‘Doctor Zzzhivago’?

My friends who see a lot of movies, either because they write about them or help make them, always find something to argue about: Was it better as a book? Why aren’t there any good women’s roles? Was the violence too real or too fake?

But lately we’ve found one thing we can all agree on: Movies are just too long.

Try seeing a 10:30 p.m. showing of “Boogie Nights.” By the time you get out, dawn is breaking on the horizon. When Kevin Costner introduced an early screening of “The Postman,” he called his new film an epic “yarn.” But for many, the prospect of sitting through the nearly three-hour film may sound more like an epic yawn.

It’s just the latest example of a depressing holiday trend in Hollywood. As the days are getting shorter, movies are getting longer. Really long.

The deluge began in mid-October with the release of “Boogie Nights” and “Devil’s Advocate,” which were both nearly 2 1/2 hours long. Before year’s end, a wave of stretch-limo movies will take up residence in your local multiplex, many clocking in on the wrong end of a 2 1/2-hour running time.

Obviously, no one is listening to Woody Allen, who boasted recently that his films always play better after being cut to the bone. “That’s one thing I think never hurts a film,” he said. “It’s a godsend. When stuff comes out, it’s a mercy killing. It gives the film such an exhilarating pace.”

Allen says that once he starts cutting scenes, his biggest problem is keeping enough footage so that his film runs 90 minutes. If only his fellow directors would follow suit. The behemoth of them all is James Cameron’s $200-million-plus “Titanic,” which runs three hours, 14 minutes--making it an entry in the exclusive million-dollar-per-minute club. Clint Eastwood’s “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” runs a ponderous two hours, 35 minutes. Steven Spielberg’s “Amistad,” due next week, lasts 2 1/2 hours, as does Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming “Jackie Brown.”

Hollywood running-time inflation is hardly a new phenomenon--the American Cinematheque has a new festival dedicated to industrial-length celluloid, aptly titled “The Really Long Film Series.” It opens Friday with Joseph Mankiewicz’s “Cleopatra,” which runs more than four hours, followed Dec. 12 by “Satantango,” a seven-hour epic account of the collapse of a Hungarian farming collective. Pillows and blankets are strongly recommended.

But what was once the exception has now, alarmingly, become the rule. Not that long movies necessarily make bad movies. “Titanic” has already earned enthusiastic buzz. It will no doubt be compared to David Lean’s Oscar epic “Doctor Zhivago,” which ran more than three hours without leaving you pining for No Doz.

Unfortunately, not every three-hour movie is “Doctor Zhivago.” So why are so many of today’s filmmakers making overlong movies?

The question raises its own set of questions: Are some stories too big to be told in an hour and a half? Doesn’t it hurt a movie’s potential box-office take if theaters can only schedule one showing per evening? If young moviegoers supposedly have such short, MTV-addled attention spans, why are studios financing movies with all the narrative zip of a Bill Clinton State of the Union address?

The simplest explanation: runaway director ego. Once a filmmaker has achieved a consistent level of box-office success, he normally earns the contractual right to the final cut on his film. That means a studio can’t arbitrarily reedit his film, even if the movie’s length damages its playability. Most final cut agreements stipulate a maximum running time, usually around 2 1/2 hours, though sometimes more. When Martin Scorsese made “Casino” for Universal in 1995, he agreed to a three-hour time limit. The film ran two hours, 58 minutes.

Imagine you’re running Warner Bros. Studios, which has enjoyed an immensely profitable relationship with Costner, an A-list movie star whose string of hits for the studio includes “The Bodyguard,” “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” “JFK,” “Wyatt Earp” and “Tin Cup.” Is it worth jeopardizing that partnership by bluntly informing Costner that his yarn is 40 minutes too long? The last film he directed, “Dances With Wolves,” was three hours long--and won the Oscar for best picture. Maybe lightning will strike again.

As it turns out, Warner executives have gently tried persuading Costner to cut a chunk out of “Postman.” When one high-level studio executive raised the issue, Costner responded by comparing the film’s scope to--surprise--”Doctor Zhivago.”

To hear directors tell it, Big Subjects require Big Movies. Oliver Stone, whose “JFK” and “Nixon” swelled to three-hour-plus lengths, insists that his films are long but never boring. “Sometimes your subject demands a ‘big’ movie,” he says. “Look at ‘Born on the Fourth of July.’ That’s a big subject. How could you tell that story in under two hours? If I could do it all over again, I’d make it a little longer--it would be even better.”

Stone says his first cut of “JFK” was more than four hours. It took “shredding it to the bone” to get it down to 188 minutes. “Heaven and Earth,” his film about the struggles of a Vietnam peasant woman, ran two hours, 20 minutes, he says, because it was a Buddhist story with a “slower pace” than Western narratives.

