On the state of action films

By "too fast" do you mean the characters literally moved too fast, or the scenes were cut too fast, or some combination of both?

I think one problem is that HK directors got very good and cutting every few seconds (or faster!) within an action scene while keeping the movement of the main players and the overall "story" of the fight absolutely coherent. But with extremely fast cutting (owing in part to digital editing consoles) that coherence begins to break down because all the spectator can get an impression of is violent movement.

(Side note: one reason I find Die Hard interesting is because its an artefact of a time when American action films were largely free of influence from Hong Kong films. Thus McTiernan stages fights in medium and long shot. The fight sequences in his films--and in those of Richard Donner and other '80s action directors--look almost like the ones in John Ford's Quiet Man, albeit with a lot rack focus to get a kind of "cutting within the shot." Today's Hollywood action films exhibit both a HK influence and the influence of those '80s films, sometimes mixed cleverly and sometimes not.)

"Too fast" is the fighters and scene cuts both.

What bothers me the most is when directors/editors cut in too close.

last thing i saw that suffered from this badly was Gladiator - i couldn't tell where anything was during the battle scenes and it made me feel seasick + old. it didn't help that the fights were interspersed with the most plodding story imaginable either.

bothers me less with HK films, which have been on a faster-slicker-wickeder trajectory for years. by this time next year they'll just be one long blur with gunshots + weird chinese pop songs playing over top.

I also hate hate hate the blurry slo-mo. God if that isn't the worst.

Ahhh this thread makes me realize what's so great about Johnny To's The Mission : long takes, careful camera movement, you always know where everybody is, and when the bullets start flying, everyone freezes... and focuses. Marvellous. And is it boring? Not once. Because you care about the characters. Because you actually SEE people DO something instead of catching vague glimpses of them running around for an hour and a half.

The rapid-cutting-shaky-camera style has dominated action films for, what, ten years now - will there ever be a backlash?

oh man the shaky camera is a whole other rant for me.

"let's go HAND-HELD!!" = geronimo of the nitwit

What shaky-camera action films are you talking about?

Since we're presumably talking about "the state of action films," I ask you all: what recent action films (say, the last five years) have impressed you?

For the most part, I liked The Matrix, though the non-action (or say, non-spectacle) elements were pretty weak--that movie's got a great big 45-minute-or-so hump in the middle where they just explain ad nauseaum how great the Matrix is.

One of my favourite action movies ever, Ronin, came out in 1998 and didn't get as much notice as I think it should have. This movie is terrific--John Frankenheimer eschewed digital imaging and actually staged all of the stunts (which I'm not saying every action director has to do), but it really pays off, I think. Plus great wide-angle photography and a very cute Mamet-enhanced script.

Charlie's Angels, except that the things I like most about it -- the way the shots are set up, the use of color, the cuts -- aren't really specific to the action sequences.

(slutsky my handheld joke wasn't action-film-specific, and it usually doesn't even bother me [although hmm soon-coming handheld thread]. the only recent shaky-cam action movies i can think of are The Bourne Identity and the actiony bits of The Truth About Charlie, which i realize is done as a french-new-wave nod anyway and which i only mention in order to set up an elaborate second joke which i no longer have the energy to think through properly but which was going to go: tenuous marky mark-clooney connection -> clooney on ER -> ER's overkill of handheld shots -> LOOK AT THE WEIRD HEAD-WOBBLE IT GAVE POOR GEORGE CLOONEY or something. but fuck it)

You're on a whole new level with that joke, jones.

(by the way Trouble With Charlie AAArgh)

Soderberg must have said something to Clooney, cause he lost the head wobble from Out Of Sight on.

slutsky, re: Ronin -- I KISS YOU. Frankenheimer had tremendous balls to let the drivers actually and convincingly drive.

I do seem to detect in myself the demand for verity as far as action.

As far as recent axion: Matrix and Ronin no duh, Matrix Reloaded is wetting my pants.
Crouching Tiger because of my aesthetic realism fetish.
So Close if only for the opening volley (1. a high frequency sound wave shattering the glass in a high rise office, the glass floating slo-mo in the air like feathers; 2. the heroine jumping up to and planting her stiletto heel into the ceiling, shooting out Woo-stylee two henchmen; the ridiculous audacity of it!).
Michael Mann's Heat. For similar reasons as Ronin, with also: the big shootout has no music (esp. bigbeat or cockrock) playing. And I'm also adamant that The Insider is an action film.

Sorry guys, but I thought Ronin was a dud, bar the car chase. I dislike David Mamet more as I grow old - "fucked into a cocked hat" - WHAT is that supposed to mean?

I with Nordicskillz on Ronin - christ that movie stank. Bob De Niro etching out yet another of his outsider know-it-all loners, Sean Bean justifying his Sean Bean cameo = rub movie and Jean Reno borrowed from Leon for style. The car chases were just about okay, but man cannot live by car chase alone. (Mind you don't even get me on Frankenheimer's next film - Reindeer Games - or as it was called in the UK Deception as they tried to deceive us to see this lousy film that had terrible reviews as Reindeer Games).

Good action movies need good plots and characters. The action has to happen for a reason, this is why Die Hard and Midnight Run are fantastic. Fundamentally you need a flawed hero, someone who you root for but can potentially lose. I have a very soft spot for dumb action movies but generally feel unsatisfied afterwards (Equilibrium recently is a perfect example, since none of it made any sense there was a perverse pleasure in its lo-budget stylings. But in the end it was shit).

Leee -- "And I'm also adamant that The Insider is an action film".

Interesting.

That shoot out in HEAT takes the cake PRECISELY because there is no music. I really think it's the best shoot-out ever put on film.

Right. The gunfire is music enough.

I'm happy to see some Heat-lovers here. But I urge you to reconsider Ronin.

Who isn't a Heat lover? I was happy to see it's already the subject of one of those BFI Modern Classics pocket books, although I daren't actually read the book.

You read that appreciation in the last Vanity Fair Hollywood issue?

No, I stopped reading Vanity Fair when my old roommate stopped her subscription. Who wrote it?

I actually read a nice piece on Heat in Jump Cut, a now-defunct Leftist film and media journal. It was about how the film is about work more than it is about crime, or the law, or relationships. I mean, a Leftist journal would say that, but it's true.

It's been quite a long time since I've watched The Insider, but the scene that I can remember most clearly demonstarting action-film style qualities is when we first see RCro: the camera trained almost literally on his shoulder, and the claustrophobia creates so much nervous energy that it might as well be an action scene. And Mann does throughout the entire movie, that beautiful man.

Man, I just saw Red Dragon for some idiotic reason and it was like watching a terrible cover version of Manhunter.

Also I think action didn't always used to be about fancy fighting -- the steve mcqueen classics have very little dramatic chasing or hand-to-hand. There's driving and shooting, but it happens at a mild tense pace, no matter how many cuts are shoved in. This is one of the many reasons I find The Getaway so damn perfect.

That stuff is mainly reserved for "thrillers" now of which Desperation was one of the best for similar reasons.

God I love people driving in cars and being tense.

Bullitt's car chase is still great.

(The Die Hard love on here is heart-warming.)