Wasted movie weekend.

[barsoomcore]

As you point out, event pictures have always been long, starting right with Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (187 min). And event pictures have steadily become more and more significant in terms of revenue over the history of cinema. And of course we no longer have serials in the theatres -- those have moved to TV, and how do you determine the length there? I mean, how long is "Days of our Lives" -- that show's been going on for DECADES. On the one hand, it's an hour long. On the other, it's forty years long.

But if you want to narrow the scope of your argument to movies, and suggest that longer movies are becoming more and more significant in terms of revenue, I'll take that. Looks like there's data to back it up.

It was your broader assertion that "I think delayed gratification is actually the way all entertainment is going," that I was objecting to. There have always been extremely long forms of entertainment and short forms. What is more popular in a particular field depends as much (probably more) on the economics of delivery and consumption than on audience tastes. Right now, big event pictures (which are always longer) dominate box office revenues. I don't know if that was the case in 1955 (the data doesn't tell us), but it's clearly become more and more the case.

But of course box office revenues are only part of the story, and I wonder what trends we're seeing in DVD sales -- not to mention what the proliferation of channels and so on is doing to television.

I just watched all ten episodes of "Les Vampires", Feuillade's popular crime serial from 1915, and with each episode at 45 minutes, that's 450 minutes of cinematic entertainment. And that format was very common and very popular in those days -- we don't see it at all anymore. The delivery mechanism for films has made this whole format unworkable. But that doesn't mean people don't want to watch long-form cinema anymore.

It's funny -- usually the argument is "Kids these days, they have no attention span, everything's getting faster and quicker and it's bad bad bad." It's interesting to see someone argue the opposite.

Thanks for the facts. Facts are good.

 

[fanboy2000]

But if you want to narrow the scope of your argument to movies, and suggest that longer movies are becoming more and more significant in terms of revenue, I'll take that. Looks like there's data to back it up.

I kind of had to narrow my argument down to movies. I can go to IMDb and pull running times off a movies page, I don't know of a website I can pull the word count of individual books off of. If I did, you can bet I'd be comparing the length of Robert Jordan's books to Agatha Christie's books.

It was your broader assertion that "I think delayed gratification is actually the way all entertainment is going," that I was objecting to.

My opinion is based on several personal observations. As always, your milage may vary.

1. There are very few short story magazines anymore. Their absence in Science fiction is particularly noticeable. I only know of three off-hand. In addition, there was a thread here some time ago about people's opinions on short stories and the response was very much against them. The typical argument is that short stories don't allow for the character depth they want.

2. In a similar thread on these boards, someone was asking for recommendations of fantasy books that weren't part of a series. I find it very interesting that stand alone fantasy books aren't self evident, a potential reader needs to search for them.

3. I used to be on a Buffy Mailing list back in the Buffy's high school days. Every time the episode was a self-contained story, the reaction was "it's ok, for a monster of the week episode." The soap-opera story telling was much more appealing to Buffy's larger fan base.

4. I've been watching a really bad sitcom lately called How I met Your Mother. (Hey, I said it was bad...) and rather than go with the traditional episodic format, I've noticed it's taking a more serialized approach. Indeed, half-hour sitcoms seem to be going away in favor of hour-long dramas and unscripted television.

5. I hear more complaints about short form storytelling, for being short, than I do for long form. The complaints are lack of character development and complex plots. Long form storytelling seems to have an automatic legitimacy over short.

It's funny -- usually the argument is "Kids these days, they have no attention span, everything's getting faster and quicker and it's bad bad bad." It's interesting to see someone argue the opposite.

It is funny. The truth is that I love short entertainment. I like longer fair too. I watched the LOTR movies and enjoyed all of them. I read the Harry Potter books and think they're great. But my heart is in episodic entertainment. Oz, Poirot, Holmes, and Asimov's shorts are the stories that I love. I pick up the book and I'm there. Everything you need to know about that world is there for you, self contained. I travel a lot and such books provide me with complete entertainment on the road or in the air. I would love to short form entertainment get the respect it deserves, but I see few defenders of the art.

 

[barsoomcore]

On the other hand, short-form animation is flourishing, music videos continue to thrive and Charles Dickens wrote really really really really really long stories a hundred and fifty years ago. To say nothing of Henry VI, parts 1, 2 and 3.

 

[barsoomcore]

On the other hand, short-form animation is flourishing, music videos continue to thrive and Charles Dickens wrote really really really really really long stories a hundred and fifty years ago. To say nothing of Henry VI, parts 1, 2 and 3.

And on the other hand, it IS true that delivery of massive content has gotten orders of magnitude easier in the past twenty years. And so maybe's it's true that entertainment IS lengthening in some measures.

 

[fanboy2000]

On the other hand, short-form animation is flourishing, music videos continue to thrive and Charles Dickens wrote really really really really really long stories a hundred and fifty years ago. To say nothing of Henry VI, parts 1, 2 and 3.

MTV hardly shows any music videos. Last time I watched the VH1 it was the all-music channel. And M2 was supposed to be all music videos, but they seem to have given up on that idea.

But wait! Some of the most popular features at Ciniquest, the San Jose Film Festival, are their short film series. An Pixar's short films are almost universally regarded as phenomenal. Then there is Star Wars: Clone Wars.

And we can't forget the length of Renaissance Fair acts, those are usually under an hour.

And there are all those Bathroom Reader books.

You know, I have access to an excellent university library, I should do some searching through the academic journals and see if any of this has actually been studied.