The apply of clapping to sign approval goes again not less than so far as Roman occasions, if not earlier. However in some unspecified time in the future, we determined we would have liked one other, higher option to say “Sure, that was good”—a type of clapping-plus, for when merely slapping our palms collectively didn’t meet the event. And so we got here up with the standing ovation: clapping, plus standing. It’s a critical accolade, reserved by audiences for probably the most wonderful of performances.
Or, it was reserved, anyway. At movie festivals—significantly Cannes, but in addition Venice, which is underway for the time being—audiences actually, actually love standing ovations. Perhaps it’s as a result of film-fest audiences are usually filled with wellness-obsessed Hollywood sorts who’re anxious about the adversarial well being results of sitting down for too lengthy. One other (extra critical) idea is that standing ovations have been as soon as a well mannered custom however gained unstoppable momentum the minute movie commerce publications began measuring and reporting on their size as an indicator of a movie’s total reception. Both means, the behavior has been firmly established, and movies routinely get standing ovations that stretch for minute after minute after minute. An ovation that lasts solely 5 minutes—which is, to be clear, a very long time for folks to clap for one thing!—is more and more seen as a nasty signal.
Pedro Almodovar’s new movie The Room Subsequent Door, the Spanish legend’s first in English, received an 18-minute standing ovation on Tuesday. It’s the longest within the Venice Movie Pageant’s historical past. (It additionally occurs to be the identical size as “Empire of the Clouds”, the longest music in Iron Maiden’s very giant discography, for these into operatic prog metallic.) But it surely’s not fairly the longest within the historical past of movie festivals total. Listed here are a few of the most intensive ovations at Venice and Cannes (principally Cannes); how all that clapping translated (or didn’t) to industrial and important success; and a few pleasant ideas for what else ecstatic viewers members may have been doing as a substitute of carrying out their wrists.
Notice: standing ovations usually generate a small unfold of recorded occasions, as totally different publications have totally different standards for after they begin and finish. However when you’re actually exercised by us short-changing a movie by a minute or two, it’s in all probability value getting a life.
13 minutes
Bowling for Columbine (Cannes, 2002); Mommy (Cannes, 2024); The Banshees of Inisherin (Venice, 2022); The Brutalist (Venice, 2024)
It is perhaps an unfortunate quantity for some, however many movies which have obtained 13-minute film-fest ovations have gone on to nice issues; a Greatest Documentary Function Oscar for Michael Moore’s Bowling and a pleasant pile of Golden Globes and BAFTAs for Banshees. It bodes nicely for Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, a three-and-a-half-hour epic starring Adrien Brody as a Hungarian architect and Holocaust survivor. Clapping for 13 minutes is a bit uncomfortable, however extra snug than swallowing a sword, which Irishman Murray Molloy did for a report 13 minutes and 12 seconds in 2020.
14 minutes
Belle (Cannes, 2021); The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Cannes, 2024); Motel Destino (Cannes, 2024); Blonde (Venice, 2022)
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