This is topic longest Movies you've watched in a cinema in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 12-22-2003, 09:21 PM:
 
Inspired by LoTR (and a thread on IMDB) give us a list of the longest movies you've sat down and watched at the cinema.

Lagaan (223m 45s)
Apocalypse Now (redux) (202m 13s)
The Godfather Part II (199m 46s)
Titanic (194m 36s)
Magnolia (188m 25s)
Kal Ho Naa Ho (186m 22s)
The Deer Hunter (182m 8s)
Devdas (181m 47s)
LoTR: Fellowship (181m 44s)
LoTR: 2 Towers (179m 10s)
Asoka (176m 10s)
The Godfather (175m 3s)
Gangs of New York (167m 40s)
How The West Was Wone (163m 49s)
 
Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 12-22-2003, 09:34 PM:
 
Gettysburg (261 min plus intermission)
 
Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 12-22-2003, 11:15 PM:
 
Gettysburg for me too.
Also: Hamlet (Branaugh version)
Saw both in 70mm.
 
Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 12-22-2003, 11:29 PM:
 
I'm waiting for the IMAX blow-up of How Yukong Moved the Mountains
which, at 763 minutes, would be just under 49 miles long.
 
Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 12-22-2003, 11:56 PM:
 
War & Peace, Russian production. sometime in mid 70s, two evenings about 3 1/2 hrs. each. Absolutely spectacular.
 
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 12-23-2003, 12:41 AM:
 
"Gettysburg" took up an entire afternoon.

I can't remember exactly how long the silent film "Intolerance" by D.W. Griffith ran. During my senior year of art school I watched a press screening of it at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center (complete with an orchestra no less). It was part of a film history class assignment. The movie seemed to go on forever and I recall many of the people with press badges and such were slumped asleep in their seats. That movie may not have been the longest one I've watched, but it just seemed like it.

On average I don't mind long movies if they're good. "Lawrence of Arabia," "Braveheart," "Heat," "Magnolia," "Dances With Wolves," "Titanic" and the "Godfather" films are among the long movies in my DVD collection.
 
Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 12-23-2003, 12:48 AM:
 
Bertolucci`s "1900", some 5 hours or so [Eek!] , but I also fell asleep once or twice.
 
Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 12-23-2003, 12:50 AM:
 
Gods and Generals.

I like long movies also, sometimes I wish movies were longer, such as the Last samurai. Gangs of New York could have been another 20 minutes longer in my opinion.
 
Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 12-23-2003, 01:28 AM:
 
quote:
I can't remember exactly how long the silent film "Intolerance" by D.W. Griffith ran. During my senior year of art school I watched a press screening of it at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center (complete with an orchestra no less). It was part of a film history class assignment. The movie seemed to go on forever and I recall many of the people with press badges and such were slumped asleep in their seats. That movie may not have been the longest one I've watched, but it just seemed like it.
I wonder if someone decreed that the whole movie would be run at 16 fps, & whoever assembled/composed the score decided that it must be majestic, ponderous, & important. It's hard to say how long it *should* have run, because who knows how complete the print was.

"Intolerance" shouldn't be too bad, the crowd scenes have as many arm-flailing extras as the LOTR movies, lots of battle & things blowing up, & chariot chases. Its big drawbacks are the disconnection from being engrossed at the sort of artistically pompous intercutting of the stories from different time periods; the damn Huguenots & the modern day melodrama are the worst.

On the other hand, it was a silent-era production, & intended to be projected faster than the taking speed. That gives it fun zip. Also, if the score wasn't the almost hokily manipulative chase music & other stirring stuff intedned, it could go in the direction of a sack of self-important sludge.

Two things late 20th century US symphonies have wrecked worst with pompous, turgid interpretations are Gershwin's stuff & silents.

On the other side of the coin:
I Have A Friend who was called in years ago to fix a show at a hall in an unnamed university in New Orleans. The hall is a big late 20s prosecenium theatre, with 2 Norelcos used only every now & then. The program was a bunch of early Lumiere silents & things (all 16 fps for real & by def, for a change), orchestra would be coming over from France, lotsa bigwigs like the French Ambassador, etc. in attendance for whatever this thing was. Obviously, when this thing was being set up & the specs sent to whoever at the university, their eyes just glazed at the tech sections (16fps, whatever, that's for someone else) & they let it all ride.

