The maze may be architectural, cognitive, political, emotional or narrative (as in "Smoking/No Smoking," whose elaborately branching plot yields a two-part, four-hour film).

A four-hour film is being released first, followed by a two-hour version in January.

The almost four-hour film opened to scathing reviews and alienated audiences.

The Civil War analogy seemed apt, and not simply because Mr. Turner played a cameo role in his broadcasting company's four-hour film, "Gettysburg."

The four-hour film, which concludes tomorrow night, is notably lacking in special effects or fleshly spectacle.

At one point, two of the four sequences comprised by the nearly four-hour film were excised and released as separate features.

A good case in point: "Charlie," a four-hour film, half of which can be seen tonight at 9 o'clock on Channel 13 and the rest next Wednesday.

Unlike Mr. Lee's critically acclaimed four-hour film "Right to Return" stays away from experts, hurricane scenes and shots of bedraggled storm victims.

PBS will broadcast Mr. Burns's four-hour film about the explorers on Nov. 4 and 5.

Though clearly meant to have an epic sweep, "The Gravedigger's Daughter" feels like a four-hour film that should have been cut by 90 minutes.