And Make Imaginary Puissance

I continuously complain of bad fight scenes in movies, so how about a change of pace and looking into good or decent fight scenes? Warning: this is a very long post.

First, this is a very problematic thing to even talk about because what makes a fight scene “good?” I used to go to forums where there were complaints about “realistic” fight scenes and I have to wonder– what the hell is a “realistic” fight scene? For instance, what is a “realistic” sword fight? I don’t know a lot of people who have ever seen a “real” sword fight– whatever that means– so how do you portray it in a movie? I mean, we can’t even really define a “real” sword fight. Don’t tell me it’s just one that ends in death or has lethal intent, either. Lots of sword combats in the past have involved everything short of death or even serious injury.

I mean, if you want “realistic” then the classic scene from Indiana Jones probably can’t be beat.

Second, I am not at all a movie or theater person but I do understand the limitations the medium imposes. First and foremost, the whole fight has to advance the story or fit into the point of the movie, be it to entertain, shock, play up dramatic effect, or whatever. If you can’t tell, for instance, the personality of the characters in the fight, then it’s a pretty crappy one. Or if you can’t understand what’s going on, well then it sucks– kind of like action sequences in Michael Bay movies. They’re all noisy, blurry, special effecty and… I really have no clue what just happened other than Shia Labeouf somehow miraculously winning again. So this means that punches are often wide, so the audience can see them, or that movements are exaggerated.

Maybe a good place to start is to show crap fight scenes.

So take for instance the light saber duel between Count Dooku and Yoda in the second Star Wars movie.

This is seriously a crap scene. Yoda never particularly aims for Count Dooku himself– not even Dooku’s over-extended arms. Neither does Dooku aim for Yoda. In fact, it’s nothing more than pointless jumps and twirls from Sonic the Yoda. You don’t even get a sense of who is winning or losing. It’s a pointless exercise in arm waving and CGI.

This was an equally crap scene. It was pointless flailing and sword waving. There were some truly idiotic parts too, like when Anakin and Obi Wan literally stand inches apart and twirl their swords around. You don’t get a sense of who is winning, there’s no sense of technique. I did some poking around and the two Jedi apparently have different fighting styles– you simply don’t see it, the two actors seem to be practicing the same kind of Tae Kwan Crap. It didn’t help the dialogue is absolutely hackneyed and that Hayden Christensen is just an iffy actor who (a) is given a political ideology that makes him sound like George Dubya Anakin and (b) portrays turning to the “dark side” as looking angry, perhaps because Obi Wan said his momma was so fat, Luke Skywalker thought she was a small moon.

So given those two examples, I suppose I look firstly for something that helps with the plot or story of the movie, matching the needs of the movie by showing the fight as a turning point, or a point of character development, or whatever. Second, it would be nice if the fight also just shows good acting. The actors just have to sell that they are fighting with whatever emotion is called for: fear, intensity, non-chalance, or whatever. They shouldn’t just stand there and move their arms. Third, it would be nice to see a little bit more than mindless sword twirling or the stereotypical parry high, parry low, parry high, parry low sequence.

Perhaps the movie with the best sword fights– possibly even historically accurate ones–would be Ridley Scott’s first movie The Duellists. This is based on a Joseph Conrad short story and it depicts a long-running rivalry between two hussars in the Napoleonic army. The aggressor and hot-head is played by Harvey Keitel while the rather vanilla hero is played by the appropriately bland and vanilla Keith Carradine.

This, for instance, is a fantastic scene. It builds up suspense, leaving you to wonder what happened without actually showing the sword strike itself. It also shows you Keith Carradine’s fear, his frustration at having to fight for “honor” against someone who is obsessed with it. So the framing the scene, the running montages, show you how all his encounters with Harvey Keitel build up to that one moment, which gives him the nerve to keep riding and meet the attack head on instead of slowing down or hesitating or turning his back– which would be lethal for him. It’s also brief– no fancy twirling, just two hussars riding towards each other to make one pass. From what I can tell from period manuals and such, it’s not a bad depiction of mounted combat from the era. They certainly hold their swords correctly when on point– edge up, arm extended. It shows mounted combat as more a matter of verve and horsemanship rather than fancy sword twirling, which is probably very accurate. Harvey Keitel is shown to be consistently better than Keith Carradine in combat, but in this moment, you see how emotion and a surge of bravery because mounting frustration gives Carradine the will to win. Oh and it doesn’t hurt that it’s a beautiful scene too– the uniforms, the framing, the color palette.

