An important note of distinction: director’s cuts,
miniseries, films released in multiple parts theatrically (or on television)
were not considered here. That leaves many, many excellent films off the list,
but it also makes room for some lesser-known ones. I’d really prefer to not
argue about different versions with different running times and discuss the
films at hand. Ya dig?
Honorable Mention
Gone with the Wind
(1939) – 238 minutes
I’m making an honorable mention here because I know a lot of
movie fans think watching Gone with the
Wind equates to eating your vegetables. You anticipate it’s going to be an
overly long, dated, boring film, but you have to see it at some point because
it’s… Gone with the Wind. So let me
just say: this film is long, certainly, but it is far from boring. I’ve always
been stunned by how quickly it moves.
Seven Samurai
(1954) – 207 minutes
Akira Kurosawa’s epic masterpiece about a group of samurai
hired to protect a small village, remains as important and vital a film as,
well, any other film ever made. Its final, extended, perfect battle sequence
proves that captivating action isn’t at the mercy of big explosions, deafening sound
effects and dizzying camera work. An environment of unease, directorial restraint
and passionate acting is all it takes. A very fast and very essential 207
minutes.
Giant (1956) –
201 minutes
What struck me most about Giant during my first viewing was the aging process of James Dean.
The film spans many decades and, naturally, the characters involved get older
as time goes on. When the film was over, I was saddened wondering if that is
what Dean would have looked like had he lived to old age. But during the film I was wholly engrossed with the story at hand. Giant is a sprawling epic featuring the best that Dean, Elizabeth
Taylor, Rock Hudson and director George Stevens had to offer.
Lawrence of Arabia
(1962) – 216 minutes
My sentiments for Lawrence
of Arabia nearly mirror those I mentioned for Gone with the Wind. Lawrence of
Arabia is a huge movie of massive impact; to not have seen it feels like an
error in the life of a cinephile. Having seen it, you will feel a sense of triumph
and know damn well that your time was not misspent. Cleary put, this is a
perfect film. All 216 minutes of it.
Andrei Rublev (1966)
– 205 minutes
Andrei Tarkovsky knew how to craft a compellingly long film.
Many of the movies in his brief but vital filmography clocked in at well over
two hours, with his grand epic, Andrei
Rublev, the longest among them. The film is a massive retelling of the life
of the 15th century Russian painter and, unlike a few other films on
this list, may seriously strain your patience. No matter, the lasting result is
a beautiful work of utter importance.
The Godfather: Part
II (1974) – 200 minutes
The second installment of The Godfather saga just feels
huge. The generational story lines, the scope, the production value, Lee
fucking Strasberg – this is a large film of substantial weight. I’ve always found the
age-old argument of which film is better, Part
I or Part II, to be completely
fruitless. Both are exquisite for shared and varied reasons. And both, despite
lengthy running times, remain endlessly rewatchable.
Jeanne Dielman, 23,
Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) –
201 minutes
201 minutes
Jeanne Dielman is
as patience testing as films come. The movie is about a single mother who goes
about her daily routine for three days straight. And on the surface, that’s
pretty much it. At one point, we witness Jeanne cook a meatloaf meal… in real time.
But once you reach the film’s conclusion, you come to understand the slow,
tedious mastery of writer/director Chantal Akerman’s deceit. This one rocks me to the core.
Once Upon a Time in
America (1984) – 229 minutes
It’s a shame that Sergio Leone’s final film is still clouded
by its disaster of a release. When it screened at Cannes at 229 minutes long,
it was immediately and unanimously hailed as a masterpiece. But the U.S.
distributor was nervous, so they chopped nearly 100 minutes out of it (without
Leone’s consent) and delivered an incoherent mess of a film to American
audiences. Thankfully, the error has been reversed indefinitely, and the
original, longer version is now easily available to see. Which, of course, you should
certainly do.
Shoah (1985) –
550 minutes
Believe me, I don’t recommend a nine-hour documentary about
the Holocaust lightly. The very inclusion of it on this list (or my list of the
best documentaries ever made) may intimidate you. But also trust that Shoah is worth it. I’ve seen it twice,
both times watching a little more than two hours a night for four consecutive nights,
and I genuinely felt my time was well spent. Shoah isn’t an easy film to take, both in content and endurance,
but director Claude Lanzmann did something really special here, and it deserves
to be seen.
