The good guy and the bad guy square off on a wide factory floor. They are in front of large opaque windows lit from outside. Swords are drawn and the fight begins, the bad guy fueled by his rage swings and is blocked easily since he had telegraphed his intent. The good guy stepped back giving the bad guy the the idea that he was about to strike a mortal blow. The music swelled with ominous influence as the good guy stepped back again. The bad guy’s sword is broken by a defensive upstrike of the good guy and the music swells with heroic inspiration as the bad guy is backing up defensively. The scene is being lit more brightly to show the good is winning and evil is losing; NOT! lighting was uniform and monochrome. Face palm and sigh! The fight choreography was spot on without too much of, “The blade has to be here since the blow is going to come…”

We have seen variations of this many times. As I watched this present day sword fight I was hoping that the lighting, movement across the screen and the music would coordinate to orchestrate and define the fight giving us hints as to the future path the fight would take. To be able to know who is who on the screen without dialog and how the fight is going is key. But no. The only discernable illustration of the fight was the music. The two fighters swapped sides seemingly at random, no lighting changes of intensity or color, no particular position on the stage for either side winning or losing.

It was an epic sized stage and expertly backlit but I was let down by the lack of coordination between the screen elements to support the fight. There are excellent fights out there. An easy one is in Battleship, where “BWAHHHH” loudly announces the bad guys. The give and take of the battles are obvious and well supported by the various elements of sight and sound of the movie. There are many examples of good and bad fight staging. What are your film fight elements that make a cinematic fight better? What has disappointed you about some fights? For me, a person to person fight lasting more than three minutes or a small fighter knocking a large fighter across a room don’t make it. Three minutes of all out effort and oxygen depletion happens and physics matter, inertia matters, bone strength matters. How about you?

To be sure, an artistic vision is an artistic vision and I may have been incapable of catching the director’s intent. I have been known to be dense at times… Ask my wife.

When I’m in the theater I try to stay in the experience of the movie and just accept the story as is. I want to “grok” the ebb and flow of the story without any judgment. I’d like to say how successful I am at suspending judgment, I’d like to say it but I’d be lying.

  

Many scenes are emotionally set up by previous events. If I am distracted by the ballistic arc of a person not being right after being kicked in the chest I could totally miss a clue. Not to mention the aorta being ripped loose from the heart if someone was kicked this way. As best I can I stay in the moment as presented by the director and actors. After all who am I to want to change the “BWAAAAHH” or the smile of the Mona Lisa?