Abstract/Summary

The history films of Roberto Rossellini are often understood as a generally consistent aesthetic and political project, of which the long take forms a part. This chapter instead closely examines La Prise de pouvoir par Louis XIV (1966) as a film in which the long take accrues a particularly intense and complex set of meanings, based on the specific historical subject matter. Drawing on notions of absorption and theatricality introduced by Michael Fried, O’Brien argues that the court setting of Rossellini’s film produces unusual patterns of presentation – an ‘absorption in theatricality’ – which must be accounted for in our interpretations of Rossellini’s style.