In 2019 is there any point watching....

[hedgehog90]

No swearing, no sex or nudity, and even though it's set during the American civil war I bet there aren't any explosions either! (there is Mammy though, which nowadays is probably considered much worse than an exploding swearing vagina)
And it's 3h 53m long.
I can almost guarantee that the only enjoyment I'll get from it is the satisfaction of finishing it, as if it were a marathon or a big hill with a name.

Is there any point?

[BlodwynPig]

Whats it about?

[thecuriousorange]

I can almost guarantee that the only enjoyment I'll get from it is the satisfaction of hearing him say: "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn."

[St_Eddie]

I was going to say, bit weird of hedgehog90 to say...

No swearing

...given that the film famously features Clark Gable saying "frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" to Vivien Leigh.  See also; that bit where he says "fuck off, you massive cunt" to her.

[gib]

Is there any point?

Yes, save the rest of us the bother.

[PlanktonSideburns]

double speed, sound off youtube open with some jaunty ragtime music playlist on in the background.

ploughed through irreversible, sophies choice and world at war using this tactic this weekend, i recommend it

[Osmium]

No, it's a shiter. This bit is a good laugh though. https://youtu.be/W6ZlwezKaqg?t=90

[chveik]

popcorn classic innit

[Sebastian Cobb]

double speed, sound off youtube open with some jaunty ragtime music playlist on in the background.

ploughed through irreversible, sophies choice and world at war using this tactic this weekend, i recommend it

I reckon this would work well with Tremors, but it does mean you'd miss out on the line 'Melvin, one of these day's someone's going to kick your ass'.

[Ferris]

Whats it about?

Leaving with weather.

[chveik]

you need to listen to some real experts

https://www.oncinematimeline.com/the-podcast/episode-14

[Icehaven]

My Aunty got it for Christmas on video in the late 80s and wanted to watch it with the family a few days later. All I can remember is that with people pausing to make cups of tea or food or take phonecalls etc. it seemed to be on for a whole day. It was early afternoon when it started and by the time it got to 7ish, which is quite late when you're eight, it was still going strong. My cousin and me were too young to just sit and watch it so were going in and out playing and so on but I remember thinking it must never be going to end, ever.

[Hey, Punk!]

Absent by the breeze.

[neveragain]

Depart by Fart.

[Bazooka]

I prefer the CGI remake.

[idunnosomename]

Whats it about?

farting

[Icehaven]

Charades!!
Book, film.
Four words.
Mime being blown away by waving arms and nearly falling over while stumbling away until out of sight.
Every fucking Christmas Auntie.
Every year.
We got you the damn video, what more do you want?

[imitationleather]

Now we're all binging on box sets and taking coke and whatnot a four hour film doesn't seem so massively long anymore.

Still not watched it, though. I don't like westerns or whatever it is. It's a western, right?

[mothman]

Not really. It's set during the Civil War, so the start of the period when Westerns are predominantly set. But it's in the already-gentrified east of the continent. It's an Eastern.

[bgmnts]

Not really. It's set during the Civil War, so the start of the period when Westerns are predominantly set. But it's in the already-gentrified east of the continent. It's an Eastern.

The not-so-wild West.

The Mild West.

[imitationleather]

But it's so old that when it was originally screened all of the audience were cowboys on horseback.

[hedgehog90]

Another EPIC (long & old) I feel like I should see but have always been a bit wary of - The Birth of a Nation.
You know, the racist one with no talking.
Unlike GWTW though I'm genuinely curious to see this at some point, even though it's essentially just another overly long American civil war drama (3h 13m). I even have it on DVD somewhere.

There's no swearing in it obviously, but I'm hopeful it'll provide me with a few explosions, some actors and extras getting seriously injured/maimed/killed, maybe even a bit of underage nudity. And of course I'm guaranteed some hardcore racism.
Hell yeah. It's like the GG Allin of American civil war re-enactment films.

...

It'll probably be incredibly boring though, won't it.

In 2019 is there any point watching D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation?

[imitationleather]

My mum went to the BFI to see Birth of a Nation and said it was good. She does watch a lot of stuff that my internet-addled mind does not have the attention span for, though.

[mothman]

It'll probably be incredibly boring though, won't it.

I'm guessing there's a lot of interchangeable white actors gsticulating wildly (and in silence) for minutes at a time, followed by a brief caption card saying "Let's go kill ourself some <racial epithet deleted>!"

[Blumf]

Still not watched it, though. I don't like westerns or whatever it is. It's a western, right?

Doesn't star John Wayne, so no.

[Shit Good Nose]

A big problem I have with these silent-era films – particularly American ones, and particularly those made by DW Griffith – aside from this very succinct and well observed point:

I'm guessing there's a lot of interchangeable white actors gsticulating wildly (and in silence) for minutes at a time, followed by a brief caption card saying "Let's go kill ourself some <racial epithet deleted>!"

is the fairly regular very odd shifts in tone – so you'll cut from a scene of a young mother bawling her eyes out whilst holding her dead baby in her arms, straight to a sequence of slapstick and lots of mugging straight at the camera with a lot of jaunty piano music on the soundtrack.

