ARTS
The movies
Why are films so long?
Alasdair Palmer believes too many directors have confused Art and entertainment
Is size important? In art, size has often been associated with profundity: the bigger the work, the more profound it ought to be. The relation between significance and size is almost a law of art criticism. A painter like the 16-century miniaturist, Nicholas Hilliard, who only produced tiny portraits, is automatically excluded from the category of 'serious artists' — his works are just too small to 'say' anything interest- ing or complex or deep. At the other end of the scale, at least part of Michelangelo's reputation for profundity is due to the fact that he produced works which were far big- ger than anything which came before (and most of what came after): the sheer amount of space covered by the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel has the effect of per- suading you that something important must be being communicated here. even fewer have the desire to take such a risk. Directors are dependent on film stu- dios for finance. That has set up a certain tension between directors and the film stu- dios. They use their money to try to control the films they finance. When a director's vision means his film goes over budget, the studio has a choice: pull the plug on the picture, and see all the money already spent disappear forever. Or stump up some more in the hope that the resulting film will be an epic masterpiece and — more important — a box-office hit.
Studio heads used to be very mean and ruthless. Moguls like Sam Goldwyn or Jack Warner were quite happy to pull the plug on a picture in the middle of shooting if its director had overspent his budget, or wasn't shooting to the approved script. Outstanding directors like Eric von Stro- heim and Orson Welles were prevented from completing, and in some cases even starting, their greatest works because the money-men decided their art wasn't going to be worth what it would cost.
The studio heads who cut, dumped or Kevin Costner in Wyatt Earp
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