Rypro 525

my brother and i were arguing over it. I think its something thats shot in scope and has just a real big scale and all to it. (moulin rouge is one imo but he doesn't think it was) and he thinks its any movie that is made just to make money

garolo

EPIC as defined by Merriam-Webster:
I think that 2 defines a movie epic. Moulin Rouge is not an epic, IMHO.

cheapskate

Here are a few things I think of when I hear a film described as an "epic".

• Takes place in a large geographical area, or across continents
• Large scale battles
• Cinemascope
• Based on an important historical event or war

Examples of an epic?

Braveheart, Lawrence of Arabia, Out of Africa, Gladiator, The English Patient... even dreck like Far and Away and Legends of the Fall...

I would not consider Moulin Rouge to be an epic in any respect.

indycohiba

From the MGM days, large casts, grand costumes, massive sets, and a historical setting.

bhk

My take is that it is a story told about a person or persons in a (semi)historic background. For example: Conan The Barbarian is an epic, Star Wars isn't.

inri222

Big budget, all-star cast, massive sets, expensive costumes, long in length.

Spartacus
Gone With the Wind
Lawrence of Arabia
Cleopatra
Ben-Hur

DeputyDave

Having just seen it last night (and loved it ) I would put Master and Commander in that boat.

Rypro 525

actually, with the exception of length, moulin rouge could count as an epic since the sets were huge ,and there were highly stylish costumes.

Kinyo

Gone With the Wind is an epic movie IMO.

purplechoe

It's no epic dude, get over it. And the sets were big, but not huge by an epic standard.

jaeufraser

I think epic also has to do with the scope of the story. Ben Hur, Brave heart, Sparatacus, those movies had stories that involved many people, many places. Moulin Rouge...is a fairly focused movie. Big budget visuals and large scale dance numbers do not equal epic when the story is so focused and takes place in such a small place.

scroll2b

I would not count Gladiator as an epic. If that movie were to be an epic, it would have to be in the three hour-range. Dances With Wolves is an epic. Lawrence of Arabia is perhaps the single greatest epic of all time. The Godfather is not an epic, nor is Goodfellas. Brad Pitt has yet to be in an epic, but his next movie just may be, but I doubt it even though it's a sword and sandals picture. Titanic is certainly an epic, as is Braveheart. The English Patient? Well, I think so.... Moulin Rouge? Not in my opinion, but you certainly can think so, why not?

lesterlong

An epic is not to be defined by its running time. Lord of the Rings are epics, even without the large cast and battles I would consider Giant to be an epic.

jaeufraser

Yes, I don't equate running time with epic. Gladiator...definately an epic film, though not the grandest one and definately not the best. But running time doesn't cause a movie to be epic...is Magnolia an epic movie? Is Jackie Brown an epic? No, they're just long movies.

Venom

in my opinion this is the most accurate description in this thread.
i think the main focus of an epic is the story, which is wide ranging. that in turns kinda requires epics to be long.

Norm de Plume

Multiple expansive locations, large cast, story spanning years or decades, often but not always historical.

Rypro 525

im guessing once upon a time in america is an epic.

talemyn

That is sort of what I was going to say. An epic have the additional focus (outside of the main character/s) of what is going in the "environment" of the movie (political, socio-economic, cultural). These do not have to be real (i.e., historically accurate), but, to some extent, what is going on in the story is almost more important than the individual characters (at least at some point in the story).

As was mentioned earlier, the time and effort that is required to capture all of that informaion and detail, generally leads to an epic movie being long, but being long doesn't automatically make a movie an epic.

In my opinion some examples are:

Epics:
Braveheart
Band Of Brothers
Lord Of The Rings Trilogy
Star Wars Series
Ben Hur
Spartacus

Not Epics:
Titanic
Moulin Rouge
Conan Series

Borderline Epics (or "Epics, But Just Barely"):
Godfather Trilogy (too focused on the central characters)
Dances With Wolves (also too focused on the main character)
Saving Private Ryan (same . . .)
Gladiator (also, the same . . .)

Drop

I don't think anyone has mentioned The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Maybe no one considers it an epic, but I do.

jim_cook87

As it was taught to me in a film history class I took in college, to understand what an epic film is one needs to start with the definition of epic, as it pertains to poetry:

Obviously that does not precisely apply to film so we have to translate that definition to film. So we have to translate to somehting meaningful to film.

