I was thinking that I was in a real minority for a while as I’d seen in previous posts where I criticised the close up fight scenes of the Bourne movies and was pretty much blasted down for it. I thought I was the only one. Not so, a director of a two movie action series has backed up my thoughts.
ZAP2it have an article on the new Transporter movie, cleverly titled, The Transporter 2, and in it there are some comments from Jason Statham and Louis Leterrier the Director who says…
“I think the best fight scenes are always the ones that are most realistic, the ones that aren’t influenced with CG and wires,” he says. “The best fights you’ll ever see are the stuff that Bruce Lee used to do because it’s always a wider angle so you see the guy doing it. There is no room for fast cuts. A lot of movies you see now you just see fists going and you don’t know who is doing it. It could be my grandma. It’s annoying, but the reason they do it is because a lot of the actors can’t do the fights, so they have to disguise that in some way so they use tight angles and fast cuts.”
I don’t think that just ends with Bruce Lee movies, but most martial arts movies carry the better style of fighting scenes. You can see it in Jackie Chan‘s earlier movies, before he came to the US and fitted in with the Western style of fight, and I think that’s a common theme. The Western way of portraying a fight is with fast cuts and close ups, and you can’t argue that both those have been increased in recent years to the point of cutting so fast, and being so close, that you can’t really tell who’s fighting who and what’s going on.
The way fights are portrayed in Asian martial arts movies, those where a Western influence isn’t so prevalent, you’ll see the wider lens standing back from the action, less cuts so you can take in what is happening, and more of the actual actors involved. For me I think this is the far superior way of filming a fight sequence.
You get to see the action, let the eye capture it and the brain understand it. You see what’s coming in a fight, a punch or a bar being swung towards the character that you can actually identify. It builds tension during the scene, and in a good fight scene you can be just as on edge as with a tense moment in a thriller.
This just doesn’t happen when it’s fast cuts and close ups of fists. The only reason you get tense in these moments is because you can’t see what’s going on and you feel confused. The perfect example of that for me is the scene in the Bourne Supremacy when Bourne is fighting with the guy in his kitchen. During that scene I had no idea who was winning, who was on top, if anyone was getting hurt, I just saw flying fists, rolling bodies and then you saw at the end that Bourne had wrestled him to the floor.
During a fight scene there’s a balance of power, usually you’ll see the goodie take an early lead, then the baddie beats him down, and the goodie comes back to just manage a win. Something along those lines, and that balance of power helps the tension to be built. Not in that example above though, because you just can’t tell who is winning at what point. It’s too fast, too close.
I much prefer the wider, longer cut angle. That way you can see this balance, you see the actual characters involved, and that helps pull you into the action and be more emotionally charged with the action. For a perfect example see the corridor fight scene from Oldoy, that is spectacular.
As Leterrier says, they are done to disguise the fact that the actors can’t do the fights themselves, yet they used to. Even in Western movies the fighting hasn’t always been as close up and cut as current films, there was a time when the actors would get involved. Yet that’s even a sweeping statement, look at what the actors did for The Matrix fight scenes, and they heavily bowed to Eastern cinema for those.
That is extreme though, and with a little training, some cuts, body doubles, etc you can film a fight scene in this way. It takes some time and training, but I think the result is far better and far more effective.
Perhaps it is not the factor of time or training, perhaps it is of money. With the high salary demands of such leading actors, is it perhaps too costly now to keep one, two or even more actors in training for a single fight scene for weeks or even months?
Okay, I’ve talked enough on this subject, and now it’s time for you. Do you agree? Do you think that both styles work, or are you even a fan of the fast cut, close up fights over the wide angle, less cut style? Which do you prefer, what’s your favourite fight scene? Oh, and please try and back up your argument, let’s hear some examples, there’s nothing worse than just shouting in a few words of what you hate or like!
i think that most fight scenes ARE too close up but the bourne thing thats was an awesome fight the fact that it wasnt spinnin kiks it was real fightin
these asian martial arts sometimes get annoyin with all the fancy moves. i mean theyre cool but the moves are just so far out. in bourne the moves were cool and really fast
wide agle would be better though
Spot on. As I read your comments I realised I had been trying to articulate them for a while, but couldn’t because I was feeling inferior for not being able to appreciate those shittily shot scenes. But in reality, they’re crap and I’m right :-) Thank you
Close fighting shots apart from the other flaws were very serious problems for the new batman movie.i was especially annoyed by the final fight scene where cristian bale fights liam neeson in the monorail.Apart from the fact that you can’t really see what’s going on during the fight,it just looks horrible.
Jason I *just* watched Chronicles last night and I totally get you with the fight scenes. I thought it was me for a little while but you can see nothing at all during the scenes.
Strange in that movie too as Diesel actually trained in the sual handed knife fighting style for the movie, for what reason? The only time we really see him and are able to take in what’s going on is when he’s standing still posturing.
I agree with you guys whole-heartedly! As a HUGE martiql arts fan I am always dissapointed when filmakers try to fake it. Yes, it is always better to use REAL martial Artists, but you can do very well with regular actors if you have a good fight choreographer such as Yen woo Ping? or Cory Yuen or Donny Yen. With a little training and prep work they can make a regular actor look like an expert. Look at the matrix films and the Bourne Identity.
HOWEVER, the cuurent trend of trying to fake it with camera work and fast editing is unforgivable and atrocious! Why would they hire a fight choreographer and take the time to make matt Damon look like a karate expert in Bourne Identity but then drop the ball on Bourne Supremacy and use fast editing and shaky cam which look terrible.
