The movie with the longest title of all time and its one-word translation
There really is no point to a really long title, as regardless of whether it’s clever, no one is going to remember it, and it’ll inevitably get shortened, leaving only your most dedicated superfans clued into the knowledge of the film/album/song’s original moniker.
Now, I love Fiona Apple, but when she temporarily set the record for the longest album title of all time, she should’ve known that nobody would be able to reel off the whole thing. When The Pawn… is actually the shortened title of the album, which she used a whole poem to name.
It’s full, official title is When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He’ll Win the Whole Thing ‘Fore He Enters the Ring There’s No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Around, You Must Make a Plan If You Wish to Make a Good Thing Even Better.
Some other titles that stand about as long beside it are Marnie Stern’s 2008 album This Is It And I Am It And You Are It And So Is That And He Is It And She Is It And It Is It And That Is That, Chantal Akerman’s film Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, and songs like Lana Del Rey’s ‘Grandfather please stand on the shoulders of my father while he’s deep‐sea fishing’, and Arctic Monkeys’ ‘You Probably Couldn’t See for the Lights but You Were Staring Straight at Me’ from Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not.
Wordy and hard to remember in the correct order, you’re left wondering why these pieces of art have been given such a mouthful to describe them, and why they needed to stray from the one to two-word titles, which are punchy, straight to the point, perhaps even a little mysterious. Sometimes, a long title just works by reeling us in: if an artist has the audacity to present us with such a long and slightly ridiculous title, surely they’ve got art worth checking out?
The longest movie title of all time and its one-word translation:
Usually, movie titles are fairly short for they’ve got to fit on the poster and be legible from afar, but every so often, a particularly long one comes along and forces you to get your specs out. Back in 1978, Italian filmmaker Lina Wertmüller set the record for the longest movie title, and it even has a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Commonly known as Blood Feud or simply Revenge, the full movie’s title is actually Un fatto di sangue nel comune di Siculiana fra due uomini per causa di una vedova. Si sospettano moventi politici. Amore-Morte-Shimmy. Lugano belle. Tarantelle. Tarallucci e vino. If you whack that into Google Translate (I’m sadly not fluent in Italian), you get A bloodbath in the municipality of Siculiana between two men over a widow. Political motives are suspected. Love-Death-Shimmy. Beautiful Lugano. Dancing. Cookies and wine. Not the catchiest of titles, that’s for sure.
I’m sure only Wertmüller could reel the name of her film off without having to double-check it, although she too probably just referred to it by its shortened title. The movie wasn’t one of her most successful, and it seems to have only been remembered because of its ridiculous name rather than for what it was actually about.