The Duellists is just full of these good, beautiful, well-acted scenes. This first fight involves Harvey Keitel’s character, Gabriel Feraud, dueling with the nephew of the mayor of Strasbourg. Feraud is portrayed as an excellent sword fighter who has obviously done this before and is cool, but intense and aggressive when fighting, while his opponent is clearly depicted as a civilian who knows how to use a sword, but has never done it in a duel with lethal intent. You can see and feel the man’s hesitation and his lack of skill, which Feraud uses. The scene also has correct stances– leaning back, sword out, off-hand defending. The fight is mostly linear, but they circle, which is good, and the two actors have a good sense of distance. Not perfect, but good. It also shows a rarity in movies– as a contrast from the Star Wars scenes above– broken tempo. You don’t see a continuous flurry of sword parries and blows– there is hesitation, the duelists move in and out of range, they sometimes make jerky attacks and flinch. Again– a very good scene.

The fight choreographer of The Duellists is a man named William Hobbs and he is probably the reason why Ridley Scott movies have better than average sword fight scenes. He seems to be responsible for some of the better ones in recent Hollywood history, in contrast to Bob Anderson who is something of a doyen of Hollywood sword fights. Hobbs seems to show differences in technique, intensity, good sense of distance and personal space among the actors and broken tempo. He basically “sells” the fight– it seems real, whether or not the techniques used in it are real or not– and its a happy coincidence he has choreographed actors who seem to be into this stuff or willing to learn.

That scene was from the otherwise incredibly dull Rob Roy. It was not a Ridley Scott movie, but it was choreographed by William Hobbs. The claymore or backsword that Liam Neeson uses is probably anachronistic, and I don’t know enough about that weapon to tell if it was used well, but I liked the contrast between the backsword and the small sword. Tim Roth was shown as quick, intense, skilled, arrogant and very angry, a coiled spring, and he was deft with his small sword (not rapier, btw, as so many people seem to think). The scene was making a point with this contrast in fighting styles and weapons– a culturally stereotyped one, I’m sure– of the deft, skilled, scientific but foppish English, versus the more manly, stolid and visceral Scottish with their backsword. Perhaps it was even making a pseudo political one– the Scottish could be nicked and bled, but they would endure and win the end.

Riddley Scott tends to have decent fight scenes, as I mentioned. The movie Kingdom of Heaven was done a terrible disservice in its final cut– the version shown in theaters was crap, but the extended version was probably one of the best Ridley Scott films. All the whining and bleating about its supposed “historical accuracy” aside (which usually says more about the reviewer’s political leanings) the combat in the film ranged from the very good to top notch– even if they weren’t arranged by William Hobbs.

This scene is from the extended version of Kingdom of Heaven. It’s not bad– its better than most out there (although Orlando Bloom really ought to tuck his elbows in). It’s not superb, but almost everything else I’ve seen is much worse. In fact Kingdom of Heaven is rather famous for being the only Hollywood movie to mention that medieval Europe had sword martial arts with its famous “posta di falcone” scene:

Liam Neeson with a sword… again.

Sure, the movements are wide, two-handers and the posta di falcone came a good 200 years later, or even that they probably ought to be using posta di donna and not posta di falcone (which we might call the “Guard That Will Turn You Into the Lord of Jerusalem), but still. The sudden half-swording switch and pommel strike was a nice touch. It gave you the idea that these people weren’t flailing away wildly, but had martial arts and technique.

However, where the movie really did a good job was the battles.

Aside from just looking nice– it was intense, advanced the plot and was surprisingly realistic. Saladin’s trebuchets don’t take down the city walls in a flash– in fact, they are used more to harass and lob missiles into the city, which is probably how they would be used against firm walls. The siege is shown as a series of long, bloody, and inconclusive escalades that only end with a negotiated surrender. Not only is this true to the specific history of the fall of Jerusalem, it was also true of many medieval sieges in general.

