I recently noticed myself doing something when I go through my DVDs to decide what I’ll watch: I look at how long it is and that becomes a factor in my decision. I’ve also found other people do the same thing.
I suspect it has to do with how much time we feel we have in our increasingly busy lives. I find myself wanting to watch a movie like, say, Once Upon a Time in the West but, because it’s fairly late in the evening, I know I’ll be up past midnight, or later, and feel I can’t be up that late because I have to be up early in the morning for work. So I end up picking a movie that’s 90 minutes or so long, rather than 165 or 180 minutes.
I think time has always been an issue for films but I wonder if it is even more an issue today than in earlier decades. Time can have a huge effect on a movie. For example, I was less than impressed by the theatrical version of Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven. It was 144 minutes long. Later, I found time to see the director’s cut of the film, 194 minutes long. What a difference! I loved it! But the problem remains. I keep wanting to watch the director’s cut again but have the same problem: when will I have three hours to sit down and watch it?
Do I have a point? I suppose I do but it’s merely musing and wondering whether this will/is an increasing problem for filmmakers. There is something marvelous in getting lost in the stream of a long film, but when can we find the time to sit down and watch it? And in an effort to shorten a film to fit a more acceptable timeline, what gets lost on the cutting room floor? If Kingdom of Heaven is any indication, it would seem everything that makes a film great.