Malcolm X (1992) –
202 minutes
Malcolm X is the
shortest film on this list. Not in technical running time, but in watchability.
Because Spike Lee split it into three unofficial segments, the film breezes by
at an alarming speed, and never grows dull. It isn’t my favorite Spike Lee joint,
but it is certainly the finest film he has ever made.
Sátántangó (1994)
– 450 minutes
Béla Tarr is a guy who likes to take his time. His films are
purposefully paced testaments of… what? World order. Community strife. Domestic
turmoil. In fact, taking one paragraph to describe Tarr’s work will prove to be
an exercise in futility. His films are broad, but they’re actually narrowly
focused (a compliment). They’re slow, but transcendental. Maddening, but
important. Sátántangó spends seven and
a half hours showing us how a failing farm slowly ruins a Hungarian village.
I’m not sure, as critic Susan Sontag put it, that I could watch it once a year
for the rest of my life, but I’m certainly glad I’ve seen it. Which, granted,
isn’t the only reason to watch this film. Plenty more reasons await your time,
given your willingness to discover them.
Glad to see Andrei Rublev here. The running time for this whole list is very intimidating. Great list, dude.
ReplyDeleteThanks man. Yeah, I didn't watch all of these in a week or anything. Ha. Took me years to watch all of these flicks. Very intimidating.
DeleteShoah, Santantango and Dielman are egocy (ego=Idiocy) trips of 'culture', 'style' and 'feminism', worthless in both quality and ideology, the rest all masterpieces, yo don't notice time passing.
DeleteFair comment. If there were to go here, those would be the ones. Be interesting to draft this list today, actually.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI just love James Dean. Love him. So he definitely helped move Giant along for me. But there's no arguing that it's a long one.
DeleteRublev is astounding, but the 205 minute version was not Tarkovsky's "director's cut" despite Criterion calling it that; it was just his first cut of the film. The version he endorsed was the 186 minute print that eventually went into general release; although he was kind of pushed into cutting those additional 19 minutes out, he later said the cut material made no real difference in the end anyway.
ReplyDeleteWell, we disagree on Jeanne Dielmann to say the least. That was a frustrating watch for me. I'd replace it with all three of the extended LotR films for my own list.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see some love for Shoah. It's something everyone should see once.
Wasn't counting extended cuts of flicks, so that makes Return of the King the only viable LotR pick, and, well, I guess I dislike that one about as much as you do Jeanne Dielmann. Ha.
DeleteShoah though, man... that's a keeper right there.
I accept that you're not a LotR fan. I'm not sure why, but I accept it.
DeleteI'd bump Jeanne Dielmann for Lagaan (aka Once Upon a Time in India, 224 minutes) in a heartbeat, though. I'd also dump Satantango for Ben-Hur (212 minutes). I'd also want to find room for Napoleon and The Best of Youth.
The Best of Youth is so good, but it was presented in two parts, so it's out.
DeleteI've never liked the LotR films. I have trouble with the genre to begin with, but I also feel the pleasure of them is dependent on if you've read the novels or not (I haven't). I never had the slightest clue what was going on while I was watching them, but oh well. Just not for me.
A few more films and you could have your own Top 10...
I've actually seen all of the films you mentioned. What surprised me a little bit is I didn't have any middle ground. I either heartily agreed, or most definitely disagreed, with the choices. Andrei Rublev, which I felt was a bit of a slog to get through, is about as close to the middle as I get.
ReplyDeleteI think Lawrence of Arabia (I named it the best Best Picture winner ever in my recent review of it), Seven Samurai (which I consider the greatest non-English language film ever made), and most of the others are very deserving.
However...I massively disagree on both Jeanne Dielman and Satantango. Sorry, but there's no sugar coating it. I didn't just dislike them; I hated them. I'm getting irritated again right now just remembering having watched them. Unlike all the other choices, both of these films are long not for arts sake, nor for the sake of making a point, but simply for the sake of the indulgence of the director (especially Satantango). Critics like these films because they are the kind they get to brag about having been able to sit through. It's worth noting that while both made the most recent Sight and Sound Critics' poll as among the best movies ever, neither made the Sight and Sound Directors' poll - the people who actually make films for a living.