Other intense, pseudo-realistic scenes (in that they seem to show plausible or plausible-looking techniques) include, for instance the end fight from the quickly-forgotten The Hunted with Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio del Toro.

It’s a harrowing scene, and as Roger Ebert point out, a very good one. It doesn’t involve dreary Matrix-style CGI and wire fighting which really doesn’t look very… fighty: as I call those scenes, Bitch Slapping in Bullet Time. Instead, in The Hunted you see ugly, visceral, bloody fighting of two guys stabbing and cutting each other, really just trying to kill each other. It’s not pretty or epic or artistic, but you see technique– locks, blocks, all of it. There’s even an attempt to keep the techniques simple– not overly elaborate. It doesn’t hurt they based the knife-fighting on a Filipino style, Kali I believe. Of course, this being the Internet, there’s some dude on Youtube (who sells knives, of course) who is vehemently against this movie because of the style of knife it uses.

The scene from Sherlock Holmes is another favorite. It shows Sherlock’s personality– multi-talented, able to fight but simultaneously think about other things while doing so. At the end of it, you got the sense he was doing all of the falling and fighting largely for show, and could have ended it quickly if he had to. The movie’s trick of having Sherlock plot out in advance what he was going to do was also effective and clever. It doesn’t hurt that Robert Downey Jr. is a good actor when he doesn’t have more coke in him than a vending machine and that he practices Wing Chun Kung Fu. Also, I like the nod to the historical martial art Bartitsu–which Arthur Conan Doyle referenced in The Adventure of the Empty House.

The scene above is an absolute rarity: a depiction of early modern “pike and shot” warfare in a movie. It’s a pretty good one too– pikes form in squares, screened by gunners. I suppose, ironically, the tercios ought not to be shown firing their weapons in countermarch (musketeer fires and then moves to the rear to reload, while a musketeer in the rear ranks moves forward) since the mosqueteros in tercios fired at their own initiative. It’s ironic because the countermarch was developed by the Dutch to counter the advance of the Spanish tercio. The cavalry really ought not to ride forward and fire like that either– they’d be more likely to hit the moon than the tercio. However, the moment when the two pike squares inch forward before meeting each other is fantastic– such a difference from Hollywood, which would probably have these two pike squares run at each other flat out, breaking formation.

The scene is from the Spanish movie Alatriste, a so-so movie largely because it mashed together 4 books into two hours and was barely comprehensible to anybody who hadn’t read the books. But if you have read the books, it was an entertaining visualization of an excellent series of books, and it was very picturesque too. The other fight scenes are okay as well, and it was nice to see Aragorn Espanol.

The Japanese also make excellent sword fight scenes. Not always– I’ve watched enough samurai movies to see crap scenes, so let’s not stereotype that Japanese movies always have good swordfights because every Japanese person has a katana in their bedroom.

This is from The Twilight Samurai– an already excellent movie with fine, understated drama and a depiction of samurai that completely turns the stereotype on its head. The hero is portrayed as a reluctant samurai living at the end of the Tokugawa Era. Unlike the other samurai, who wish to fight to maintain their privilege (like Ken Watanabe’s character in The Last Samurai) the hero in Twilight Samurai wants to give up being a samurai and just be a farmer so he can watch his daughters grow up. Not only is this remarkably true to history– lots of low ranking samurai did give up their swords to become farmers– it was also poignant. However, the hero had a secret: he was actually very good with a sword– his school practiced with the short weapon, the kodachi.

So in this scene, you see him reluctantly taking on an arrogant “squire”– who is shown being a douche-san– to save a friend. He is so poor he uses just  a stick (he pawned his sword), but he also uses the stick because he doesn’t want to kill the other guy. The fight is fantastic– it advances the plot, hell it’s even a pivotal moment since it shows you a hidden talent that makes people around him look at the hero differently. The technique he uses is apparently accurate or at least plausible (from what I heard from people who know about it). Instead of directly blocking the longer katana with his shorter weapon, he moves in at close range and stifles the other man’s hand, preventing him from even moving his weapon. How many Hollywood movies would show something like that? This probably was a better way for Yoda to use his shorter weapon– moving within close range where the man with the longer weapon has less freedom.

