The movie of Brady Corbet, The Brutalist, It is so long (three hours and thirty -four minutes) that its projection is interrupted with an intermediate. In recent years, films that exceed two and a half hours seem to be increasing. Why this trend?
A quick look at the audiovisual ecosystem will suffice us to realize that its contents are increasingly numerous, fast and, above all, brief.
Our attention is constantly challenged by the incessant flow of tweets, reelsVideos of Tiktok, etc. Given this saturation – not to say hypertrophy – of the audiovisual space, some authors have indicated the risk that our attention is compromised, reduced. Such is the case of Nicholas Carr and his already classic Superficial What is internet with our minds?
In the light of this circumstance, it should be assumed that the design of audiovisual material, such as films or series, would tend to reduce its duration, but the truth is that the duration of the films does not stop growing.
The increase of minutes on the screen is warned in films for movie theaters. This is the case in The Brutalist (Brady Corbet2025), with 214 minutes, Dry Grass (Nuri Bilge Ceylan2023) with 198 minutes, Avatar: The sense of water (James Cameron2022), with 192 minutes, the recently released Babylon (Damien Chazelle2022), with 188 minutes, or success Avengers: Endgame (Anthony y Russian Joe2019) and its 181 minutes.
But you can also see this trend in films designed mainly to be exploited by platforms of streaming -as The Irish (Martin Scorsese2019), with 209 minutes of footage, and Bardo (Alejandro González Iñárritu2022) and its 159 minutes – or those oriented to more minority circuits, traditionally linked to independent or author cinema. In this sense we can mention Pacifiction (2022), the work of Albert Serra which develops over 166 minutes.
First of all, it should be noted that there have always been films with a duration greater than the average. Let’s think for example of the classics as What the wind took (Victor Fleming, George sugar y Sam Wood1939), with a duration of 238 minutes, and Ben-how (William Wyler1959) and its 211 minutes, to put only a couple of well -known examples.
The question that tries to be discussed in this article is the reason for the increase in the duration of the films at a time when everything – the series, the wars between the platforms of streamingthe loss of attention capacity and the unbeatable offer that encourages accelerated consumption – indicates that the trend should go to the opposite side.
The starting hypothesis is that the reason attends to three purposes: on the one hand the desire to expand the narratives, on the other, the need to differentiate itself from television fiction (or via streaming) and, finally, the attempt to justify the growing price of an entrance to the movie theater.
This problem, however, does not imply an absolute novelty, but also accentuates features already present in the film industry from the Hollywood of the 50s. Already at that time, the need to unmarked the television offer led studies to bet on works of greater extension, with more stars, with more effects, more show. Something like what happens today with productions of the type Avatar he who by Marvel.
In previous decades the cinemas had opted for a double session model, inherited from the past, or for three projections in a row. This was one of the reasons why the average duration of a film was 90 or 100 minutes.
Ironically, productions with spirit blockbusterwhose duration exceeded in a few minutes the average – as ALIEN: The eighth passenger (Ridley Scott1979; 116 minutes), Return to the future (Robert Zemeckis1985; 116 minutes), Ghostbusters (Ivan Reitman1984; 107 minutes) and Los Goonies (Richard Donner1985; 114 minutes), to mention only a few examples that are still very present in the memory of the readers – they went from being exceptions to becoming the norm and ended up marking the new course of the industry.
On the other hand, the attempt to expand the narratives (which, paradoxically, could be seen as an “attempt to resemble the series”), without becoming something novel, does present different nuances.
Robert McKeein his work The scriptpoints out the existence of works with more acts of the traditional three. In this sense, appointment Four weddings and a funeral (Mike Newell1994), with five acts; In search of the lost ark (Steven Spielberg1981), with you, or The cook, the thief, his wife and his lover (Peter Greenaway1989), with eight.
Now, as already pointed out, which in the past was a kind of exception begins to become a rule.
Which leads us to the following conclusion: currently, cinema must face several problems. Among these are the changes in the spectator’s consumption habits – which include a decrease in the attendance at Salas -, the primacy of the series (more consistent with the idea of domestic and dynamic consumption), the largest audiovisual offer and the price of tickets to the room – sympty to the cost of the monthly subscription to any platform of streaming–.
For all the reasons indicated in the text, the film industry, especially the one oriented to be projected in rooms, seems to have concentrated its offer. Thus, it has enhanced large -budget and duration films, with more sub -sub -sections and greater spectacularization. All these characteristics seem to justify the price of the entrance and offer a deterrent incentive against the subscription to a platform of streaming or other diffusion channels.
In the case of more productions indiesthe longest duration would attend a desire to explore new narratives, further away from both television speeches or mainstream as of the great productions.
Be that as it may, and while confirming the drift of the sector, it may be advisable to request the popcorn in XL format, if we do not want them to run out before the lights of the room are felt.
This article is included in the investigations carried out by the Research Group of the University of Murcia Idecoa.
*Professor of Audiovisual Communication, University of Murcia.
This article was originally published in The Conversation.
[Fotos: archivo; Lol Crawley/ A24 vía AP]
