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World's Longest Film Will Screen All 150 Hours of Running Time

by Ethan Anderton
November 11, 2009
Source: Telegraph

So what exactly happens in a film that runs almost as long as an entire week. Well, it looks like anything really since the film itself, titled Cinematon, is comprised of over 2000 segments, each 3½ minutes long, of footage from celebrities, artists, philosophers and journalists, as well as children who were allowed to do exactly as they please in front of the camera. So basically it's YouTube: The Movie. I jest, but the film should offer much more than just skateboarding dogs with subjects like film director Ken Loach, actors Roberto Benigni and Samuel Fuller, chess grandmaster Joel Lautier and the infamous Terry Gilliam.

The man behind this, French filmmaker Gerard Courant, who simply wanted to "capture the thoughts of his artistic friends," commented (via UK's Telegraph) on Gilliam's portion which was shot way back in 1985:

"He started off to one (of the cameras), then came into the shot. He played with the frame, exiting and entering, and ate a 100 Franc note, making it into a little ball. He never stopped playing with the square, and never lost sight of the limit of the frame. The three minutes and 25 seconds with him is a true sketch."

While I'm sure not all of the segments are as fun or entertaining as that one, I'm sure there will be some surprises, like Courant's favorite segment of a seven month old baby which "shows the whole spectrum of human emotion in less than four minutes." Originally Courant wanted to only do 100 short portraits, but the project proved to be so popular he just kept filming, and it's still ongoing with just over 2200 segments shot. You can see a lot of, if not all of, the segments on the film's official website - careful though, it's in French.

The film will be screened in Avignon (France) later this month and in Paris in January but no word as to whether or not there will be intermission or if the film will just run straight through its epic running time. Either way, it sounds like a fascinating film, but I don't know anyone who'd sit through all 150 hours of it.

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Eric

Very interesting. I would love to get my hands on that.
Spider94

hahaha time to bring out the sleeping bag and camping equipment.....cause it looks like an all out indoor theatre party all week! wish i was there
http://www.firstshowing.net Alex Billington

^ You can watch almost all of them on his official website: gerardcourant.com
Xerxex

awesome, put the kettle on turkish.
morel

What does Godard have to do with this/Why that picture of him?
morel

Oh, his is the first on that list at Courant's site.
http://www.firstshowing.net Alex Billington

#5 - It's from Godard's segment of Cinematon that was filmed in 1981, see here for the video: http://www.gerardcourant.com/projection.php?t=c&film=106
Al

gimmick to the highest degree.
SlashBeast

This should be a crime.
Antioch

Sounds like nothing but a huge waste of time
Fed Up With Hollywood

How friggin' stupid. Figures it's from some French guy. I'll waste hours of le film and call it le art. Moron. I say we nuke France. We don't even have to take off and do it from orbit. Oh, and Quebec too. It's the only way to be sure.
esophus

Your Welcome! ;p
Pete

Unfortunately I just wasted 3 1/2 minutes of my time reading this article.
http://www.firstshowing.net Ethan Anderton

#11, Fed Up With Hollywood, You think this is stupid, but you thought Whiteout was entertaining. Maybe you can keep commenting about nuking things from orbit and someone will turn that into a movie idea so you can finally be satisfied.
http://ikinc.net IK!

Warhol used to do this exact thing with celebrities and people volunteering at his 'factory.' I wonder if he'll have any mention in this film.
Esben

How long will the trailer be? A day?
Fed Up With Hollywood

Ethan, Yes this is stupid. It's just a stunt with some a-hole thinking he's breaking new ground doing something profound. Whiteout was just a regular 90 minute movie. It wasn't spectacular, but it was decent. If you can't see the difference between the two, what are you doing reviewing movies? And as a movie reviewer, you don't recognize the quote I use? It IS from a movie. Glad to see you know your chosen field.
Cody

What #13 said.
Nikhil Hariharan

Im sorry, i love artsy films and such but im not buying into this. Its just a gimmick to get him awards and such, i dont even see the real point to this. That clip you showed, im not even sure why its all that great. Agree with what #17 said.
http://www.firstshowing.net Ethan Anderton

