bladed weapons as naturally as breathing. Three seconds to establish a character. That's Cianfrance all over.
The Texas Switch at the entrance to the cage (~minute 2): Look for the EXACT moment when Gosling steps out of frame and a stuntman takes his place. If you spot it, you have a better eye than 99% of the audience. It's one of the most successful Texas Switches in contemporary cinema—invisible, seamless, undetectable.
The center of the cage (~minute 3) Three motorcycles circle the camera at 80 km/h. The camera doesn't move. Bobbitt is inside, in RoboCop form. In the previous take (the second), a motorcycle had fallen on him. The third (or fourth?), the one that's in the film, he nailed it. Watch this moment knowing that a man almost died to achieve it.
Did you know that?
This shot completes the Sean Bobbitt arc in this collection, two articles, two films, two opposing extremes of the long take:
Hunger (2008, McQueen) camera LOCKED-OFF, 17 minutes of motionless dialogue. The most static shot of Bobbitt's career.
The Place Beyond the Pines (2012, Cianfrance) handheld camera in the center of a cage with three motorcycles. The most dangerous shot of Bobbitt's career.
Four years separate the two films. The same man behind the camera. No movement (Hunger) → maximum movement (Pines). No risk (Hunger) → mortal risk (Pines). The silence of a cell (Hunger) → the roar of three engines (Pines). Bobbitt proves that a great cinematographer doesn't have a signature style, he has CHARACTER, which he adapts to the film. For McQueen, he is motionless. For Cianfrance, he hurtles into a steel cage.
This shot also shares DNA with Birdman (Iñárritu/Lubezki, 2014, already in this collection – the entire film appears to be shot in a single take) and Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997 – the opening of Hot Traxx). All three films use the same narrative tool: a long opening shot that introduces a character by following them through their professional world. Boogie Nights takes you into a porn nightclub. Birdman takes you backstage at a Broadway theater. Place Beyond the Pines takes you into a carnival and a motorcycle cage. Three very different worlds, the same method.
And there's a disturbing detail. Cianfrance shot the film in Schenectady, New York. "Schenectady" is a Mohawk word that literally means "the place beyond the pines." The film's title isn't a metaphor. It's a translation. The entire film—all three acts, all three generations of fathers and sons—takes place in the territory whose very name means "elsewhere." The opening shows you Luke entering this elsewhere. And the continuous shot is the perfect tool for crossing a border without a cut because a cut would be a step backward, and in this film, there's no going back.
Sources
Derek Cianfrance - SBS What's On, "The Place Beyond the Pines: Derek Cianfrance/Ryan Gosling interview" (May 2013)
Sean Bobbitt - British Cinematographer, "Sean Bobbitt BSC / Hysteria, Byzantium and The Place Beyond The Pines" (2013)
Sean Bobbitt - Seventh Row, "Interview: Cinematographer Sean Bobbitt talks shooting On Chesil Beach" (June 2018)
IMDB Trivia - The Place Beyond the Pines (filming incident, Parekh refusal)
Peter Travers - Rolling Stone, review The Place Beyond the Pines (March 2013)
Way Too Indie – review The Place Beyond the Pines (April 2013)
Deep Focus Review - review The Place Beyond the Pines (2024)
Time Out – review The Place Beyond the Pines (April 2013)
New York Times - first 3 minutes narrated by Cianfrance (2013)
Wikipedia - The Place Beyond the Pines
Wikipedia - The Place Beyond the Pines (soundtrack)
Wikipedia - Sean Bobbitt
Also read:
Long take from Touch of Evil (1958) https://www.plan-sequences.com/categories-de-plans-sequences/la-soif-du-mal - Another iconic film opening, using the same logic of a continuous shot without a cut
Why the Length of a Long Take Changes Everything https://www.plan-sequences.com/blog-plan-sequences/pourquoi-la-dure-d-un-plan-sequence-change-tout - To understand what these 3 minutes do to the viewer even before the first dialogue
