Watching a 7.5-Hour Movie in Theaters Made Me More Hopeful About Our Collective Brain Rot

A screening of Béla Tarr’s Sátántango drew over 250 people to Film at Lincoln Center despite its 439-minute runtime.

Sátántango contains 171 shots with an average shot length of about 2.5 minutes, making it a defining example of slow cinema.

Programmers and academics say slow cinema requires sustained attention and offers a communal viewing discipline in contrast to short-form media.