Costner’s film, Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1, narrates the country’s pioneering history over a 12-year period before and after the Civil War. It is the first of a 4-part series, the second of which is scheduled for release in August.
Apart from having directed, co-written, produced, and acted in the film, Costner has reportedly invested between $38 mn and $50 mn in the ambitious project. While Costner’s dedication to cinema is unquestionable, what has caused comment is the stately pace with which the story unfolds, which some have likened to that of a monumental high-altitude glacier, the sense of near-imperceptible immobility enhanced by its running – creeping? – time of 3 hr 1 min.
Costner seems to be the marathon man of filmdom. His 1990 production, Dances With Wolves, which he directed and acted in, was 5 hours long in the uncut version, prompting some to wonder if it should be retitled ‘Hibernating With Wolves’. However, the whittled-down movie went on to win seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director.
It remains to be seen if Horizon, in quadruplicate, will follow in the earlier film’s successful wake. But the lengthy production’s lack of an intermission has generated a wider debate about the inclusion, or exclusion, of intervals during the course of a film.
While Bollywood has traditionally given audiences a mid-movie interval, largely to promote the sale of popcorn and fizzy drinks, Hollywood has largely avoided intermissions, with exceptions of epics like Ben Hur (3 hr 32 min), Gone With the Wind (3 hr 41 min), and Gandhi (3 hr 11 min).According to cineastes, such pauses, placed as they are at a flexion point of the film, provide audiences opportunities to discuss the finer nuances of character development and gain a better appreciation of the texture of the fabric of cinematography, as one would of a Benarasi silk sari, or a Savile Row suit.’Doesn’t Charlton Heston look too cute in a toga, knobbly knees and all?’
‘Clark makes a really dishy Rhett Butler, no?’
‘I say, Dicky Attenborough’s made Ben look more like Bapu than Bapu did himself!’
Intermissions also serve a less intellectual function, providing a welcome opportunity for viewers to use what euphemistically are referred to as ‘the facilities’.
Horizon – Chapter 1, has footage – or mileage – of 181 minutes. Add to that another 20-25 minutes of ads and trailers of forthcoming features, and you have over 200 minutes without a break.
Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon is 3 hr 26 min long, reportedly giving one viewer a severe case of bedsores.
If the trend for longer and longer films catches on, audiences might find themselves caught between a rock – as represented by the disinclination to miss out on a possibly climactic scene in which the baddy gets his comeuppance – and a hard place, represented by the increasingly urgent demands of a self-willed bladder.
Could such a scenario inspire movie hall franchises to purvey anti-diuretic formulations, diapers, and empty plastic bottles for emergencies, like the ones automobile commuters purportedly carried in Bangkok’s erstwhile notorious traffic jams?
Till then, moviegoers have little option but, like huddled masses yearning to be free, with teeth and kidneys clenched, to await the magical words of liberty to appear on the screen: THE END.