The worst offender was Chronicles of Riddick! I liked the characters and story but the fight scenes were the WORST I have ever seen on film. The big fight scene in the middle of the movie is done so bad I cannot tell what is going on!!! How can you combine slow motion with fast MTV editing? are you kidding?!!! I mean, the old 80’s American Ninja movies had really bad choreography but at least I could tell who was hitting who!!!
Also, Resident Evil Apocolypse was a movie with very good fight choreography and would have looked good until they edited the fight scenes down to nothing. The cuts were so fast, it looked like those CIA brainwashing techniques where they flash subliminal messages really fast into your brain!!!
When will new filmakers learn that they can’t do everything themselves!!! Let’s take some of that crappy CGI money and pay for a fight choreographer and training for the actors.
I almost agree with everything said here. The first Bourne movie was amazing, brilliantly directed by Doug Liman. The second Supremecy was by Paul Greengrass and bad news I just read an interview with Damon who says Greengrass will do Ultimatum now. My girlfriend loved the first Bourne, we would watch it almost once a week for a while, then we saw Supremecy, she almost left from stomach sickness, I would look over and see her with her eyes closed for the fight scenes. Damon has said he likes Greengrass, I can’t understand why. It is the director’s fault, pull back the camera a few feet and all would be fine, cut scenes as much as you want as long as we can see what is happening. If I wanted to feel like I was in a fight I would get in a fight.
Yeah Triflic, that’s better, but still way too many cuts. Special moments like the cut to the paint tin before three or four more during the throwing of it are a bit too much. It does touch on the excellent wider view approach though.
That is hardly “lazy or boring” Directing as secretsafe would say, and it’s not in the Directing that the Editing is done, that’s at the editing stage, if you’ll pardon the obvious. So fast cuts are not so much about the Directing but the Editing.
Firehose fight sequence from Transporter 2 posted over a Kaiju Shakedown (http://ffmovies.ign.com/filmforce/video/article/639/639702/transporter_hose_080505_qtlowwide.mov)
Urgh, I so agree with you. The fights in The Bourne Supremacy were idiotic, especially that 5-hour car chase where you can’t see anything. When did “realistic” meant “shaking the camera until the audience wants to run out of the theater and throw up”?
Another aspect of why Western films use 1 second cuts (and in some cases jump cuts which are so annoying and jarring) and fast editing in general is that audiences are used to being spoonfed their pablum at a rapid rate.
No one relaxes and enjoys a flim anymore. They have to be bombarded with as many images and symbols as an editor can possibly insert into every single mintue of a film. And this has been directly linked to gen XYZ’s love of gaming and the MTV factor of tv. It’s an almost direct infusion with the cross overs of directers from music videos to full length features to action movies. Think McG for example. And the reason Charlie’s Angels does well in translation from tv to film is because he did come from music videos where short clips and cuts tell more of the “story” beind each song. (*gag*)
When I learned editing, the rule was there were to be no cuts under 4 seconds in length befor a cut, transition or wipe was allowed. Do you know how long 4 seconds is? As a former closed captioner, that 4 seconds can be worked out to be 2.5 small captions, or 2 medium captions, or one longer caption of text. That’s a lot of time, people!
And to the average N.A. audience, it may as well be a full hour of snooze time! I hate movies like that. My fave kind are ones that lock off on wide shots and allow the characters and action to move and flow within the frame, not where the frame follows or creates the action for the characters. I love European movies for this one particular reason more than anything we have made domestically.
I used to like the shaky-shaky camera until recently when i realised that just about every movie is now doing it.
* cost cutting
* actors can’t fight and easier than using a body double
* laziness
i think hollow-wood and friends are currently in their copy and paste phase. sequel, prequels, remakes, blah and lazy hap-hazard filming styles are all keeping the audiences away. lets hope sometime soon they realise that joe-public wants to be entertained
Wirework most of the time does not work and just looks like wirework.
Crouching Tiger -Good
Most non asian films -Bad
Bullet time is boring now
Matrix -Good
When the character does not have comand over time and space -Bad
If another character motions with his or her hand again to “come get some” my eyes may permanently roll back into my head.
Army of Darkness,Kill Bill -Good
Films where the character does not display any sense of humor but chooses to do that during a fight -Bad
I m not a huge fan of shaky cams but there is one fight in the Bourne movies where he takes out someone in very blank kitchen area where some white blinds are pulled down and it shakes all around and the sound of the blinds smashing works to good affect in that I felt like I had been tossed around in a fight.
I think different fighting style,location,and camera movement is good and can add to the kaleidoscope of ways to convey violence.
If a director only chooses one way to portray fighting that seems lazy and boring.
The action scenes shown in a good number of movies nowadays are terribly up close. That includes the fights, car chases, etc. I actually look away from the screen to get my head straight.
Three movies that I can boil out are The Bourne Supremacy and the last 2 Blade movies. I mean who was fighting whom? It was poorly directed. The camera shook so much it gave me a headache… :o)
I personally thought the fight scenes in Matrix franchise were awesome, excluding the multiple Agent Smith fight in the playground. The actors practiced for months training with real Martial arts instructers to bring natural movements to the screen.
Now that’s what I call dedication.
– TM
I’m not that much into action flicks, but I, like you, am annoyed by the close-up fighting scenes. I hate not knowing what’s going on, seeing fast action not really sure what it is I’m looking at.
With a wider camera angle you can usually see more of what’s happening, and I’m more likely to think “ouch! That’s gotta hurt” and get mentally involved in the fight.
The close combat in the Bourne movies clearly isn’t their main asset (the plot and running away scenes are). In my opinion, they just confuse the audience.