There is, of course, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. This particular scene shows Kyuzo, the winner of this fight, dueling with another samurai. In a scene that shows very little fancy twirling, you’re given a fantastic example of a sword duel. It clearly shows why Kyuzo won: he is cool, calm, decisive and collected. His opponent is shown as brash and hesitant, his courage generated from hot air. When Kyuzo’s opponent fights, he can’t decide on what stance to use and his advance is jerky and clumsy. It’s subtle film making and a good fight scene, but hell, it’s Akira Kurosawa, what do you expect? It’s also apparently based on a real duel from Japanese history involving a samurai named Yagyu Jubei Mitsuyoshi, son (I believe) of the founder of Yagyu Shinkage Ryu.

Hollywood often depicts battles as brainless charges, or conversely, as heroic melees. That scene from the 1968 movie Charge of the Light Brigade is probably the single most realistic depiction of the charge in movie history– possibly one of the most realistic depictions of pre-20th century warfare. It’s depicted as a mess of poorly planned chaos. The commander of the charge, Lord Cardigan, is shown as a useless card who is more concerned with cutting a fine figure on the saddle (and getting mad at a soldier for riding ahead of him because of that) than thinking about a better way to execute his seemingly quixotic orders to seize a hilltop full of guns or even looking back to see if his men were doing okay. The charge doesn’t start out at a breakneck run either, and the cavalrymen are shown as doing their best to stay in formation– they ride as fast as they can while still in ranks, which in this case looks to be either a fast canter or a slow gallop. Only towards the end of their charge do they actually advance at a run, and it was only after they’d been cannonaded all to hell in the “valley of death” that the cavalry’s ranks begin to tatter. The reactions to their charge are true to history too– John Gielguld brilliantly portrays Lord Raglan as an amateurish old fuddy duddy. The whole charge is presented as a tragedy of amateurishness and boneheaded errors by the incompetent aristocratic British commanders– hardly the heroic ride to destiny of Tennyson.

Oliver Stone’s Alexander was an incredibly uneven film, but this scene was quite good. Alexander’s speech is interesting. I like how he looks to omens, like any ancient world commander would. It’s also nice to see him singling out soldiers for praise, which he is recorded as doing and which was key to his appeal and command style. The contrast between his comment on courage and the frightened soldier soiling himself was classic Oliver Stone too– a combat vet would look askance at such romanticism. The scene has some flaws, I’m sure– I suspect its treatment of the Persians is not overly accurate and Stone completely omits the fact that a large proportion of Darius’s army was composed of Greek mercenaries. However, it is one of the rare Hollywood movies that show actual tactics. Alexander DOES have a plan for Gaugamela, and he carries it out– it’s not just a wild smash of armies. More than that, Stone actually showed what tactic Alexander probably used (or close enough to it)– divide the Persian army by baiting Darius and then riding his cavalry through the gap to head straight for Darius himself.  For those who have read their Arrian (one of the primary sources for Alexander’s life) this is simply remarkable– a Hollywood movie that stuck to history. The way the Macedonians stopped the chariots was even taken from the primary sources. A nice touch is the fact that this is one of those very, very rare Hollywood films that shows ancient world cavalry not using stirrups. You also see all the major troop types– sarissa-armed phalangites, lightly armed hypaspists (in the right place of the battle line– keeping contact with the infantry and cavalry), peltast skirmishers, and of course, the famous Companion Cavalry of Alexander– armed with accurate weapons too. A remarkably accurate scene from an otherwise bleh movie. Credit clearly goes to Stone and to Robin Lane Fox, his historical adviser.

For those who point out I haven’t mentioned guns much, this scene from Michael Mann’s Heat is very famous. Not only is it based on a real life shootout, it shows the use of suppressive fire, reloading (Val Kilmer apparently reloads at record speed) and advancing in rushes. Michael Mann would show something similar again in the shoot out scene in the (if you ask me) very underrated Miami Vice. The movie also shows cars barely being able to protect the people hiding behind them– which is pretty realistic. The scene stands in contrast to this famous one from the otherwise fun movie Grosse Point Blank.

