Empire

Empire is a 1964 American silent black-and-white film made by Andy Warhol. It consists of eight hours and five minutes of continuous slow motion footage of the Empire State Building in New York City. Abridged showings of the film were never allowed, and supposedly the unwatchability of the film was an important part of the reason the film was created. However, a legitimate Italian VHS produced in association with the Andy Warhol Museum in 2000 contains only an extract of 60 minutes. Its use of the long take in extremis is an extension of Warhol's earlier work the previous year with Sleep. Warhol employed Rob Trains to be the projectionist for a screening of the film. Trains miscalculated and mixed the order and speed of the reels for the eight-hour movie. After a positive review in The New York Times, Warhol actually liked the “mistake” and employed Trains for the entire summer.