Looking at Kevin Costner’s filmography as a director, one thing is apparent: the guy loves his epics. His debut, 1990’s Dances with Wolves, clocked in at just over three hours, while his 1997 follow-up, The Postman, ran just under that. After practically making a short film with Open Range (139 minutes), he took a two-decade break before diving into his next: the multi-part Horizon, with its first two parts surpassing the six-hour mark. So what drives Kevin Costner to make such lengthy movies? It comes down to the classics.

At History Channel’s recent History Talks event (via Deadline), Kevin Costner said it was seeing movies of an epic scale that not only captured his curiosity for film but also subconsciously made him lean towards movies of such lengthy runtimes. In particular, he cited 1962’s How the West Was Won, which credits three directors – Henry Hathaway, John Ford and George Marshall – for the novelistic tale (“It was a 4-hour movie. So it’s no surprise, mine are three.”) and George Stevens’ 1956 film Giant (“It’s another 3-hour movie. Get the picture with me.”).

Both films are widely regarded as some of the finest American western movies ever made, so it’s really no wonder that they made such an impression on Kevin Costner, whose own Dances with Wolves did something neither of those works did: win the Best Picture Oscar. While people like to hate on it solely for beating Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, there’s no denying it is one of the most sweeping films of the ‘90s. But as for How the West Was Won – which actually runs about 20 minutes shorter than Dances with Wolves (although there is an extended version of Costner’s movie that hits four hours) – it was that film that truly captured his imagination. On it, he added, “Everybody left for intermission, and I didn’t. I wasn’t going to give up my magic seat. I waited for that movie to start again, and when I was over, it marked me.”

In the discussion, Kevin Costner also noted that it’s important to give it all – runtime be damned – when making movies. “It doesn’t matter when you make a movie, it’s going to live forever, so it matters what details you put in it because if you put the right details in it, it’s going to be relevant, and that’s the one thing I hope in my life. It’s not hard to be popular; it’s very difficult to be relevant. I want my life to be relevant…”

What is your favorite Kevin Costner movie? Dance on into the comments below and let us know!

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