Fight, fight, fight!

by Dana

Both Donna and Kris have been talking about writing lately, and so who am I to buck a trend?  When I added a section to my website on writing action scenes, I needed examples. Not surprisingly, the scenes that immediately sprang to mind were from movies. For writers thinking about doing a fight scene, they’re not a bad place to start. While I only used examples from books on my website, my present top five movie fight scenes and their justifications, from least to most favorite, are:

5. Bridget Jones’s Diary, in which Mark Darcy and Daniel Cleaver engage in what is basically a slap fight. This scene works because they decided to go realistic with it, showing the inexpert and downright silly attempts of two middle-class, university graduates to appear macho. My only complaint is that it actually went on too long. The kicking is the best part.

4. Desperado, the gun fight in the bar between El Mariachi and Bucho’s men.  There’s a grim humor to the end of the scene, when both men repeatedly pick up and aim weapons that are empty, that I really appreciate. The lesson here is that it’s not as easy as it looks to keep track of things in the heat of battle. A bonus: the sheer amount of brass on the floor. Fighting is messy. 

3. Raiders of the Lost Ark (wherein Indy ups and shoots the swordsman), tied with “The Train Job” episode of Firefly (when Mal lets the crew know he doesn’t need to finish the fight on his own, and would they please shoot the bad guy beating him up?). Sometimes it just makes more sense to take the unheroic short-cut. 

2. The Killer or nearly any movie where John Woo is directing Chow Yun Fat tied with Dragons Forever .  Sometimes a stylized action scene not only moves the story along, it conveys the whole feeling of the film (the same thing can be done in print). The fight scenes in these movies are things of beauty, exuberance, and elegance. 

1. The Bourne Identity , the fight in the Paris apartment. Not only is there a realistic and recognizable fighting style, but there is a fine mix of brevity, brutality, improvisation, and pain. There are consequences. And while the combatants pause too long between blows (professionals wouldn’t stand there admiring their work), some concession has to be made for cinematography. 

It’s fun to dissect these, but they don’t necessarily teach you what to think about when writing a fight scene. For that, you go to the writing pros. It’s infinitely useful to observe how someone like Elizabeth Peters writes a fight scene with an amateur sleuth compares with someone like Lee Child, who has a trained hard-guy for his protagonist. Neither shies away from violence, but they do it in marvelously different ways. It’s well worth making a study of your favorite authors. 

So—what are your favorite fight scenes, from movies or books? 

Comments

[Charlaine Harris]

I read in the previous issue of Entertainment Weekly that the scene from the Indiana Jones movie was Harrison Ford's idea. They were actually supposed to have a fight, but he was tired of learning action sequences, so he countered with this suggestion.

The Bourne movies have my favorite fight scenes. I love the way they are staged, the pacing, the use of improvisational weapons.

Charlaine

[mary]

I LOVE Chow Yun Fat (hubba hubba) and Jackie Chan. Thanks for these titles, Dana. I like all the Rush Hour movies' fight scenes. Fun to watch the moves and lots of humor.

[Wilfred Bereswill]

Personally, I found writing a sex scene (not exactly explicit) was easier than writing a fight scene. It's too easy to go into the typical action/reaction mode. She swings. He falls backwards. Etc.

Of course I have more life experience with one of these than with the other.

[danacmrn]

Charlaine, I think you're right; IIRC, Harrison said something like "I've had this gun...why don't I use that?" And Bourne's improvizations (with the baton, the pen, the toaster in the second movie) are seriously good.

Mary, you're so right about Yun Fat, and I love Jackie's movies to death.

Wilfred, thanks for stopping by the Femmes!