Inspired by the current poll on Manga-Updates, I was wondering how you guys feel about the length of movies. In fact, I have to admit that the length of a movie is quite a deciding factor when I have to choose what movie to watch next, and then I tend to end up with a comparably short film. How bad I am.
Then again, a film easily can be too short. (For example, I felt that “Before Sunset” was a bit too short, while I didn’t feel like that at all with “Before Sunrise”.) A film that just lasts about an hour can’t build up that much development so it feels more like a short film to me (like “Permanent Vacation”).
So, what do you think about this?
I know it’s really indecisive of me to choose ‘it depends on the film’ but I’d much rather the makers worried about telling the story effectively than how long it takes. I’d much rather sit through a long film than feel unsatisfied with a shorter version edited for length.
Conversely, I think some films are over-long, although this doesn’t actually happen to me very often. Cold Mountain felt too long, to the point where I was too busy complaining about my numb backside to think about what I liked about it.
Unfortunately I don’t watch feature-length movies very often these days because it’s hard to find two hours or so of uninterrupted free time. Episodic series and short films are much easier to work around doing other things!
Yeah, it seems I have given this poll its graveyard by opening the option to choose “It depends on the type of film”, hahaha. I just feel like that with anime – for thoughtful series, I prefer 13 episodes; for action and comedy, I prefer 26 episodes unless its gets repetitive; for slice of life, they could go on forever. But with movies, I’m just practical and realize that I tend to pick up 90 minutes films over the usual 2 hours length.
I never get two hours of uninterrupted free time either, aaaah! But feature films are just the most fun to watch.
I have started watching Cold Mountain years ago and then stopped because there were no subtitles and I failed at understanding the english, haha. My overall impression of the film wasn’t all that great either.
I don’t care about the length of the film, as long as they are engaging. There’s a time for each type of film. Shorts to kill time, episodic (avg 40min) for short breaks, feature length (avg 100min) for longer breaks and finally, film festival sessions, whereby the whole day is dedicated to it. (Case in point, Filipino director Lav Diaz epic films which average at 9hrs. Your typical long, still shots and slice of life-esque filling the blanks)
I don’t care too much?
Making a powerful impact with a short-film within 20, 10 or 5 Minutes; sustaining a monumental 10+ hour work compellingly and meaningfully – as long as it’s done well, I usually don’t have any objections in regards to duration. (I guess you do have to make an effort and find a considerable chunk of free-time, so to not have to interrupt a 7-hour film with multiple sessions, in which case you will be likely to grow anxious and impatient.)
@MrMayat: You guys are amazing for being able to go to film festivals and watch some 9 hour things. I could never do that, I think, unless there are social components involved.
@Prog: A 10+ hour work, I wonder what you are thinking of exactly, the Decalogue? XD Watching a 7-hour film really sounds like work to me. Perhaps an all-day picnic at an open-air cinema would be okay for that. And 2 hours without break already sounds like a considerable chunk of free-time… Perhaps I just suck at time management or something?
“Heimat – Eine Deutsche Chronik” is the longest I’ve seen so far, unlike Dekalog it’s actually one continuous and chronological narrative concerning several generations of one family. In that case, the story has been divided into individual episodes, which makes the viewing rather comfortable (the whole thing takes about 15 hours? I guess you could sit through all of them in one go, but you’d get physically exhausted! XD). A shorter format just wouldn’t fit the story, I guess, because part of its impact comes from the sense that you’ve been so familiarized with the different characters throughout all the changes in their environment…so far I’ve only seen one part of the trilogy, and if the DVDs weren’t so insanely expensive, I’d have watched the other two parts as well (I borrowed the DVDs for Part 1 from my library
Heimat sounds so like the Buddenbrooks to me, ehehe. I think it’s great that they made it into episodes and I do understand that this kind of film really needs the length. Now that I think about it, there are quite a lot of those “Historienschinken” that are in 2, 3, 4 parts. (I actually have liked the Gérard Depardieu version of, ahaha.)
Well, I hope one day you’ll find the other two parts. It must be horrible not to see the end of something.