Don’t get me wrong, I love a short movie. High Noon, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:This Is Spinal Tap, Toy Story, Rashomon and Eraserhead all clock in under 90 minutes and are absolute classics. And in an age 🗹where bloated blockbusters routinely pass the two-hour mark, many studios would do well to remember the beauty of a taut tale told well.
However, there are stories that cannot be spun with such surgical precision, narratives that require three hours or – gasp! – longer to unfurl. Back in the day, this wasn’t so controversial. Gone With The Wind is just under four hours, while Lawrence Of Arabia, The𓆏 Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur all pass three hours 30 minutes.
But sin♎ce ticket prices for longer films are the same as shorter ones (which can be screened more times per day and thus generate more moolah), ther꧂e’s a financial incentive to rein in runtimes. Couple this with modern audiences’ supposedly diminishing attention spans, and you have the popular belief that two-hour (or less) movies are the best way forward.
There is, however, evidence to the contrary. Peruse the list of top-grossing films of all time and you’ll find the top three (澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Avengers: Endgame, Avatar, Titanic) are all whoppers. Similarly, IMDb’s leaderboard of top-rated movies is dominated by titles of two hours plus (澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The LOTR Trilogy; The Godfather Parts I & II; 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Dark Knight). I♎t appears t✱hat, despite the received wisdom, punters still love an epic.
Now, I’m not advocating that everything needs to be like The Innocence (the 21-hour Bangladeshi film and current record-holder for longest theatrical movie ever). But the recent explosion of long-form TV – particularly w📖ith Netflix and Amazon’s season dump model – means that audiences are more accustomed than ever to bingeing four hours of viewing in a single go.
It’s a trend that streamers seem to be waking up to, with Netflix also releasing Martin Scorsese’s gargantuan passion project 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Irishman late last year to widespread acclaim. You see, watching a film is like having a meal: sometimes ༒you want a fast-food fix, but other times you want to kick back, luxuriate in the atmosphere and feast for hours. Or is it just me?
Each month our sister publication argues a polarising movie opinion and gives you the opportunity to agree or disagree. Let us know what you think about this one in the comments below and read on for more.
