"Slow" movies

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so, what are your favorite slow paced movies, mostly American and European (I watched most of the Asian stuff...)... you know, like Bela Tsar etc.?

― mafistos, Monday, 16 January 2006 14:08 (twenty years ago)

Safe

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 17 January 2006 02:19 (twenty years ago)

Gerry and Last Days (heavy on the bela tarr influence), Cronenberg's Spider is another great "slow" english language movie. But as far as slowness is concerned the Iranians, the chinese and Taiwanese do it the best

― Kifah Foutah, Tuesday, 17 January 2006 05:54 (twenty years ago)

DUES:

2001: A Space Odyssey!!!

I got it all sync-ed up with this Procul Harem cassette on one side and Pablo Cruise on the other.... EPIC.

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Tuesday, 17 January 2006 21:07 (twenty years ago)

Rubicon. The slowest, most hypnotic movie I've ever seen.

― Anthony (Anthony F), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 03:36 (twenty years ago)

I have that in my Netflix queue - I'll push it to the front!

― adamrl (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 05:39 (twenty years ago)

THE LAST DETAIL, believe it.

― corey c (shock of daylight), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 10:18 (twenty years ago)

Empire.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 12:41 (twenty years ago)

Most Tarkovsky, esp the last 20 minutes of Nostalghia.

Jeanne Dielman.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 14:52 (twenty years ago)

I was thinking of starting this very thread myself, just the other day.
James Benning has to be on the list. I've only seen 'El Valley Centro' but it was absolutely awesome. Started off arse-achingly dull, but became increasingly hypnotic. After an hour and a half, I didn't want it to end.

― evil bill (evil bill), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 15:06 (twenty years ago)

ernie gehr's eureka is the slowest movie i've ever seen, i think.

― a spectator bird (a spectator bird), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 22:07 (twenty years ago)

are there any good slow-paced adventure movies?

― senseiDancer (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 22:20 (twenty years ago)

Shinji Aoyama's Eureka is pretty slow too.

Slow movies juat have to be seen in the cinema. i find them near impossible to watch at home.

― jed_ (jed), Wednesday, 18 January 2006 22:59 (twenty years ago)

Slow movies juat have to be seen in the cinema. i find them near impossible to watch at home.

this is pretty OTM.

although, from what i'd heard, i was scared that tropical malady was going to be too dreadfully slow and i was kicking myself for missing it in the theatre. but i watched it at home and was riveted.

― a spectator bird (a spectator bird), Thursday, 19 January 2006 04:17 (twenty years ago)

Anybody else in NY see Bela Tarr's "Satantango" this last week? 7 1/2 hours with slow pacing, etc, but entirely compelling. Who else could take an hour or so to have a character leave the house to refill their bottle of brandy and make it so watchable? He's amazing.

― TRG (TRG), Thursday, 19 January 2006 17:45 (twenty years ago)

I skipped "Satantango" because MoMA's pair of 15-MINUTE breaks were ridiculous. I saw it @ the Walter Reade Theater a few years ago and they had a proper dinner break.

America will doubtlessly find even the trim version of The New World "slow."

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 19 January 2006 20:17 (twenty years ago)

TS: "i hated it, it was too slow" vs. "i hated it, it was depressing"

― a spectator bird (a spectator bird), Thursday, 19 January 2006 22:56 (twenty years ago)

xpost - I just took food in, wasn't bothered that the breaks weren't longer.

Susan Sontag apparently saw Satantango around 15 times. It's a good film and all - but 15 times??

― TRG (TRG), Friday, 20 January 2006 15:36 (twenty years ago)

liar!

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 20 January 2006 17:03 (twenty years ago)

Oh, I believe her -

15 times = 4.68 days of watching same film!

― TRG (TRG), Friday, 20 January 2006 17:15 (twenty years ago)

Surely there are Star Wars fans who can beat that.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 21 January 2006 04:51 (twenty years ago)

I'm sure you're right. If measured in hours though you would need to see the first Star Wars over 50 times!

― TRG (TRG), Sunday, 22 January 2006 18:32 (twenty years ago)

are there any good slow-paced adventure movies?

My recollection of William Friedkin's "The Sorceror" was that it was both slow and exciting, but it's been years since I've seen it. I would say "The Fast Runner" fits the bill.

