Old or new, movies usually are dismissed if they're slow. This has actually been the case everywhere but art house cinemas ever since film became a mass medium, but seems to be even more true these days - most movies seem paced as if they're constantly afraid they'll lose your attention. But plenty of movies have bucked this trend, making great use of long shots or deliberate pacing to create a work that seems like it would fall apart if it didn't really take its time.
I think it's time great, slowly paced movies got their due, simply because there are some fantastic ones that just get blamed for being slow. Compare them to other slow movies, and you start to see their value beyond their pacing. So which are your favorites? Pick one, pick a few, pick foreign, domestic, old, new, it's up to you. If you don't think any director should ever waste your time letting a slow movie make you think, that's totally fine, and you can talk about that too.
My pick is The Shining. You may not think of it as slowly paced, but almost nothing happens for most of the movie - it moves like molasses before the final half hour. But (particularly on blu-ray) while it does move slowly in between the handful of WTF moments, the camera work is fantastic, and gives you time to drink in the visuals, making the ending that much more jarring. The visuals are so intricate that they've famously given birth to about a dozen different conspiracy theories about what The Shining is "really" about. I nodded off twice during 2001, but I think this is Kubrick's very best because he finally figured out how to use his trademark snail's pace to a movie's advantage.
Others that come to mind are Alien and Drive.
I think it's time great, slowly paced movies got their due, simply because there are some fantastic ones that just get blamed for being slow. Compare them to other slow movies, and you start to see their value beyond their pacing. So which are your favorites? Pick one, pick a few, pick foreign, domestic, old, new, it's up to you. If you don't think any director should ever waste your time letting a slow movie make you think, that's totally fine, and you can talk about that too.
My pick is The Shining. You may not think of it as slowly paced, but almost nothing happens for most of the movie - it moves like molasses before the final half hour. But (particularly on blu-ray) while it does move slowly in between the handful of WTF moments, the camera work is fantastic, and gives you time to drink in the visuals, making the ending that much more jarring. The visuals are so intricate that they've famously given birth to about a dozen different conspiracy theories about what The Shining is "really" about. I nodded off twice during 2001, but I think this is Kubrick's very best because he finally figured out how to use his trademark snail's pace to a movie's advantage.
Others that come to mind are Alien and Drive.