My friend got a call from the projectionist a few days before the show, "These things are supposed to be run at 16 fps!" Okay, no problem, he calls an Unnamed Company for a kit for the projectors, sure, we've got them, we'll send them. Stuff arrives the day before the show, he goes over to the auditorium & up to the booth. The orchestra is set up on the forestage, the projectionist has been told by the higher-ups to "just run it", the movie's going at 24 fps. The orchestra finds itself trying to play its score for a 16 fps movie at 24 fps. My friend looked down & saw "this little French guy with his arms flying everywhere, jumping up & down, looked like he was caught in a hurricane."

Reel ends, the conductor turns around & looks like he's lost his mind, & runs to chatter to somebody in the auditorium. The higher-ups come up & do the "well why are we having this problem?" routine, he says he'll fix it, he's got the stuff, it will be OK for the show tomorrow. He starts to put it together - & nothing is right. It's plain this stuff is not for these projectors. He calls the unnamed company & the guy admits it's not for those projectors, but "it's all they had". So he wracks his brains, gets an inspiration, and cobbles it together. The solution involves 2x4's jammed under some stuff hanging off the side, as these "show must go on" things sometimes do. They get it together after midnight, run a reel, it's OK, a guy from the State Department practically kisses him.

He can't stay for the show the next day, & has to go. He spends the next day worrying about how the show will go. Late the next night, he gets a call from the projectionist & asks if it went OK. "Well -- "

At the start of the show, before the movie starts, the orchestra (set up on the forestage) plays some music. They take their bow by walking off, to return to play the picture. They get up, clap, clap, clap, they go off to thunderous applause and turn around in the wings to go back on. A huge section of plaster detaches itself from above the prosc, falls straight down onto the forestage, smashes to toothpicks a hundred-year-old cello or bass & sends chairs flying everywhere. They scratch the show.

He goes back a few days later & pulls all the stuff out of the booth.
 
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-23-2003, 02:04 AM:
 
In 1990, we ran "The Ten Commandments," 1956 version. With DeMille introduction, intermission and all of the attached music. Awesome. I watched it twice.
 
Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 12-23-2003, 04:59 AM:
 
The longest? That would be all 566 minutes (or 9 1/2 hours) of the documentary Shoah, back about twenty years ago (and on vinyl seats, no less). Absolutely riveting, the whole thing. Thank heaven they cut it up into three parts, otherwise it would have been a real butt-buster. Just released to DVD, OBTW.
 
Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 12-23-2003, 06:12 AM:
 
'Shoah' for me to. The place where I saw it only has one projector and a tower, so they had to have three intermissions. For some reason, the distributor didn't want to take the print back, and it sat in storage at the cinema, all 31 cans of it, for several months before it moved on to its next venue.

On video, I've seen all 12 1/4 hours or so of Ken Burns' 'The American Civil War' in one go. Good film, but the picture quality on the VHS version was terrible.

Didn't Andy Warhol make a very long film?
 
Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 12-23-2003, 06:37 AM:
 
Long films I've watched in theatres:

Birth of a Nation
Gone with the Wind
Lawrence of Arabia (70mm)
Ben Hur
Oklahoma (70mm Todd-AO)
Hamlet (1996) (70mm)
LOTR (all three, but not at once)
My Fair Lady (70mm)
Spartacus (70mm)
Gettysburg
2001 (70mm)
Titanic
The Godfather (as a midnight show, no less!)
Gangs of NY
Napoleon (sadly, not in 3-strip)
probably others that I can't remember right now...
 
Posted by Liam Utley (Member # 1931) on 12-23-2003, 06:51 AM:
 
Was "once upon a time in America" never showing in cinemas? Thats one of the longest films i've seen, but only on dvd.
 
Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 12-23-2003, 09:09 AM:
 
Shoah....did a service call when the projector broke mid way through the presentation ( no preventative service or spares )with a sold out house. The audience was not a lynch mob and actually appreciated that they had an announced one hour break to go outside to stretch their bodies. I saw War and Peace in one sitting in a tiny art cinema with a squeaky Peerless Magnarc lamphouse door announcing every reel change. [Frown]
 
Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 12-23-2003, 12:21 PM:
 
I've seen all of the classics, including that 70mm version of GWTW from the last century (ah, those high school days!)