― Sparkle Motion's Rising Force, Wednesday, 25 January 2006 19:08 (twenty years ago)

i like slow movies. this might be a bit much though:

Michael Snow's Wavelength (1967), at the other end of the structural spectrum, seemingly consists of a slowly zooming shot from one end of a room to the other. The destination, a close-up of a small photo on the opposite wall, takes 45 minutes to complete.

― sleep (sleep), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:15 (twenty years ago)

It's actually exciting, and "seemingly" is the key word; I saw a cut.

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:21 (twenty years ago)

I love wavelength!

― phantasy bear (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 20:28 (twenty years ago)

wavelength's the bomb!
it's so boring you barely notice the dead body and Beatles tune

― senseiDancer (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 25 January 2006 22:52 (twenty years ago)

l'avventura was really drawn out.

― jonathon, Thursday, 26 January 2006 02:04 (twenty years ago)

good, l'avventura is actually en route from netflix.

now i want to see wavelength! also damnation, satantango and werckmeister harmonies. none of which are netflixable.

― sleep (sleep), Thursday, 26 January 2006 15:44 (twenty years ago)

Werckmeister Harmonies is unbelievable. Damnation is even better.

― phantasy bear (nordicskilla), Thursday, 26 January 2006 18:55 (twenty years ago)

I too have been wanting to see Wavelength for a number of years (it has screened out here at least a couple of times too, but I always miss it). Maybe reading the description is good enough, though.

Another notoriously slow movie I've been wanting to see would be Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. Here's the description from allmovie...

A classic of both feminist and experimental filmmaking, Chantal Akerman's marathon dissection of the life of Belgian housewife/mother/prostitute Jeanne Dielman (Delphine Seyrig) stays on the surface of the details of Jeanne's humdrum daily life, as if it were a real-life, real-time documentary of an ordinary life, in the tradition of Agnès Varda's earlier New Wave landmark, Cleo From 5 to 7 (1961). Jeanne feeds her son, fixes potatoes, does the marketing, entertains gentlemen -- but things slowly, almost imperceptibly start to go wrong, first those potatoes, and then, finally, something more shocking. Akerman sets out to capture the rhythm of daily life, even as that pace sets us up (after several hours) for the almost tossed-off, blink-and-you'll-miss-it climax. This isn't a film for everyone, but its effort to document a woman's life, as well as its radical rethinking of both time and action, make it a landmark experiment, and a must-see for viewers interested in the outer reaches of what a film can be. -- Leo Charney

― Jeff LeVine (Jeff LeVine), Thursday, 26 January 2006 21:17 (twenty years ago)

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― mzui (mzui), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 13:58 (twenty years ago)

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― mzui (mzui), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 13:58 (twenty years ago)

Sorry about that flub, my manual dexterity is decreasing as I get older/watch more slow movies.

― mzui (mzui), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 13:59 (twenty years ago)

I already said that one, anyways.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 20:01 (twenty years ago)

four months pass...

Mulholland Dr. -- I was once addicted to it

Le Mepris -

L'Avventura, La Notte and Il Grido

Notre Musique seemed slow...

Vendredi Soir, for the minimal dialogue

Stranger Than Paradise - hilariously slow
Dead Man, Broken Flowers

Once Upon a Time in the West

Warhol's Frankenstein... the evisceration scene alone

another great one ... Vagabond

― Dan Aloi (67Dano), Monday, 12 June 2006 06:09 (nineteen years ago)

are there any good slow-paced adventure movies?

would the Wages of Fear count?

-- -- --
Paris Texas

― spectra (spectra), Monday, 12 June 2006 13:29 (nineteen years ago)

"La Belle Noiseuse". Four hours of artistic process and Emmanuelle Beart modeling. The length mirrors the exacting steps by the artist to complete a single canvas. There's a two hour cut, "Divertimento", also available.

― lumberingwoodsman (Chris Hill), Monday, 12 June 2006 15:28 (nineteen years ago)

Primer (Won Gradn Jury Award at Sundance 2004.) 2001: A Space Odyssey (Just Great), Nothing (Cool Concept.), Dark City (Not as slow paced as some of the others, but not fast.)

― ((Censored)) ((Censored)), Monday, 12 June 2006 16:54 (nineteen years ago)

Jeff: Reading a description of Wavelength is NOT good enough, since the standard description, such as the one sleep quotes above, is actually completely wrong. It is not a slow zoom. It is, at best, a stuttering zoom, with different levels of zoom overlaid sometimes.

Anyway, La Region Central was even slower and also was great, or at least the part of it that I saw.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 12 June 2006 17:41 (nineteen years ago)

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