Inspired by the current thread on the worthiness/boringness (?) of the film Munich:
Thanks to IFC (or Sundance) I finally after 32 years got to see Professione: Reporter, BKA The Passenger, starring Jack Nicholson, and was enthralled- slow moving, not much action, but definitely a worthy journey and now one of my all time favs. A couple of similarly paced and length films I also have enjoyed are L’Avventura, Paris, Texas and Picnic at Hanging Rock (although this one is not techincally “long”). Anyone have any recommendations of similar films?
The pacing of *Frailty * is slow, but to me, that just makes the build-up of suspense that much more delicious. I don’t remember if it’s long, though. Just slow, and dark, and creepy.
Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. Pepper Mill hates this one, but I love the camera shots and the use of classical music. Kubrick’s use of a lens with an outrageously small f/number enabled him to shoot pictures that had been off-limits to photographers for ages (because too much illumination would fade them) and to shoot scenes entirely by candle light. The story of the long, sordid career of Redmond Barry takes a long time to tell and develop, too.
We’re about halfway through Into Great Silence, which is a documentary shot with entirely natural light about monastic life at this, you know, monastery. Where they take a vow of silence. It sounds like a dreadfully boring movie, but it’s totally not. We did have to stop it, though, because it’s four hours long and we had to go to bed.
I just saw Lawrence of Arabia two weeks ago and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Even though I saw it in high def on a big screen TV (well, 42"), I can only imagine how impressive it must’ve looked when it originally came out in the theaters.
Actually, it wasn’t all THAT long ago that you could’ve seen it on the big screen. They re-released the “restored” version to major theaters in the early 1990s.
Oh, that’s a good one. One of my favorite movies. The build up is great and even though you think you know where it’s going, it surprises you (well…me).
If the OP liked The Passenger & L’Avventura, then let me recommend L’Eclise, which I think is the best film Antonioni made.
I’d say most films by Bergman, Tarkovsky, and Rivette people would characterize as slow-moving, but they’re all worth exploring, with personal faves including Scenes from a Marriage, Andrei Rublev & La Belle Noiseuse, respectively. Theo Angelopoulos is more a required taste, but his 4-hour The Travelling Players is magnificent (and with fewer than 100 shots in the entire film, set at a very leisurely pace).
I picked this up randomly from Blockbuster’s now defunct* “Sundance” area, and enjoyed it a lot. Was long though, and you have to read subtitles, but very good.
*at least defunct now in that particular, college-town Blockbuster
I’m not sure if it’s actually long, but *Requiem for a Dream * felt really long. One of the most depressing movies I’ve ever seen, yet I liked it. A lot.
This movie is one of only two in my adult life that I cried at. What got me is when
the young boy is dying and asks his parents not to fight with each other. Then the scene changes abruptly, with an appropriate swell of music, to the kid’s funeral procession. His coffin is borne along on the little goat cart he used to love to drive, with the same two goats. I put my head on my husband’s should and bawled!
