Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

Film Lengths, beginnings,middles and ends...too short or too long.

  • 04-07-2005 10:33am
    #1
    BlitzKrieg
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,698 ✭✭✭✭


    Now i just finished watching the War of the Roses, a film by danny Devito which i believe is the spiritual prediccessor (sp) to Mr and Mrs Smith, now while i didnt think much of Mr and Mrs Smith i enjoyed The War of the Roses immensly and as i sit here pndering over the two i have decided the reason i liked War of the Roses better was that it used its time very well, there is only 4 minutes between the films in length. But despite being the shorter of the two, Roses filled in so much more in tension, development, comedy and diversity.


    I put this down to War of the Roses having a longer run up to the *fight* compared to Mr and Mrs Smith which jumped into it pretty quick in comparison. So are films today jumping the gun too quickly today?


    The other big films of the moment. War of The Worlds and Batman Begins, differ. War of the Worlds does jump the gun pretty much, compared to all other adaptations of Wells book the Aliens manifest themselves shockingly quick. Batman Begins meanwhile has a huge development arc for its storyline which is infact the most appealing part of the film for me, But it stumples slightly that towards the end the film seems to be put on fastforward and it runs through the later scenes
    scarecrow, final fight scene, the entire microwave plot all seem to be hurdled when the story is developing
    So yes a large developing arc can be good but can lead to faults elsewhere.

    So i ask you how do you feel about films today in terms of length? Are they too long? Are they too short?

    Or do they lag too much at the beginning/middle/end. Maybe they dont spend enough time in these same areas.



    It can be argued (and easily accepted) that a film length and where this should be put to really comes down to what type of film it is. It is believed that comedy's and action films should set up as quickly as possible. While Epics, war movies and maybe Comic book movies (note spiderman and batman begins) should develop more at the beginning.

    My personal opinion from what i have seen in this years summer catch i perferred the films that developed more. These would be Batman Begins, Howls Moving Castle, Sin City and to a lesser extent Madagascar (the detail that they
    didnt end up in madagascar till quite late in the film
    appealed to me even though it was a short film overall). So i do perfer a nice bit of development in my films unless it has some very impressive *grab you* opening.


Comments

  • #2
    ixoy
    Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 17,994 Mod ✭✭✭✭ixoy


    I think it's really genre specific. Take the extended cut of 'Lord of the Rings' - it's about 40 minutes before they actually leave Hobbiton. Now that's definetely a nice long buildup that works very well because it enables you to get to know the characters and understand why they react, as they do, when confronted with the situations they face later on. I also think it was useful, more recently, in 'Batman Begins' - I too enjoyed the character building and agree the flash/bang/wallop acceleration at the end felt a little forced, as if they were trying to (I suspect) appease a producer's need for an explosive finale.

    Going back to last year, I saw 'Cellular'. It takes about one minute into it for the main plot action to begin. In this case the movie, being quite short, works very well. The characters are developed through their circumstances and it made the film an enjoyable bit of nonsense rather than forcing the viewer through some tedious happy family moments prior to the kidnapping.

    My contribution to the great boards film thread was '2001'. It has epic themes and has about 15 minutes (or so) opening before anyone even speaks. That's a great example of mood building and the viewer can appreciate the wonderful settings and cinematography to the accompanient of a great score without being distracted by rapid fire action or even dialogue.

    Having said that, I think too often movies fall into a predictable set pattern of beginning/middle alteraction/big grand finale. The fact that they're generallly neithher too short or too long creates a certain sense of apathy - you pretty much know when they're going to end and that's not always a good thing...


Advertisement