For me, both Jeanne Dielman and Satantango (hey, lets watch a guy count every single bill in a four inch high stack of money!) are two good reasons that the Fast Forward button was invented. To be fair to Tarr, he does let people know right away that he's going to be screwing with them for more than seven hours by showing the viewer nothing but cows wandering around for the first ten minutes of the film. Jeanne Dielman gives you no such warning. For three hours she does the same thing over and over and over, then for five minutes she does two new things, then for ten minutes she sits and stares. The End.
I'd replace them (along with Andrei Rublev) with three silent films - La Roue aka The Wheel (1923), Greed (1924) - the restored four hour version, and Napoleon (1927). And if Das Boot wasn't disqualified by your criteria then I'd have had that on the list, too.
I initially had Das Boot here, but when I made the decision to scrap extended cuts, it fell off. Napoleon was number 11. Love that film. Haven't seen The Wheel and Greed, so it looks like I have some beautiful silence ahead of me.
DeleteAs for Jeanne Dielman and Sátántangó, I know an equal amount of people who both love and hate those films. I appreciated your words about them and fully get where you're coming from. I hope you trust that my appreciation for them has nothing to do with bragging about the fact that I made it through them. I genuinely value them as works of cinema. But divisive? Certainly.
I wouldn't include the four hour Greed on here since it technically isn't the four hour version Stroheim intended. The two hour version is the only one version left of his original vision.
Delete-Dan
I knew the technicality of running times was going to bog this list down.
DeleteFirst, my apologies for ranting like a crazy person about those two films. Chalk it up to some PTSD at having watched them. :-)
DeleteSecond, how about that part of Napoleon where it suddenly, gloriously, is in widescreen, almost 30 years before another film would appear like that?
Third, La Roue is an earlier film by Napoleon director Abel Gance.
Fourth, and only for what it's worth, director Eric von Stroheim's actual preferred version of Greed was more than NINE hours long. The studio, knowing that there was no way anyone would see it, ordered him to trim it. He tried to convince them to support a 5+ hour cut, but they still wanted it shorter. Finally, a four hour cut was released. It did poorly, so the studio eventually brought in an outside editor to cut it down to two hours.
This two hour version was all that was available for decades, but in the 1990s TCM went back and found as much footage and stills as they could that were still in existence. From this they reconstructed a four hour version that was as close as they could get to von Stroheim's detailed outline of the original release.
Cutting films to re-release them was fairly common in the 1920s. It's like how Metropolis (1927) was cut in many differnent ways to shorten its run time, until finally there was no version left that was the original release. A few years ago the most complete copy yet (all but a few minutes) was found in Argentina. This was combined with footage from other versions to get it as close as possible to the original and that is now the one that has been released on Blu-ray.
And I should let you know that at least one other blogger whose opinion I respect reviewed Greed and didn't find it to be that special. This was mostly due to the straightforward nature of movies' plots in the 1920s, which he felt left few surprises on what the fates of various characters were going to be. The same could be said for the plots of La Roue and Naploeon, of course.
Ha, it's all good man. That PTSD line made me laugh out loud.
DeleteThat widescreen moment in Napoleon is one of my favorite film moments. Ever.
For now, I'll track down and watch whatever version of Greed I can, but thanks for the heads up. Now I know what I'm getting into. Also going to hunt down La Roue. They both sound solid.
Nice list! I don't agree on couple here(I am one of those who think Gone with the Wind = eating your vegetables. It just. wouldn't. end. and Shane was Decent but nothing special) and I am yet to see either Shoah or Satantango(No prejudice against either but I can assure you it would be while before I attempt either.).
ReplyDeleteGreat to see Rublev here. I saw it last month for Blind Spot and it sure was worth 3+ hours. Is Seven Samurai really over 200 minutes? I LOVE it but I do not remember it being that long at all. Godfather II, Once upon a time in America, Malcolm X, Lawrence are all great as well but I distinctly remember them all being long. Not Seven Samurai.
Man, that is great that you don't remember Seven Samurai being that long. That truly speaks to the power of that film. I love the hell out of that movie.
DeleteGone with the Wind is a very American story, which isn't an excuse, but I can understand why you wouldn't like it. I don't think it's one of the best films ever, but it definitely moved for me.
Great list. Of the films in the list that I haven't seen are: Gone with the Wind, Shoah, Giant, and Satantango. The last of which is in my rough list of Blind Spots of 2014 as I'm still trying to figure what to see for next year.