Fed Up with Hollywood, The filmmaker has been shooting footage for this project since the late 70's. If all he wanted was awards then I think he would have finished it a lot sooner when he had already accumulated a lot more footage. This is obviously more of an art installation than a narrative entertainment film like your precious Whiteout, but the fact remains that your finding more value in a shitty film like Whiteout rather than a though-provoking artistic look into the culture of people through film is mind-numbingly ignorant and simply flabbergasting. As someone who is "Fed Up with Hollywood" you seem to be blindly defending it's rotten carcasses of cinema quite courageously. You might want to check out the upcoming line-up of other films sure to please you like Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel or Twilight: New Moon. Just a couple of decent, regular, entertaining films right?
Fed Up With Hollywood

Hahaha... I said nothing of the filmmaker being after awards. I said that he thinks he's breaking new ground and being profound. Big difference. So he's had this plan for his oh-so-important magnum opus for 30 years. That doesn't change the absurd conceit of the idea. Your 'art installation' is my 'stupid waste of 150 hours of film'. Who's really going to watch all 150 hours of this? You? If you can honestly say yes, I truly pity you. And if you won't sit through the whole thing, then you're just talking out of your keister by defending it. You keep latching on to Whiteout, and you seem to be under the impression that I am in LOVE with the movie. I'm not. As I stated multiple times, it was just a decent movie. Are you upset that I called you an idiot in that other thread? Aw, poor Ethan. When you state something like 'this year's Antarctica-set bomb Whiteout, which as far as I can tell was about villainous snow as well' in a post, either you're talking about a film you haven't seen and have no idea the plot of, or you are making a snide comment trying to sound sophisticated and funny. Either way you come off sounding like an idiot. Again, if you think Whiteout was about villainlous snow, hang up your keyboard, you've got nothing worthwhile to say regarding movies. And yes, I DO find more value in a film like Whiteout. 90 minutes of ORIGINAL story/entertainment is all I ask. This 150 hour abomination is 'thought-provoking'? 'Artistic'? Hardly. Why do I need some asshole to throw 150 hours worth of celebs and babies at me to give me a look into the 'culture of people'? THAT is what is mind-numbingly ignorant and flabbergasting. Finally, I am, truly, "Fed Up With Hollywood", simply because we keep getting remakes, re-imaginings, reboots, and regurgitation from them. And because of that, on the flip side, we get idiots that come up with 150 hour films as a counter to it. I will continue to defend original films (whether from a graphic novel, book or original script) that haven't already been made. Alvin and the Chipmunks? Sequal. Twilight? Not even remotely interested in it, but at least it hasn't already been done. Therefore, though I won't post anything positive about the film, I also won't post my usual "nuke Hollywood from orbit" line either in regards to it. If that is what the teen girl crowd wants, more power to them. I find neither of your examples 'decent' nor 'entertaining'. Regular, however, yes. Given two crappy options, yes, I'd sit through Alvin or Twilight WAY before I sat through this 150 hour snoozefest. At least the pain would end much quicker. These are examples of the lesser of two evils. If we weren't innundated with "re"s, then we could spend more time lamenting Hollywood's other poor choices, but for now the worst offenders are the 'redo's and silly ideas like the one above.
Fed up with smug, superiority-complex online douchebags.

@Everyone on this thread It's a fucking movie. Get the fuck over yourselves. You don't like something, the guy who wrote this article did. That's no reason to call the article a waste of time. Secondly, let me ask you this, fed up with hollywood, what makes you think the creator is an asshole? He made something. It's not harming you personally, it's not an attack of any kind. Have you met him? Read something other than this about him? How can you know he's an asshole? Making a film is not a crime. Even if he is an asshole, even if every angry, unvalidated assumption you made about him is correct, what the fuck does that matter to you? Some people are dicks, you are not going to fix the world with an enraged online comment, no matter how vicious. I sincerely hope you realize that a fucking comment cannot and will not magically enlighten every person in the universe. I'm all for expressing your opinion, but it's...a...fucking...MOVIE. Stop acting like this guy stabbed a baby. Please, get off your high-horse and stop acting like your a fucking genius in a world of zombies. You're just as bad as those stupid independant filmers who think they're big fuckers for doing something nobody actually gives a shit about.