Published at 11:20 AM on September 6, 2009

Paste Presents the Slowest Movies Of All Time, Pt. 1: The Tedious and Terrible

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After you've finished this list, don't miss The Slowest Movies of All Time, Pt. 2: The Meditative and the Marvelous.

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Interesting filmmakers often stretch time in unusual ways. Even in his first film, the uber-cool romantic caper Breathless (1960), Jean-Luc Godard told a story that skittered along like a needle skipping over an LP, then suddenly stopped to spend 30 minutes watching a couple hanging around idly in an apartment, in real time. This decision says something about what Godard considered important.

By contrast, in 2006 the French, robotic dance-music duo released a film called Electroma that was painfully, ridiculously slow—slower than a pack of sloths on Quaaludes climbing uphill. It was the kind of slow that makes the viewer angry for having lost time. Electroma is 74 minutes of our lives we'll never, ever get back.

Slow movies, then, come in two basic categories: Those that lull the viewer into a blissful state of near-hypnosis, and those that lack what we might call narrative drive—films, in other words, without a point. A director has to earn the right to move slowly. A good slow movie may have very little happening explicitly on screen, but it still gives your mind plenty to do. A bad slow movie is ponderous rather than philosophical, a self-indulgent exercise in directorial ego. Good slow movies make you want to wallow in each luxurious frame. Bad slow movies make you want to fast-forward.

For our examination of the best and worst in slow cinema, we’ve decided to take our time. Today we’ll roll examine the tedious and the terrible. Tomorrow we’ll unveil slow films worth your time—the meditative and the marvelous. 

TEDIOUS AND TERRIBLE

The New World (2005): This ode to the illicit love of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith was visually arresting, but damn, if the colonists has been as distracted by murmuring brooks, wind-swept wheat fields and gently photosynthesizing leaves as director Terrence Malik, they might not have even made it to the Revolutionary War. On the up side, if Malick was trying to simulate the mind-numbing tedium of waiting on supplies from the motherland, we totally know how those guys felt. 



Barry Lyndon (1975): In a decision worth of filmmaking lore, Kubrick insisted on shooting this period piece using only natural light. Good for him. If only he had insisted on compelling action as well. The duel scene is kind of magnificent. The rest of the movie is stupefyingly ponderous.

 


Tideland (2005): Terry Gilliam continued his string of problematic films with Tideland. Stagnant, disturbing (not in a good way), hard to follow—it is painful and unwatchable. How such drivel can come from the once-genius director of Brazil is mindboggling. 

 


Empire (1964): This Andy Warhol film was The Bourne Ultimatum of it's generation—had The Bourne Ultimatum been filmed inside a vacuum cleaner for eight hours with the lens cap still on. As a lover of art, I'm glad Andy Warhol made this movie. But don't bother watching the whole thing—I sure haven’t. The fact that it exists is enough. Unless you're peaking on peyote, there's no justification for sitting through this real-time, eight-plus-hour, silent, black & white shot of the Empire State Building at night. The "action" apparently peaks after about six-and-a-half hours, when the building's floodlights are finally killed. The last reel is just a shot of total darkness.




Related Links:
Paste Presents The Slowest Movies Of All Time, Pt. 2: The Meditative and Marvelous

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