ReplyDeleteThere's a few I want to add like 1900 by Bernardo Bertolucci, Che (I often think of it as one film instead of two), Carlos (though some think of it as a miniseries which is fair), Fanny & Alexander (its TV cut which I need to see), and Heaven's Gate (yes, it's a mess and an extremely flawed that I think is mediocre but still worth watching for its visuals).
Thanks man. I love all the movies you listed, but unfortunately, they didn't fit the criteria of the list. (Either way, see the TV version of Fanny & Alexander. It's fucking magical.)
DeleteWill be looking out for your Satantango review. It's a long one.
Great list. I've only seen Gone With the Wind and The Godfather II. The one I am most interested in, that you've listed, is Malcolm X. I read his autobiography as part of a university course on Religion in Politics. Very intriguing person.
ReplyDeleteThanks! Ohhh Malcolm X is a perfect film. I think you'd really like it. Very smart, very entertaining - simply amazing.
DeleteO.K. ... I bumping it to the top of my Netflix queue.
DeleteCan't wait to hear what you think!
DeleteWow, very cool list my friend. I am very interested in longplay cinema and actively search it out. Due to my Netflix schedule I've been forced to watch Satantango in three separate segments (currently awaiting the third disc) but so far I dig it but it isn't my favorite Tarr film (at least at this moment. I wasn't overly enthralled by Tarr's work when I first found him (The Turin Horse, The Man From London) but that all changed when I saw Werckmeister Harmonies which totally blew me away. I'm hoping the last segment of Satantango will bring me that same level of amazement.
ReplyDeleteFilms like Seven Samurai and Andrei Rublev are perfect and near perfect films to me. Seven Samurai is one of the handful of Kurosawa films I've seen at this point and it is definitely his greatest achievement to me. Maybe it helped that I watched the anime version Samurai 7 when I was younger but they didn't even compare to the grandness of Kurosawa's vision. A revelation. Rublev is a similar case for me. Tarkovsky is one of my favorite filmmakers ever and I was just astounded by how quickly Rublev passed by as I watched it. Though it doesn't top Solaris of the masterpiece that is Stalker in my opinion, it's beauty, chaos, and tension just kept me engaged and enthralled for its entire running time. Though I do have to admit that the first time I watched it I didn't even know who the Rublev character was until the final movement of the film lol.
I can dig Malcolm X and Godfather II as well. Very good pieces of film that definitely don't feel as long as they actually are. Though it is Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles that I have a real problem with. I finally saw it like a week ago or something and you are definitely correct, it is patience testing. It just went on... and on... and on... then she cooked the meatloaf... and on... then she dropped the folk... then she went to bed... and on... and on... and on... then the ending happened. I can't say I was ever bored, and I understand the aesthetic that Akerman was going for, but it's like c'mon. I don't think it needed to be three and a half hours long.
I still need to see the classics on here I guess. Gone with the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, Once Upon a Time in America, Shoah, and Giant are all films that I would like to see one day but as I think you can attest, the right amount of time needs to be found in order to dedicate yourself to these films.
I think, just to be contrary and obscure or whatever I would have added a film by the likes of Theo Angelopoulos (maybe The Travelling Players), Wang Bing (Tie Xi Qu: West of Tracks or almost and of his documentaries), Jonas Mekas (As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty or something like that), or anything by Lav Diaz. To be fair, I haven't seen any of the films I just mentioned there, though I have seen a few of Angelopoulos', but like I said, just to be contrary lol. Great list man!
Thanks man! I had the exact same experience with Tarr. Watched Turin and London first, but Werckmeister really put his work into perspective for me. I obviously also appreciate Satantango, but I think it’s totally fine that you have to split it up over a few viewings. That’s a tough one to take.
DeleteI didn’t know who Rublev was either the first time I watched that. Ha. I agree, it’s not as accomplished as Solaris or Stalker, but it’s a truly great film.
Oh, I’ll be the first to admit that Jeanne Dielman doesn’t need to be as long as it is. I’ve never had a problem with its length, but I do wonder if it would be more effective as a shorter film.
I haven’t seen any of those films you listed in your last paragraph either. Wonder if they’re good. And of the ones you haven’t seen from my list, I recommend Shoah first. A long one to take, but wow.
Thanks as always for reading and commenting!
No problem man, thanks for writing up and reviewing all the stuff you do!
DeleteI'd compare Angelopoulos' work to that of Tarr's. I think some work far exceeds others, the first film of his that I saw (the Palm d'Or winning Eternity and a Day) I didn't particularly care for but films like Landscape in the Mist or The Suspended Step of the Stork I think are really something to behold.
