I'm gonna try to finally see it on Friday.
Still, since the film is three and a half hours long, it's already getting a lot of people talking about it.
Movie runtimes seem to be a constant subject of controversy.
Of course, when I do see the film, I'll chime in on Killers of the Flower Moon specifically.
That said, I find the argument frustrating because people seem to think that they can talk broadly about runtimes.
Granted, it's a miniseries, and one of the greatest ever made, but, I almost watched Band of Brothers in its entirety in one day. The only reason why I didn't was because I had a corrupted disk.
I watched 1900 in one sitting. That's over five hours.
I watched Once Upon a Time in America in one sitting. That's over five hours.
I watched The Best of Youth in one sitting. That's just over six hours.
There's a reason why the bad version of War and Peace is only three and a half hours, and the great version is six and a half hours -- there's that much story to tell.
All that matters in regard to runtime is exactly what matters in regard to page count with novels -- is there enough story to fit?
With 1900, probably not. In fact, I'm not even sure that movie should exist. With Once Upon a Time in America, absolutely. It's rough, and not something that I can fit into my schedule for a re-watch regularly; but, it's one of the greatest films ever made.
I've said this before, and I'll say it again, we need to bring back intermissions.
Actually, I had this discussion about Oppenheimer. It's a three hour movie, and they needed to extend the platters to fit the 15/70 prints. Still, it's a 2D movie, and most IMAX theaters are equipped for 3D. I can thread a show in ten minutes.
Why not just have the movie up to the bomb going off as one reel, have an intermission, let people go to the bathroom or the concession stand, and come back for the last hour after we're done threading?
I think that runtime would almost become a non-issue if people didn't feel that pressure of knowing that they'll have to hold off peeing for four hours, or risk missing a important part of the movie.
Pretty simple.
If your movie is three hours, you have an intermission at two hours. If your movie is over four hours, it's probably a good idea to have two intermissions.
Intermissions shouldn't be a scary thing in movies. Hell, we had them in live theater for centuries before movies existed.
It's not like the intermission in 2001: A Space Odyssey took the audience out of the film, and that was only two and a half hours long.