Start with "a long poem", length has some importance.

Next we have "in an elevated style", make that "in an elevated cinematic style" and we get the idea, it needs to make good use of the camera, visual space, imagery, etc. It can't have run of the mill cinematography, it is artfully done...

Finally it "narrates the deeds of a hero" there are two elements here. A single hero that the story focuses on. And it tells of their deeds, not just one isolated episode in their life but it covers a number of episodes in the hero's life.

There is no need for it to be historical, there is no need for it to be big budget, have lots of extras or huges sets. Although, those are typical of many epics.

So we have 4 main criteria a movie must pass to be called epic:

1. A long movie*
2. Elevated cinematic style
3. Focuses on a single hero**
4. Covers multiple episodes in that heroes life

With those as the criteria here are some of the previously mentioned movies:

Epic
Gladiator
Lawrence of Arabia
Far and Away
Dances with Wolves
Braveheart
Ben Hur
Spartacus
Rob Roy
Seven Years in Tibet
The Ten Commandments
Ghandi
Gone with the Wind

Borderline
Saving Private Ryan - it doesn't really focus on a single hero, you can argue Capt. Miller is the hero, but the entire squad he is leading could equally be heroes...
Band of Brothers - like Private Ryan, we don't have a single hero to focus on, it's an entire company
Lord of the Rings - multiple heroes muddy the water
Star Wars - Single hero? Han, Leia, Chewie, etc. steal a lot from Luke...
Clash of the Titans - elevated cinematic style?
Conan - elevated cinematic style? As a series definitely handles multiple episodes, but each movie in and of itself seems focuse on an isolated episode of Conan's life
Malcolm X - elevated cinematic style?

Not an Epic
The Godfather - The Corleone's are not heroes
Titanic - Jack Dawson a hero? More importantly, it limits itself to a single in Jack Dawson's life.
Moulin Rouge - Hero? Multiple Deeds?
Citizen Kane - No hero


*Long movie is kind of arbitrary, not sure where the real cutoff is, clearly a 3 hour movie would be considered long, 2 hours probably not, so somewhere in between 2 hours and 3 hours is the threshold for a "long movie"... Also have to consider the length relative to other films of the era...

**Don't confuse protagonist with hero.

resinrats

How do they describe 'epic' when they use epic in the description?

jaeufraser

I don't really buy into the single hero theory of an epic. While that defintion had credence for poems perhaps, it really doesn't fall under normal movie epic definition. Not by todays standards at least. On that note, Titanic IS an epic. Sure the main thrust of the story is two kids falling in love. But the story goes way beyond that...showing this grand ship, the effects on people in the future, the effects on the other people on the boat. The movie builds a grand tapestry of characters to play the small love story against, but because the movie really delves into those other aspects, making the ship and the other passengers a part of the story, it is epic. Same thing goes for Gladiator...you have a small scale story at heart, but it's played out against a massive backrop, affecting many people and the fate of a nation. If that's not epic, I don't know what is.

cheapskate

This thread is becoming an epic...

Here's an interesting article about Gladiator, and the status of the film as an epic - to sum up, it comes to the conclusion that Gladiator is not an epic, although it has many of the elements that are thought of to constitute one:

http://www.movie666.com/archive_0500.html

I disagree; but can see the point they're making. According to the writers opinion, a lot of these modern CGI based films can never be epics... (!?!)

Sorry to drag this out.

jim_cook87

I think we're getting confused in our usage of the word. Calling Titanic a movie on an epic scale is correct usage of the word as you are then using fantastic as an adjective. But saying that Titanic was an epic, is using epic as a noun and is incorrect.

The definition of epic I used earlier was the definition for epic when it is used as a noun (e.g. "The movie is an epic.") A different definition exists for epic when used as an adjective (e.g. "Titanic was a movie of epic scale.")

As an adjective epic means "extending beyond the usual or ordinary especially in size or scope." So yes, Titanic could be called a movie of epic scale, but that does not make the movie an epic.

jim_cook87

They fail to see that they are interchanging epic the noun, with epic the adjective. Beyond that, they are confusing the issue by interchangeably discussing 'epic moviemaking,' 'an epic scale movie,' 'epic locations,' and whether Gladiator is an 'epic'. Those are four entirely different discussions.