As for the rest, I have a friend who really recommends Tie Xi Qu. I know the general premise and it does sound interesting but it's more of the time thing. Finding the time to watch a documentary that's over 9 hours long in total (it was broken up into 3 segments though), it's hard to do. Mekas' work, from what I understand is quite polarizing since it's mainly just found footage and whatnot to form a collage sort of film. Not sure if that'd be the sort of thing that'd even interest you but I hear it's quite well respected which interests me.
Lav Diaz is definitely the one I'm most interested in, if only because he doesn't seem to reign any of this films in. Most of his films are around the length of Satantango from what I understand. Apparently his longest film was 11 hours long!! But his stuff is really hard to locate and apparently you can only buy it from the man himself or on his website.
That's some challenging work all around right there. Damn. An 11 hour-long movie might be pushing it... even for me. Ha.
DeleteGreat post. It is an accomplishment to get through any of these movies especially if you're like me and always try and watch a movie from beginning to end without taking a break. I haven't seen Jeanne Dielman but my friend saw it in her french film class and I was really surprised to hear that only one person in her class didn't care for it.
ReplyDelete-Dan
Thanks man. I always try to watch movies that way as well. I hate splitting them up, but some of these demand that. I mean, if someone can take nine consecutive hours of the Holocaust, then more power to them.
DeleteSo wait, only one person in her class didn't like Jeanne Dielman? I'm actually surprised an entire class minus one dug it.
I know right? On the flip side she was the only one who loved Hiroshima mon amour while everyone else in the class didn't care for it.
DeleteOh wow, that's even crazier. Weird class haha.
DeleteGreat list. Of the ones I've seen, Seven Samurai, The Godfather Part II, Once Upon a Time in America and Malcolm X are among my favorite movies of all time. I've seen Gone With the Wind several times also and while I like it and appreciate it as important in cinematic history, it's not one of my faves. The only other one that I've seen is Lawrence of Arabia and I just do not like that movie. It feels bloated to me, unnecessarily long simply for the sake of being an "epic." Granted, I've only seen it once and it's been a number of years since, so maybe a rewatch is in order.
ReplyDeleteOf the others, I'm most interested in seeing Giant and Andrei Rublev. Can't believe I haven't seen Giant, yet. The remaining three feel like very daunting tasks. For instance, you totally lost me when you note that in Jeanne Dielman "we witness Jeanne cook a meatloaf meal… in real time." Just not my cup of tea. I can appreciate patient and methodical story-telling, but at some point it just gets to be pretentious. Yes, I'm that guy that hates 2001: A Space Odyssey and Tree of Life for that very reason and being overly self-indulgent and boring the crap out of me.
Other 200+ flicks I love: Ben-Hur, Hamlet (Kenneth Branagh's '96 version), LOTR: The Return of the KIng.
Thanks man. Jeanne Dielman is definitely the most polarizing film on this list. I recommend it cautiously. I appreciate it, but understand that few people actually do. If you hate 2001 and Tree of Life, I would NOT recommend Jeanne Dielman to you. No sir.
DeleteMy sentiments of Ben-Hur seem to mirror yours for Lawrence of Arabia, so that wasn’t in the running here. (I still think it’s a solid film, but not a flawless one). Branagh's Hamlet was close to making the cut. That thing pretty much flies by.
Great choices! Love every film I've seen, but I need to give The Godfather: Part II another look. While I can practically quote the first one, I've only seen the second one 2 or 3 times (and it's been years). I'll be seeing Andrei Rublev soon, and I still need to see Jeanne Dielman, Shoah and Satantango. I'm kind of dreading the latter two, though. :/
ReplyDeleteThanks man! Jeanne, Shoah and Satantango are all rough rides. They just aren't easy films. But I really think you'd appreciate Shoah.
DeleteI'm with you on The Godfather Part II. I've seen the first one far more than the second (and far more than the third), but I always love returning to Part II. A great film.
I've only seen Godfather Pt2 and Lawrence of Arabia. Took me forever to sit down and give Gone with a Wind a go and I found it similar to eating vegetables in more ways than one. Glad to see your list containing 10 better films, lots of which I need to check out!
ReplyDeleteI've seen Gone with the Wind twice and am likely to not watch it again. I just wanted to let readers know that I didn't think it was bad at all. But definitely not one I could watch over and over.
