That’s how long the audience were standing for applause at the world premiere of Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie à Deux in Venice this week. The preview of the hotly anticipated follow-up to 2019’s Joker — a box office hit and the unexpected winner of the 92-year-old festival’s coveted Golden Lion that year — saw stars Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga bask in acclaim for what seems like a near-comical length of time.
At film festivals like Venice and Cannes, standing ovations have come to take on a more profound meaning than just good old fashioned clapping. Now, the length of time that spectators are unseated is a sort-of critical barometer.
Bizarrely, 12 mins is not a totally uncommon period for this Hollywood habit; in fact, ovations lasting less than 5 mins are effectively considered a snub, since no movie tends to go entirely un-cheered. At this year’s festival, Tim Burton’s spooky sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice only got 4 mins of applause, while Pedro Almódovar’s The Room Next Door set a new record for Venice at 18 mins.
The longest ovation ever? Guillermo del Toro’s cult classic Pan’s Labyrinth at Cannes in 2006, which received a standing ovation that lasted for 22 minutes.
