You can have a movie with hardly any cuts, or very few cuts, that is fascinating, you can't take your eyes away from it... Look at some of the long takes in Citizen Kane.
“It is thought that the changeover from hunter to farmer was a slow, gradual process.”
“I was aware that everybody said I was going to be a vast mega-flop, and that William Hague was just oh-so intelligent, and oh such a great parliamentarian, and therefore so different from me! So I thought, I must deprive them of the satisfaction of proving themselves right.”