Ladies and gentlemen, bulletproof potato chips.

Fight scenes don’t have to be super-realistic or the like to be nice. I like stylized scenes too, those that are more artistic than anything. The scene above was from the movie Troy. Troy has been much criticized, and I noticed it’s often criticized by people who clearly haven’t read the Iliad– I’ve seen complaints of how Achilles is portrayed as vulnerable, for instance, when in Homer’s Iliad he is never described as immortal and almost drowns in the Skamandros river at one point. Hell, I’ve seen very few remarks on how it shows Menelaus dying, when in fact he was one of the few Greek heroes to survive and make an appearance in the Odyssey. That being said, it was a hum drum movie.

The duel between Hektor and Achilles was good because it’s how I imagine two heroes fighting. Brad Pitt plays Achilles here to perfection: a golden god who is superhuman in skill. He makes fighting look effortless and graceful, adding a touch of genius to his style. Hektor is shown as a skilled craftsman, good through hard work and training, but just not quite up to Achilles’s skill. The movements of the fight look almost poetic, almost as if this is how Homer might have imagined it. It was also nice to see how Hektor does his best, and while he is clearly going to lose he constantly puts it off– you find yourself rooting for him. In the end, he gives Achilles his toughest fight and even manages to scratch his armour.

Brad Pitt is what really makes this scene work– he really does look and move and fight like a golden god. He is what I imagine a hero to be: arrogant, superhumanly beautiful in a fight and epic poetry in motion.

To quote Phil Ken Sebben: "Ha! Ha! Bi curious..."

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a brilliant movie, perhaps the best example of the “You Killed My Master!” genre of kung fu movies. The fight styles and scenes in it are closely integrated to the movie, which meant that the aerial acrobatics actually had a point beyond mere visuals. Later “artsy fartsy” kung fu movies would take these to ridiculous extremes (like the pro-communist party Hero or the incredibly dull House of Flying Daggers). I happen to really like the character of Li Mu Bai, Chow Yun Fat’s character, because he is how I imagine the kung fu master to be. He’s restrained, calm and fights with an absolute economy of motion. Unlike Sonic the Yoda, he doesn’t make a movement he doesn’t have to and his fighting style is beautiful in its relative simplicity. The contrast shown when he fights Ziyi Zhang’s Jen is one of the most effective bits of fight choreography I’ve seen: Jen is naturally skilled, but she doesn’t quite understand the techniques she read from the manuals she stole from Li Mu Bai’s school. Li Mu Bai sees this natural talent and while fighting he cannot deny his inner teacher and teaches her–another very nice touch since it shows the character of Li Mu Bai. Jen looks clumsy and overdone in comparison and he disarms her with a stick, despite the fact she is using the best sword in China, the Green Destiny. If any character best shows the spiritual, meditative aspect of Chinese martial arts, it has to be Li Mu Bai.

One last scene I happen to like is from the TV show Chuck. First, I mention it because I’m a fan of the series… so clearly this whole fight stuff is generally a matter of taste. If you like stylized fights or light saber combat or flying through the air, then shit, who am I to judge. I ain’t anybody.

But this scene– I like it for a few simple reasons. First, I’m sick to death of what TV Tropes calls Waif Fu or the fairy fighting style so beloved in Hollywood. Little girls like River Tam from Serenity or the Firefly series are shown as kicking ass through the magic of balletic movement, but her hits and blows don’t show much power and you know one hit on her and she’ll go down like glass. In the scene below, Yvonne Strahovsky’s Sarah Walker is shown hitting with power, fighting like a guy or a bruiser, basically. However, she isn’t made to look like some crazy butchy “dyke” but is still depicted as feminine while doing so– she’s just strong. It also shows her as getting hit and feeling pain– I notice the Hollywood double standard where women can fight, and often as gracefully as cats, but can’t be shown getting hit because that would just be offensive. I guess I’m post-feminist enough to think that if the woman is going to want to punch it up with the bad guys, well then she’s going to get hit and that’s all there is to it.

But in the end, I say again– what the hell do I know. Movies are a matter of taste. If it’s fun, its fun: shit, don’t listen me. I say, screw me. I suck. Amen.