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When I heard that Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre’s production of The Lehman Trilogy was three-plus hours long (including intermission), I must admit I heaved a sigh of resignation. The notion of getting home at 11 on a school night after a full day of work does not thrill me.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the time veritably flew by in the fast-paced, inventive production, featuring deft performances from Ari Cohen, Jordan Pettle and Alex Poch Goldin. I did not look at my watch once.
But I would still argue it could have been trimmed by 20 minutes to no perceptible detriment. I would say the same about almost every movie I’ve sat through recently — Dune: Part Two (fell asleep thrice), Oppenheimer, Maestro, The Holdovers, Anatomy of a Fall, Poor Things. I adored many of these films and yet I felt each one overstayed its welcome.
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I’m not alone in this: Google “are movies too long?” and you’ll unearth a wealth of think pieces, magazine essays and Reddit threads devoted to the topic.
Movies like Dune: Part Two are good, sure; but are they too long? WARNER BROS PICTURES
The short answer (and please, let’s keep it short) is yes. Movie length has been creeping up over the last two decades and it’s turning time at the multiplex into an endurance competition.
After theatres began inserting an intermission into Martin Scorsese’s 3½ -hour Killers of the Flower Moon, his longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker publically lambasted the practice, calling it “a violation.”
In a recent interview, Scorsese said, “People say it’s three hours, but come on, you can sit in front of the TV and watch something for five hours.”
He added, “Also, there are many people who watch theatre for 3.5 hours. There are real actors on stage, you can’t get up and walk around. You give it that respect. Give cinema some respect.”
I give cinema plenty of respect — just ask anyone who has been forced to sit and watch the end of the closing credits with me. But Scorsese’s argument isn’t valid here: yes, I’ve watched five hours of TV, but not without getting up in between episodes for snacks, bathroom breaks and light housecleaning to pretend I’m not wasting my day.
And the same goes for theatre: yes, The Lehman Trilogy was three hours long, but there was an intermission and a pause to stretch your legs. No one is so precious about it that they argue it cannot be viewed meaningfully unless it’s an unbroken experience.
I agree with Scorsese that movies are best seen on the big screen, but I don’t know why he insists that his oeuvre is best viewed while shifting in one’s seat, trying to ignore the nagging discomfort of a full bladder.
I think eventually the trend will reverse itself — longer movies cost more to make and that feels unsustainable in this fragile time at the cinema — but until it happens, do yourself a favour and download the RunPee app, an indispensable tool in the war against self-important three-hour epics.
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