6. The Opening Shot in Touch of Evil (1958)
http://youtu.be/Yg8MqjoFvy4 I suppose you could draw some similarities from this epic opening shot to Scorseses long Steadicam into the club in Goodfellas. And given that Scorsese is a well-known student of Cinema, its hard not to imagine that he has drawn influence from the late great Orson Welles. Why It Was Inventive: Welles was a true visionary. Earlier, I mentioned authentic immediacy the art of putting us in the shot and here was one of the earlier, most powerful uses of the technique in the history of cinema. Running for roughly 3 minutes 30, Welles allows us to completely take in the setting of his noir masterpiece, the seedy Mexican border town, all the while were fully aware that at some point, a bomb will explode. Everything about this movie, from the themes to the tone to the central characters, are established, affirmed and digested before weve even cut once, and the knowledge that the rigged car weaves in and out of the world around Heston and Leigh largely off-camera creates a sense of aggressive sense of dread. Orson Welles? Try Awesome Welles.