DeleteHope you have a chance to check out some of the other flicks here. I know they're time consuming as hell!
I'm a little embarrassed to say I've only seen The Godfather Part II and part of Malcolm X. And that I'm one of those people who hates Gone With The Wind. I don't dislike long movies if they keep it interesting, I'm just bad at watching old movies. That's something I've been trying to correct recently.
ReplyDeleteI know where you're coming from. They made 'em different back in the day, and it can be straining to take them in at times. If anything, I often have trouble with the acting in some older movies. There was nothing naturalistic about acting back then. It was still hyperbolic stage acting, just in front of a camera, you know?
DeleteAnother fantastic list here Alex, glad to see GWTW at least makes your honorable mention. YES on Lawrence of Arabia which I just saw recently for the first time, it blew me away. Still need to see more from your list here.
ReplyDeleteBtw, I reddited this one, so if you have an account, go and upvote it :D
http://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1nggtq/top_10_feature_films_longer_than_200_minutes/
Thanks so much for the reddit! I honestly have no idea how that site works. The few times my stuff has been on there, it attracted a lot of attention from douche bag trolls, so my experiences with the site haven't been too pleasant. Ha. But if great people like you use it, then I'm sure there is hope :)
DeleteSo glad you liked Lawrence. What a powerful film.
Serious lack of Heaven's Gate... :P I kid, but only slightly, I feel that the recent Criterion cut of that film is a fine addition to the scope of cinema as a whole, I always believed that Cimino had the visual eye and potential to be the next Ford or Lean, a master of the epic.
ReplyDeleteThat said, what a list, all great films, I should find my way to the video store and rent the shit out of all of these.
Although, Lawrence of Arabia is meant to be seen in a theater, I refuse to watch it any other way, it hinders the scope of the film and what Lean does with space, his fucking mastery of the foreground and background. The Godfather Part II is a movie that stands the test of time, a movie every human being should see at some point, for Cazale and De Niro at least.
I would love to see Lawrence on the big screen. I really need to track that down one day if I can. I can't imagine how perfect it looks all big and proud.
DeleteHeaven's Gate is okay. I don't think it's great or a disaster, just okay. Haven't seen it via Criterion though. Need to check that out.
Secret Cinema screened Lawrence at Alexandra Palace in London a few years back, decked the place out in sand and really made in an experience (an expensive one too). Sadly I was not into film at that time, and missed it. Good events to follow, here in Britain.
DeleteOh man, that sounds awesome. Love that they had sand and everything.
DeleteLawrence of Arabia should have won O'Toole Best Actor. Gregory Peck was just as deserving for Mockingbird... perhaps they should have given out 2 that year.
ReplyDeleteIf there was ever a year for a tie...
DeleteDamn tough call there. Damn tough.
I actually have seen Lawrence of Arabia restored and remastered on the big screen at a great old theater in Boston. It really is one of those made for theater, a great undertaking and experience.
ReplyDeleteFor myself 'The Best of Youth' deserves consideration as a whole lot of time very well spent. Six hours in the lives of a italian baby boomers spanning over forty years, not a wasted moment nearly everything is covered, love, loss, revolution, and above all family. A two night experience I won't soon forget.
God, I forgot about this list. This one really fired people up.
DeleteThe Best of Youth is amazing. One of the finest films I've ever seen. I didn't include it here because it was split into two parts theatrically, but still... incredible work.
This may have been mentioned in other comments, and I realise there are several shorter cuts of the film, but what about Fanny & Alexander? You said its your third favourite Bergman, and from what I've seen (around 3 hours) of the longest one it certainly deserves a place.
ReplyDeleteAlso: FUCKING ADORE Once Upon A Time In America. Watched it yesterday and its so damn moving, brutal, raw- its perfect. Not a real fan of Malcolm X (Mostly because of Washington) but again fantastic to see Seven Samurai, Rublev & Lawrence, all among the finest works in cinema. Great list :)
Thanks man!
DeleteLove Fanny. Absolutely adore it. However, the theatrical cut is 188 minutes. The television cut (which is infinity superior) is 312 minutes, but I didn't count extended TV editions for this post.
I saw The Travelling Players for the first time today and was hugely impressed. May turn out to the one of the Greatest films of the 1970s, if also one of the longest. 3 hours 42 minutes :')
ReplyDelete