Celluloid Confetti

A short while ago I was railing against the epic-isation of the summer blockbuster. The Peter Jacksonification of the mindless action movie. The two-and-a-half-hour-aramas that clog up our multiplexes.

Well, several readers came to my rescue with a short-list of short-films that are as sweet as they are brief.

So sit back, prime your stopwatches, and enjoy our list of films that can be watched in one sitting - even after drinking a litre vat of non-brand Cola!

These bijou beauties are all arranged - for your pleasure - in order of filmic length (if not artistic girth). To kick off with, Dan and Peter came up with a trio of great films hovering around the 90 minute mark:

Night of the Demon (95 mins) - Dir. Jacques Tourneur

(Occult thriller based on M.R. James’ Casting the Runes)

Good Night and Good Luck (93 mins) - Dir. George Clooney

(Monochrome McCarthy-era political drama)

Brief Encounter (86 mins) - Dir. David Lean

(Brittle train-side romantic encounter)

Next, at just a touch over 80 minutes, comes mine very own suggestion:

The Wild Blue Yonder (81 mins) - Dir. Werner Herzog

(Bonkers sci-fi monologue with Brad Dourif as a homesick alien)

Bobbing under the 80 minute mark, we have a cluster of Val Lewton horror classics, suggested by Neil Snowdon - and don’t you love their titles?:

Bedlam (79 mins)
The Bodysnatcher (77 mins)
Cat People (73 mins)
Curse of the Cat People (70 mins)
I Walked with a Zombie (69 mins)
The Leopard Man (66 mins) (says Neil: “it’s barely a feature! runs out of steam part way, but it’s got a great first half”)

(Incidentally, those of you with Multi-Region DVD players might want to check out the fantastic Val Lewton Horror Collection, available in Region 1)

Neil adds:

Elsewhere, Eyes Without a Face clocks in bang on 90 mins, though if you’ve got a UK VHS, it might run a little shorter, what with the PAL conversion… you might try The Monster Squad which clocks in at 79 mins. Or in classic noir Pickup on South Street 77mins or Detour at just 67 mins…”

William Sleet suggested a pentet of films with running times peaking (not unlike Clint Eastwood) in the mid 70s:

Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (76 mins) - Dir. Jean Renoir

(When an unpopular publishing boss gets bumped off, a workers’ collective takes over)

The Bride of Frankenstein (75 mins) - Dir. James Whale

(shock haired she-corpse turns down Boris Karloff)

The Red Badge of Courage (69 mins) - Dir. John Huston

(American Civil War yarn)

She Done Him Wrong (66 mins) - Dir. Lowell Sherman

(Mae West. Cary Grant. Do you need a third reason?)

Zero de Conduite (41 mins) - Dir. Jean Vigo

(Surreal take on life in a French boarding school, sort of a Gallic If…)

Mr. Sleet adds:

I would like to include the stupendous Dekalog by Krzysztof Kieslowski. Although, strictly speaking, it was a TV series, each of the ten stories is a mini masterpiece of cinema - two of the stories of course had been released theatrically in longer versions but even they were both still under 90 mins!”

And finally, at a mere 30 minutes (and, therefore in some loose, unofficial sense, the winner) comes this suggestion from colinr:

Night and Fog (30 mins) - Dir. Alain Resnais

Do documentaries count? If so, I would vote for Night and Fog, which manages to condense all the salient information about the holocaust into just over thirty minutes - I don’t think I’ve seen anything more perfectly concise!”

I think Night and Fog makes the point admirably, for if a subject as weighty as the holocaust can be addressed in a mere half an hour, then there is absolutely no excuse for Hollywood to presume that its blockbusters are worthy of more - whatever their budget.