I did see NAPOLEON in its first engagement after Radio City. They used 5 projectors...2 running reel-to-reel that were rented, then running the final reel on the 3 house projectors. Very cool to watch the masking fly up and those 3 machines kick in.

Longest single day was seeing SHORT CUTS and GETTYSBURG. Both were 70mm presentations. That was fun.
 
Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 12-23-2003, 01:58 PM:
 
Shoah 566 minutes! [Eek!]

imbd

I sat through a 70mm showing of all three origional Star Wars films in one sitting.
 
Posted by Charles Everett (Member # 889) on 12-23-2003, 03:13 PM:
 
In the order that I saw them:
Each title on this list is at least 3 hours long. All the Film Forum titles are documentaries.

[ 01-04-2004, 04:46 PM: Message edited by: Charles Everett ]
 
Posted by Dan Lyons (Member # 1454) on 12-23-2003, 05:21 PM:
 
GWTW in '98
Funny Girl, new IBtech roadshow print [thumbsup]

Danny
 
Posted by Bill Carter (Member # 156) on 12-23-2003, 06:04 PM:
 
The full-length version of War and Peace in one day... a little over 500 minutes plus a "dinner" intermission of about 2 hours. The Heights Theater in Minneapolis ran this a couple of years ago... in stunning 70mm!
 
Posted by Dennis M Dow Jr (Member # 1970) on 12-23-2003, 10:27 PM:
 
Gods And Generals
Titanic
GWTW
LOTR: ROTK
 
Posted by Richard Greco (Member # 2032) on 12-23-2003, 10:36 PM:
 
For me:

LoTR: RoTK
Titanic
Last Samurai
Matrix Revolutions
 
Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 12-23-2003, 10:45 PM:
 
quote:
I'm waiting for the IMAX blow-up of How Yukong Moved the Mountains
Leave it to Steve, to be able to pull a 12 hour movie out of his hat!
[Wink]
 
Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 12-23-2003, 11:51 PM:
 
I don't watch the damn things......I just run 'um [Big Grin]

Seriously, I usually don't watch movies. But if you want an answer, some of the ones I have watched that were long:

Apollo 13 (140 min)
Patton (171 min)
The Greatest Story Ever Told (13 reels of triacetate)
Shindler's list (197 min)
Tora Tora Tora (144 min)
Gettysburg (254 min)

But I am cheating....some of these were Laser or DVD movies that I have watched over a can of Busch. [Big Grin]
 
Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 12-24-2003, 12:35 AM:
 
My list:

Single long movies:

Titanic
GWTW '39 and '98
West Side Story
The Godfather
Waco:Rules Of Engagement
Dances With Wolves
Branaugh's Hamlet
Apocalypse Now (70mm)
2001: A Space Odyssey (70mm)
The Sound Of Music
Amadeus
Das Boot: The Director's Cut

Multi-film 'marathons' (in one sitting, stopping only to rethread when necessary):

Back To The Future Trilogy
Friday The 13th 1-2-3-4-5 (dusk to dawn Halloween night marathon in the 80's)
Indiana Jones: Raiders/Temple Of Doom/Last Crusade
Star Trek 1-2-3-4

-Aaron
 
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 12-24-2003, 09:16 AM:
 
Fritz Lang's Die Niebelungen comfortably gets over the five-hour line if shown at 16fps and I've both seen and projected both parts straight through with a half-hour interval. Part 1 was of the American release version (Katharine Hilliker intertitles) preserved by the New Zealand Film Archive and was missing the animation sequence, but Part 2 was from the Bundesarchiv and pretty much complete. The same pianist (Stephen Horne) played both parts - five hours of that in one evening is quite an achievement, I'd say. That having been said, if the original, 10-hour version of Greed is ever rediscovered, the NFT pianists will really have their work cut out!

I've also shown the Kevin Brownlow Napoléon restoration but (apart from on video) not seen it as a punter. At the NFT we occasionally showed a Japanese epic called The Human Condition, of which the original title transliterates wonderfully as Ningen No Joken. It is a trilogy of three films, each well over the 10-reel mark, and each one very depressing - no joken indeed.
 




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