"...all feature extremely quick and lethal fights, mostly ending within a stroke or two" can't figure out how to make it quote right!

I'll defend that statement! In Iado, we're taught that if you can't get to them in two strokes, you just start over! ;)

anybody know anything about the Gates of Fire movie?

I think more reasonable fight scenes would improve the quality of the action. This is especially true for movies that strive to be gritty and realistic. The Proposition, I believe, is a great example how to do violence on the screen. The movie wouldn't have worked nearly as well if it'd used Hollywood conventions, especially those about injury and death.

While we're at it, I remember that I wrote a journal entry in June about the topic of stage fighting:

http://l-clausewitz.livejournal.com/313664.html

I'd certainly be glad to hear if any of the people here could offer comments and/or corrections for the thing. ;)

I am a full time professional filmmaker with credits ranging from major feature films to reality TV.
I am currently slated to direct a feature film entitled "The Legacy" which will feature swordplay. One of the actors just finished training under Paul Wagner, all the actors fighting in the movie are being required to study historical swordwork and fighting styles. The fighting in the film will be as real as we can make it. We believe that we can have real blade work and fighitng styles and still make it breathtaking, entertaining and exciting. Look for a DVD release early 2009. An online documentry may be starting soon. I'll keep everyone posted.

Michael B

Thank you! I'll be watching for your posts and patiently awaiting the DVD.

You know 300 had real fighting in it; it was based off Pilipino and Indian martial arts.

The guy who did LotRs had historical fighting thrown in there and it looked great. Kingdom of Heaven had some good sword fighting too; even mentioned Fiore moves though he comes a few hundred years after the movie takes place ;)

Does anybody remember the film Braveheart?
Well, it's one of my favourite movies starring Mel Gibson as William Wallace. The movie, however, looks a bit peculiar to many as the Scottish freedom fighter's character is played by an American actor. Furthermore, Gibson even hired dialect coaches to train him to speak English in a Scottish accent for Wallace's role. It's quite compelling to see Wallace being tortured before being executed in the final parts of the film.

With what Gibson did to history in that film he deserved all the torture he got.

Methinks that many practical fighting techniques are so swift and subtle that only the smallest percentage of the audience would realize what just they had just seen. 90% of the audience would lead over to ther person next to them and whisper "what just happened? did he just get killed? I missed it..."

Compound this with the duality that humans are sometimes amazingly hard to kill, and sometimes die frighteningly easily, and depicting either one can look phony.

And as Patrick mentioned, fights in movies and theater are often more of a plot device than a forensic excersise. Drama sells. A hero who is supposed to be struggling mightily has to look like he's struggling mightily. Even better if he strugges mightily for five to ten minutes.

So even if a director consults an expert (there's that tricky word) he has to balance other considerations than mere reality. The attraction many feel for cinema is exactly that it provides an escape from the bonds of reality.

All that said, I hate movie fights. They are rarely anything but preposterous. :lol:

Akira Kurosawa managed to make good swordfights with much less un-authenitisity than Hollywood. And the Film industry make some good shootout scenes and a bullet is always faster than a blade;)

my biggest problem with swordfights in films nowadays is the speed of the cameracuts....these fights look as they are not even fighting, but just posing in front of a camera to get a tenth of a second shot to put together a puzzle. i dont know if its a money issue (learning an actor swordfighting might take a bit of money) or the lack of motivation from an actor to learn fighting, or the need to speed up these scenes by that much. i havent seen a good long fighting scene for a long time...i think it was in the 80s.
in my group we do mainly freestyle one on one fighting, but once or twice in the year we put together a choreographed showfight to earn a bit of money doing one or two shows at a festival. we managed to do a showfight just using technices that makes sense in a real fight, so no "hollywood moves" take place.

Do you know that film star Steven Seagal keeps several samurai swords at his home? Well, most of you don't. Before he became a film star Seagal was an Aikido instructor. He even trained several film stars including Sean Connery for the film Never Say Never Again (1983).

This reminds me of something I read about the old Shakespearian actors: they had to know fencing and know it pretty well, becuase plenty of people in the audience would have been decent fencers themselves and incorrecty performed fight scenes could get the actors booed out. ;)

But seriously, speaking as a great fan of Bob Anderson and his entire school of sword choreography, I don't hold realistic fighting in movies in very high regard. Movie choreography is an art in itself, with a very distinct purpouse: to entertain a broad audience and not just historical recreators, martial artists and historians. :p

It's not about speed or power, but the timing and the beats between the two fighters. You make the movements large and flowing so that the viewers can appriciate them. You meet every attack with a parry, synchronicing the chime of the steel with the thundering score. The fighters have inhuman defence but die instantly from that one wound in the gut or chest. It's not realistic and it's not supposed to be.

Look at Star Wars. Look a Pirates of the Caribbean. Look at The Princess Bride, Zorro, the Three Musketeers, etc, etc. Don't try to tell me those movies would have actually benifited from realistic battles. I've seen realistic battles; they are boring, crude, quick and occasionally very ugly. What great romantic dreams of high adventure does that inspire in a young heart?

I'm not saying realistic fighting doesn't have a certain beauty of its own, nor do I say you can't have realistic fights in movies and make it look good. (I belive the one in Rob Roy is considered one of the best in that regard, and I did like that one.) What I'm saying is that when I go to the movies, I'm looking for some escapism which makes realism my least priority.

Benjamin H. Abbott wrote:

I think more reasonable fight scenes would improve the quality of the action. This is especially true for movies that strive to be gritty and realistic. The Proposition, I believe, is a great example how to do violence on the screen. The movie wouldn't have worked nearly as well if it'd used Hollywood conventions, especially those about injury and death.

This is a rather good point, actually. I suppose the most important thing is to match the degree of realism with the over-all mood of the story. It all comes down to what it is you want to say with your fight scene; which story it should communicate to the audience.

In this sense, realism can be preferable. However, the opposite is true as well: some movies just shouldn't be realistic.

Yes, Steven Segal is a legit 6th dan in Aikido. Known this for years.

Bob

If you haven't already seen it ......may I suggest finding a copy of Ridley Scotts 1977 film " The Duellists"

starring Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel.

Don't know that I'd call it a good movie, but yes, it had some good fights. To me, the Duellists is a good example of a film that has limited cult status amongst people interested in realistic sword fights... but little mainstream appeal.

Michael B, I'd be very interested in hearing more about your film!

There's a significant number of people who have contributed to the study of historical martial arts who came to it through stage combat. Jared Kirby (capo ferro, anyone?) , Brad Waller (mostly Marozzo, but others too) , Tony Wolf (Bartitsu is what he's best known for now in the HEMA community), Gareth and John from the Historical Maritime Combat Association... there are many others I've met but don't know as well, and more still I've never heard of I'm sure.

Stage combat is about choices. Realism is just one of those choices you can make.

Film combat is a slightly different creature, and has less HEMA practitioners that I know of (Anthony deLongis being one exception I know of).

Editing... well, that's a pet peeve for most of us choreographing and editing the fights as well, but I will say this- it has its uses. Quick cuts that convey chaos without letting you really follow the flow of the action are a good way to cover when your actor can't really pull it off, as it can be used to cover 'misses', insert more shots of the stuntperson, etc... but that should always be plan C or D, not a first choice strategy.