But big is not necessarily better. Film critics weren’t the only ones to notice that “Devil’s Advocate” was spoiled by several flabby speeches at the film’s conclusion. Producer Arnold Kopelson tried for months to persuade “Devil’s Advocate” director Taylor Hackford to trim the film, convinced that its length hurt its pacing. He lost the argument--Hackford had final cut.

Rather than deliver bad news themselves, studio heads and producers often use test-screening reaction to bolster their case. If enough moviegoers complain about the running time, directors sometimes get the message. But the method is not foolproof.

“In the test screenings, people were with us,” said “Contact” director Robert Zemeckis, whose film ran 2 1/2 hours and received a lackluster box-office reception. “I tightened the movie, but I don’t think I could take anything else out. Everything resonated.”

Stone acknowledged he’s gotten test-screening complaints about running time, but he ignores it, explaining: “It’s my theory that 12% of the audience will always say a movie’s too long.”

Top executives at 20th Century Fox, the primary studio investor in “Titanic,” had numerous discussions with Cameron over the film’s running length. When Cameron screened an early cut of the film for preview audiences, the studio specifically asked moviegoers about the film’s length and pacing.

“At our first screening, as much as people liked the film, many of them said it was too long,” explains Fox Domestic Film Group Chairman Tom Sherak. “We got very detailed feedback--they specified scenes they thought should be cut.”

Sherak says Cameron responded by cutting one scene and trimming sections of several others, reducing its running time by 22 minutes. Although the edited version played better, it’s obvious Fox didn’t get everything it wanted. When Sherak is asked how much footage Cameron cut, he says with a laugh: “The movie went from three hours, 36 minutes to two hours, 74 minutes.”

Translation: The studio is still worried that the film’s three-hour-plus running time could hurt its box-office potential. The longer the running time, the fewer theater showings you get. Movies that run more than two hours, 15 minutes lose a showing each day. A 100-minute film can show at 12:30, 3, 5:30, 8 and 10:30 p.m. In that same time period, “Titanic” will screen at 12:30, 4:30 and 8:30 p.m. Even if it plays on two screens in the same multiplex, it still won’t have as many play dates as its holiday competition.

That doesn’t mean everyone is convinced that running time cuts into a film’s box-office potential. “With a lot of these films, you could’ve cut out 20 minutes and the movie would’ve made almost the same amount of money,” says one studio executive. “Sure, you could’ve tightened up ‘Contact.’ But it was Bob Zemeckis’ movie. Are you really going to tell the director of ‘Forrest Gump’ to hack away at his new movie?”

And there’s the problem: When you’re dealing with an A-list director, rationality is not always a big part of the decision-making process. In fact, because of final-cut clauses, most top directors are insulated from any debate. When Eastwood showed “Midnight in the Garden” to the Warner brass, the film was finished. Take it or leave it, guys. See you at the premiere.

For better or worse, Eastwood has earned the right to be left alone--and occasionally pays the price, as with this film, for being sheltered from candid criticism until the reviews come in.

But before we put all the blame on studio power politics, consider this: Since 1979 years, only two under-two-hour films have won an Oscar for best picture (1989’s “Driving Miss Daisy” and 1990’s “Silence of the Lambs”). Last year’s winner, “The English Patient,” ran two hours, 42 minutes, a wee thing compared to the 1995 winner, “Braveheart,” or the 1993 winner, “Schindler’s List,” which were both in the three-hour range. A best picture Oscar is a tempting prize, one known to cause a bad case of grand delusion.

“Once directors hear about Oscar possibilities, the movie often gets longer, not shorter,” says one veteran producer. “Suddenly they’re thinking about prestige, not just box office.”

Could it be that filmmakers aren’t the only ones seduced by magnitude? Maybe we, as moviegoers, have a secret desire for long movies too. But grandness is not the same as greatness. We’re confusing length with importance when, underneath, what we really want out of Hollywood is a little more meaning.

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Prolix Pix

A brief guide to some of the season’s longest movies.

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TITLE DIRECTOR RUNNING TIME Titanic James Cameron 3 hrs., 14 mins. The Postman Kevin Costner 2 hrs., 50 mins. Midnight in the Garden Clint Eastwood 2 hrs., 35 mins. of Good and Evil Amistad Steven Spielberg 2 hrs., 34 mins. Boogie Nights Paul Thomas Anderson 2 hrs., 32 mins. Jackie Brown Quentin Tarantino approximately 2 hrs., 30 mins. Devil’s Advocate Taylor Hackford 2 hrs., 23 mins. John Grisham’s Francis Ford Coppola 2 hrs., 13 mins. The Rainmaker As Good as It Gets James Brooks 2 hrs., 12 mins. Seven Years in Tibet Jean-Jacques Annaud 2 hrs., 11 mins. Starship Troopers Paul Verhoeven 2 hrs., 9 mins. Kundun Martin Scorsese 2 hrs., 8 mins. U-Turn Oliver Stone 2 hrs., 5 mins.

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