The daunting runtime of Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman—three hours and 29 minutes—drew a public sigh. “The Irishman was amazing,” Ricky Gervais declared at the Golden Globes.
“Long… but amazing.” A more proficient viewer went a step further. On a chart, he broke down the crime drama into decisive plot points, effectively turning it into a four-part mini-series.
The sentiment was becoming clear. This idea, though mockingly applied in The Irishman’s case, has now been turned into a real-time experiment in India. Bejoy Nambiar’s Taish—a revenge thriller set in London—that released on October 29, is available as both a feature film and a six-part mini-series.
This isn’t unprecedented though.
Emir Kusturica’s Palme d’Or-winning Underground (1995) was split into a five-hour miniseries for Serbian television.
Locally, too, films like Gangs of Wasseypur and the NTR biopic have been released in two parts to accommodate their original lengths.
However, this is the first time a simultaneous release is being offered on the same platform—you can watch the snappier version and be done with it, or kick back and enjoy the full series.
There are several advantages to a release pattern like this. Ever since the lockdown, both films and web-shows have been jostling for space on the same platforms.
While both bring in subscribers and share in overall viewership, there are notable distinctions. Feature films are watched for plot, engagement, narrative momentum.
Web-shows, though affiliated to the same qualities, also offer depth, psychology, catharsis. By releasing Taish as both, the makers are clearly broadening the audience overlap. “Feature films and web-shows appeal to different viewers. We hope to see if we can engage both,” says Aparna Acharekar, Programming Head at ZEE5.
There is another reason. Across the world, the consumption of content on laptops and mobile screens have resulted in shrinking attention spans.
This is directly reflected in the reduced runtime of feature films on the web. Director Randeep Jha, whose debut feature Halahal ran at a taut 97 minutes on Eros Now, attests to this phenomenon. “There are too many distractions on OTT.
At a theatre, an audience member is reluctant to get up and leave. But he can just change the film on a streaming platform. Also, our visual memory on the small screen is not the same as on a 70mm display,” says the filmmaker.
Asked if he’d be willing to experiment with a two-format release, Jha affirms, “I would like to try something like that. It would also be interesting if a film could have two climaxes. Of course, there must be scope in a story to do that.” Since Taish was originally intended for theatres, the question of ‘scope’ hangs over the film.
This is what bothers director Honey Trehan, whose noir mystery Raat Akeli Hai had released on Netflix in July. At 150 minutes, the Nawazuddin Siddiqui-starrer stood out as an exception to the reduced runtime fad.
“I was clear I wanted to have a slow-burn experience,” Honey says. He thinks the Taish experiment is a business decision above all. “Bejoy is an excellent filmmaker. However, I highly doubt I will ever do something like this. I need to know the starting and ending points of my film before making it,” he says.
What’s interesting here is that although web-shows are a longer commitment, the use of cliffhangers and episodic breaks make them a breeze. Yet it isn’t always the case. A nearly three-hour film like Kabir Singh ran in theatres with a single interval and still cleaned up at the box-office. So did Zoya Akhtar’s Gully Boy at 153 minutes.
“The perception that audiences are getting impatient is a myth,” says Gully Boy’s editor Nitin Baid. Nevertheless, he praises the potential of the Taish gamble.
“I’m fascinated to see how Bejoy and Priyank have delivered both experiences.” Given a chance, Baid would be game to cut a film in two formats and see where all this takes him. To successful place we hope!