Hollywood’s lost art of film fighting

Guardian film critic Anne Billson’s latest entry in a series of articles on film looks at what she affectionately calls “lunkhead action movies,” the kind serious critics scoff at, and Hollywood filmmakers’ inability to shoot quality fight sequences when compared with recent foreign actioners like DISTRICT 13: ULTIMATUM, IP MAN and ONG BAK 2.

She points out what screen fighting fans typically want to see but rarely do in modern action films. It can all be boiled down to what she describes as “real people going at it mano-a-mano …. I want to see the choreography, preferably from a fixed camera position with minimal editing.”

Of course, Anne and many others are keenly aware that many of the stars appearing in today’s action movies are lacking the training necessary to perform quality screen fighting in front of a fixed camera. It takes years of hands-on experience, months of pre-production preparation and weeks to shoot great fight sequences.

Filmmakers and stars unqualified to be involved in screen fighting action have been able to hide behind the artifice of stylized editing which is stilled viewed by some as an advancement. I shudder at the thought. With few artistic exceptions, it’s a gimmick, a fad born from trendiness and the necessity to mask inferior abilities on the part of the stunt coordinator, stuntmen, director, or actors involved or perhaps it is something else. Perhaps the shift from live choreography to post-production editing is the desire of film directors to want to maintain control of something they really don’t understand.

Hong Kong gave rise to the position of “action director,” a filmmaker who understood screen fighting but also possessed the ability to handle the camera, direct the entire sequence and then edit it together. Their success depended on the ability to conceptualize a fight sequence and see it through from start to finish, even if another director oversaw the rest of the film. I suspect that many Hollywood filmmakers today are reticent to give this much control away to their stunt choreographers. Yet they still may not understand how to shoot or edit a fight sequence and try to do so anyway.

Anne closes her article with a hopeful note by reminding us that old action warhorses like Sylvester Stallone are still with us and trying to carry the torch, particularly with THE EXPENDABLES. It’s fitting given Stallone’s intent.

Stallone has been in touch with his fans and understands that those who grew up in the ’70s or ’80s are generally not satisfied with computer effects and stylized editing replacing good old fashioned stunt work. It’s like replacing sugar cane with corn syrup or The Clash with Green Day. Once you’ve had a taste of the real thing, no substitute will do and I’m willing to bet that if younger generations could see more of the real deal in a modern context they’ll feel the same way. That’s why action filmmaking needs to get back to the business of producing real action with real stunts and real screen fighting. Forget the “serious” critics or the pop trends. Seeing real skills in action is what energizes audiences and keeps them buzzing long after the curtain closes.

There is the real possibility that great stunt work and screen fighting will indeed become a lost art, at least as we’ve known it for the past three decades. Film history tells us that cinema greats like Buster Keaton, Douglas Fairbanks and Bruce Lee are irreplaceable, just as some of cinema’s great action directors are. Yet history also tells us that so long as the legacy of great action and screen fighting legends survive, someone driven and talented like Jackie Chan, Tsui Hark or Quentin Tarantino will step forth to pay homage to past action film masters and perhaps in the process rekindle broader interest in making great action and fight scenes again. That’s a pop trend I would like to see.