How Long is This Movie?!

I don't scare too easy when it comes to movies. Is it in black and white? No problem. Was it made sixty years ago? Bring it on. Foreign language? Yes please. Johnny Knoxville? Well... I might need a drink or two first. I think I've been pretty successful at getting myself into a headspace that keeps me open to the more unusual, more pretentious, and more avant garde films that might repel more faint-hearted viewers. I've reaped the benefits of being able to enjoy movies that the mainstream public largely ignores, overlooks, or has forgotten about. However, there's still one criteria that stops me dead in my tracks, that makes me do a double-take and retreat as quickly as possible - movies with very long running times.

Now, I'm not talking about your average, run-of-the-mill "Lord of the Rings" length films, the longest of which clocked in at a brisk 200 minutes, or roughly three-and-a-half hours. I'm talking about the really massive cinema undertakings, like Jean-François Richet's "Mesrine," which runs 246 minutes, John Woo's "Red Cliff," at 280 minutes, and Oliver Assayas's "Carlos," at 330 minutes, just to name a few of the recent ones. The first two were released in two parts each, and the third was originally a miniseries that also has a shorter, 166 minute version. Despite hearing wonderful things from the critics, inwardly I groan every time I hear that a film is so long, it has to be released in multiple parts. They always end up pushed to the bottom of my to-see list. I confess I finally watched "Nobody Knows" the other day when I realized that the running time Netflix had listed, over 300 minutes, was an error. It's only 140 minutes.

Pushing past my personal biases has been slow. So far my biggest accomplishment is getting through all 931 minutes - roughly fifteen hours - of R.W. Fassbinder's "Berlin Alexanderplatz." It took about a week, and it would have probably taken longer if the DVD set hadn't been on loan from the public library. I've also seen Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Decalog" at 550 minutes, really ten films of 55 minutes apiece. The longest film I've watched in a single sitting was Bernardo Bertolucci's "1900," at 318 minutes, though I took a few breaks. Still on my to-see list are Steven Soderbergh's "Ché," (268 minutes), Abel Gance's "Napoléon" (330 minutes), Marco Tullio Giordana's "The Best of Youth" (354 minutes for the shorter theatrical version), Béla Tarr's "Sátántangó" (450 minutes), and the Holocaust documentary "Shoah," (originally 613 minutes). It's no longer difficult to find most of these titles, but the business of actually watching them requires effort.

It's easier if I think of longer films as short television serials, and many of them did start out as television projects that were never meant to be watched all in one go. Ingmar Bergman did "Fanny and Alexander" as a five-part television movie that ran 312 minutes, and cut a theatrical version that was 188 minutes. "Scenes from a Marriage" was six episodes and 296 minutes, but cut down to 167 minutes for theaters. I've only seen the theatrical versions of both, but I've been curious about the originals, and I expect they would actually be easier to watch. "Berlin Alexanderplatz" and "Decalog" both have multiple parts, thirteen and ten respectively, which meant there were obvious places to break, and I could parse out a few segments to view at a time. Watching three 90 minute films, like the "Red Riding" trilogy, feels like less of an ordeal than sitting through a single 270 minute narrative.

Looking at my television viewing habits, I have even less reason to be apprehensive about long running times. I recently finished the great 1977 BBC miniseries, "I, Claudius," which had thirteen episodes totaling 650 minutes without any fuss. To date, I've seen thirty-one episodes of "Babylon 5," which adds up to over 1300 minutes. I know I've devoted more time than that to "House," "Law & Order," and "Doctor Who" individually. A five hour film may seem like a arduous experience, but there's no rule that says I have to sit through the whole thing at once, and the potential rewards are huge. "1900" was a spectacular watch, with Donald Sutherland playing one of the greatest cinema villains I've ever seen. The last two hours of "Berlin Alexanderplatz" were an amazing payoff to the thirteen hours it took to get there. I can understand why so many filmmakers in the US have been seeking out opportunities to do long form television lately. There are some stories that simply can't be told in two or three hours.

Of course, I haven't even talked about the real marathon films, the experimental pieces that play single theaters or museums, that can have running times of multiple days. The longest film ever released, according to Wikipedia is "Cinematon," a series of 2319 silent vignettes, each 3 minutes and 25 seconds long, that took director Gérard Courant thirty-two years to complete. Its length is 9120 minutes, or 152 hours, or over six days of continuous film. Seven hours of Béla Tarr's "Sátántangó" seem downright brief in comparison - but I think I'll go for the director's two-hour "Werckmeister Harmonies" first.

The struggle continues. Happy watching!