From Fred Astaire dance sequences to gravity-defying hotel corridor fights, we salute the technically mind-boggling rotating movie set…
The way he did it, you never knew he was fighting gravity, Donen said years later.
Stanley Kubricks2001is perhaps the most famous film to use rotating sets.
The technical brilliance of this shot is made all the more breathtaking by Kubricks almost geometric cinematography.
Like Astaires ceiling dance, these and so many other sequences in2001are carefully designed to fill us with wonderment.
Its a great effect, especially given that the entire thing had to be made so cheaply.
The room was not motorised.
One pull would start spinning that room.
The camera was secured in the room and locked off, also.
So the only thing youd see moving in that room was the person.
That was a lot of fun.
The rotating set was cunningly recycled for another memorable death scene Johnny Depps character, Glen.
On a later DVD commentary track, Wes Craven described it as the Ferris Wheel from hell.
In any rotating set, special consideration has to be given to how the interiors decorated.
So we have donuts and decaying rolls and all kinds of stuff all over the place.
So its actually very, very tricky to do.
It was like some incredible torture unit, agreed Nolan.
Its unsettling in a wonderful way.