Birth of a Nation (and, to a grander extent, Intolerance) is worth one watch because of its importance in the history of cinema and the giant technical strides it made, but yeah it's objectively "of its time", and when you consider that even many people at the time it came out commented upon its dubious white power stance, it's not just me playing my usual "I wish people would stop trying to rewrite history and retrospectively apply current day thinking" line - it's THAT wrong.  But, once you've seen it, you'll never need or want to see it ever again, unless you're a student studying it either from a technical cinematic point of view, or the history of race and/or political relations in America.

As it is, Intolerance (which Griffith made as a direct result of the negative comments Birth received) is the better film of the two all around – the sets are fucking mental, even compared to stuff done in the 70s and 80s – but it still has all of the trappings and tropes of silent cinema.

Basically if you want to watch a decent long film from the silent era which isn't tonally all over the place, then it's pretty much Abel Gance's Napoleon and Erich von Stroheim's Greed, and that's it.

As for Gone With the Wind, it is what it has always been – a sweeping melodramatic romantic costume period drama.  Mills and Boone writ large.  If that's your cup of tea, then go for your life.  Otherwise its place in cinema history is cemented by its (then shocking) utterance of "fuck" and "cunt" and its technicolor enormoscope.

[hedgehog90]

Basically if you want to watch a decent long film from the silent era which isn't tonally all over the place, then it's pretty much Abel Gance's Napoleon and Erich von Stroheim's Greed, and that's it.

I've downloaded the reconstructed version of Greed (3h 59m), where most of the shots consist of stills with that soft zoom effect like in a Ken Burns documentary.
I'm still holding out hope that they'll eventually unearth the perfectly preserved, unedited rushes of the film in an a crypt, along with the original cut of Murnau's 4 Devils.

And if I was going to post a third example in this thread it would be the epic-est epic of them all, Napoleon (5h 30m). Unlike GWTW or TBOAN though, this looks fucking amazing and I'm genuinely looking forward to seeing it at some point. The running time isn't even that daunting as it's broken up into 3 distinct parts. You can download the untouched 3 disc BFI bluray on Archive.com for free, it's almost 120GB.

Also, while we're mentioning films that take a whole day to watch, Bela Tarr's Satantango (7h 30m) should be getting a blu-ray release soon. It was announced over a year ago and since then there's been no news. Every time I check blu-ray.com its release date has been pushed back further.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

As SGN says, Gone With the Wind is the ne plus ultra of big fuck-off romantic melodramas, so if you fancy a bit of that then you'll enjoy it. If you don't like that sort of thing, then obviously it's not for you. It's not a dull, prissy, ponderous film, though, it's full of dramatic incident and vivid characters.

Also, if you need to take a break, you can always pause it at the interval (it includes an actual interval, which was a polite way in 1939 of saying to a cinema audience: "Yeah, we know, you probably need to go for a piss at this point. We'll see you again in 20 minutes.")

[Shit Good Nose]

Also, while we're mentioning films that take a whole day to watch, Bela Tarr's Satantango (7h 30m) should be getting a blu-ray release soon. It was announced over a year ago and since then there's been no news. Every time I check blu-ray.com its release date has been pushed back further.

I don't go a bundle on Tarr, but last I heard (about its UK blu release at least) was that the BBFC were still struggling with what to do with the scene featuring the cat.  Tarr provided "proof" to them that a vet was on set during filming of the sequence and the cat was not harmed in any way, so they let it go for the original theatrical and DVD releases, primarily because it's an integral sequence in the film.  But, as with everyone else in the media world these days, the BBFC are more sensitive (they seem to be heading back to the dark old days of the Ferman-era BBFC), plus there has latterly been some doubt about Tarr's claims that the cat was not harmed.  It's still an integral scene though, so what to do...

As for the US - I believe the US DVD was a direct port of the UK Artificial Eye release (albeit with an extra disc), so I presume they're still taking their lead from whichever UK distributor currently has it.

[hedgehog90]

As SGN says, Gone With the Wind is the ne plus ultra of big fuck-off romantic melodramas, so if you fancy a bit of that then you'll enjoy it. If you don't like that sort of thing, then obviously it's not for you. It's not a dull, prissy, ponderous film, though, it's full of dramatic incident and vivid characters.

You're really selling it to me. Think I might give this a go after all.

I don't go a bundle on Tarr, but last I heard (about its UK blu release at least) was that the BBFC were still struggling with what to do with the scene featuring the cat.  Tarr provided "proof" to them that a vet was on set during filming of the sequence and the cat was not harmed in any way, so they let it go for the original theatrical and DVD releases, primarily because it's an integral sequence in the film.  But, as with everyone else in the media world these days, the BBFC are more sensitive (they seem to be heading back to the dark old days of the Ferman-era BBFC), plus there has latterly been some doubt about Tarr's claims that the cat was not harmed.  It's still an integral scene though, so what to do...

As for the US - I believe the US DVD was a direct port of the UK Artificial Eye release (albeit with an extra disc), so I presume they're still taking their lead from whichever UK distributor currently has it.

Haven't seen it yet, the only thing I know about it is 'the scene featuring the cat'.
Just as I wrote that my cat sleepily stumbled into the room, looked at me, flopped onto his side and did a big yawn. If only he knew how perfect that was. On second thought I better just check he hasn't found the vial with the skull and cross bones on it.