Somewhere between a film’s final scene and the exalted audience’s first clap at either the Venice or Cannes film festivals, cinema loses its dignity. We have entered a standing ovation arms race. What began as a fleeting, instinctive gesture has become a marketable metric as critics, publicists, and distributors now cite the length of a standing ovation as if it were a Rotten Tomatoes score. “A 12-minute standing ovation at Cannes” has become shorthand for imminent awards glory. But like so much in Hollywood, it is prone to distortion. While a long standing ovation can signal a cultural phenomenon in the making, it more often promises triumph and delivers The Paperboy (2012) , which, after a reported 15 minutes of cacophonous, seal-like clapping, went on to recoup less than half of

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