The most literary movie ever: Winter Sleep

The Turkish 2014 film Winter Sleep is one of the most literary movies I've ever seen, a movie that's not for all or even most viewers - very long (well over 3 hours), very intense, very interior. In some ways the director (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, I had to look it up) is striving toward hyper-realism: he lets scenes play on far longer than any other director would or has, even Rohmer. If you think about it, most movies despite their look of reality and authenticity are artificial in this regard: Conversations don't occur in two-minute takes, they don't resolve simply, with punch lines or quips - most conversations extend far longer than those in any movie and they're much more ambiguous and tentative than movie scenes or "takes." In WS some of the conversations - a lengthy argument between man character and his cynical and malicious sister, an argument between main character and his wife as they ponder separation and really dig at each other about emotional control and blackmail - seem to go on for 20 minutes or so. The effect is extremely powerful, but you have to meet the movie on its own terms, which are demanding. WS is a self-consciously literary work, with references in the credits, as best I could tell (they are not translated) to inspirations, specifically Chekhov (yes, that one's obvious probably 3 sisters, smart people, one an actor, in a remote setting with various unfulfilled artistic yearnings, particularly about moving to the city), Dostoyevsky (yes, if you've read The Idiot you will pick this up by the end, but I won't give it away), Shakespeare (doesn't seem Shakespearean particularly, but the lead character quotes S at times), and Voltaire (I don't know, you tell me). Story centers on the 40- or maybe 50-something man, Aydin (looked that up, too) a retired actor with a lot of money (born into poverty tho) who runs a remote hotel in the mountains of Anatolia, but obviously doesn't make his living off the hotel; his much younger wife has visions of being a philanthropist and supporting local schools - and there's a real power and ego play between the two of them right from the start. His dream is to write a book about Turkish theater, but he seems to be doing everything but writing, at least at the outset. In the background, there's a conflict on-going w/ tenants in an apartment he owns - a very menacing crowd, with scary occasional threats of violence. Many films try this, but Winter Sleep succeeds in being a film about character (rather than action) the development and evolution of two characters as the interact with each other. That said, there are also extraordinarily beautiful shots - interior and exterior - with imaginative but not flashy composition, and a subtle, classically based (Schubert) musical score that touches up the film at just the right moments. Could the movie have been done in 2 hours? Of course. Should it have been? No, it's real quite a masterpiece in its current form - and you can watch it over 2 nights, as we did.