Fight Master Breaks Down Sword Fighting From Film & TV | WIRED

[Music] hey there my name's christina treister christina is a fight master fight director and certified teacher with the society of american fight directors she's also an associate professor of acting and stage combat at the university of michigan today i'll be breaking down clips from movies and tv about sword fighting tactical advantage game of thrones i always drink before a fight could get you killed it could get me killed you know drinking before you're gonna go in and try to fight to the death would be a really really bad idea so we see two very different body types and styles of fighting in here we see what is a whirling dervish kind of form with a lot of spinning that's happening a lot of changing of levels going from full height down to a knee spinning away from your opponent he's also using um what is almost a spear a long quarter staff um with a spear point on the end and that is good for his body type because he's keeping distance between himself so his use of movement is brilliant because he is a moving target at all times but what he's doing is a lot of deflecting parries that are happening so as an attack's coming in he's moving out of the way and deflecting the energy of it so that's how he's able to go up against steel i feel like martell is more fit so that cardio advantage if the fight went on longer i think would have been to his advantage versus the mountain where he messes up as he lets his guard down and yet you haven't confessed say it say her name and the mountain is genius he just lays there and plays possum right until and it's all over because he is literally twice his body weight fighting when injured monty python look you stupid you've got no arms left yes i have look just a flesh wound if it's just a flesh wound as they say or a scratch you could keep going what are you gonna do bleed on me it also depends upon the adrenaline dump that happens right the endorphins that start to kick in i'm invincible but in terms of organs being pierced or losing arms and legs no how are you come on then it's not very realistic but is hysterical all right we call it a draw fencing techniques the princess bride you're using bonnetti's defense against me ah naturally you must expect me to attack with capoferro but i find that typical cancers are cap affair unless the enemy has a study he's a clipper [Music] so these terms agrippa bonnetti capofero they're all actually people who were fencing masters in italy during the 16th century although there is one dutch dude that's in there no one of consequences they're referring to these men who were coming up for the first time with manuals that could be studied during that time you are wonderful thank you i've worked hard to become so so what's really interesting about the storytelling of this clip is that neither one of these characters has ever met their match before why are you smiling because i know something you don't know so they start out with quick little moves and what is that i am not left-handed then once they realize they finally have someone that they could compete with them they switch to their dominant hand i'm not left-handed either what we try to do a lot of times is train with our non-dominant hand to strengthen our dominant hand it also helps to balance out our fighting styles [Music] so the one critique i would have about this scene is that the swords they're using are almost rubbery they're going so fast that they're bending in frame and if you're a nerd who's watched this clip like seven gazillion times you start noticing things like that i hate to kill you you seem a decent feather i hate to die one of the things that's great about swashbuckling is a lot of times there's a lot of humor in it you're amazing i ought to be after 20 years and you see that in their cheeky expressions and the delivery of their lines that are also in time with the choreography so they're rocking it thank you type of sword kill bill this is steel so hattori hanzo was a 16th century japanese samurai warrior who was amazing like he was the best of the best and he had a nickname of demon hanzo because he quote unquote fought like hell so he really was a historical character there is an insignia on the sword that lets you know the type that it is and this was actually a common tradition with many armorers not just for a katana but also in european martial arts as well everyone knew if you had a sword from a high quality armorer you pretty much knew what you were doing and had trained a lot or you had money so the bride fights all of these people to get to this moment [Music] her sword would absolutely be dull if she had taken down that many opponents now it could still be feasible but that this move could happen because it is like the ultimate of the ultimate of all samurai swords [Music] but yeah you would need to sharpen your sword shields troy it's actually one of my my biggest pet peeves is when fighters start too close this is awesome because you need those first opening moments to kind of size your opponent up see where they are physically see where they are psychologically emotionally all of those things you're trying to find the advantage that you can get so it absolutely makes sense that you would start out of distance and then slowly work your way in shields are awesome because they're not just defensive weapons they can also be used offensively as well there are things called shield bashes where you get your body behind the shield and essentially turn yourself into a battering ram you can see they're armored their legs are exposed their arms are exposed and this fight their head is exposed so you could slice with the end of that i mean we all know that thinner metal you can cut yourself on it so if you're using that with some force behind it it could turn into an offensive weapon as well so we do see two different shields in in this clip and they're completely historically accurate there were all kinds of shapes and sizes so we see in brad pitt's shield that he uses the notches on the side to rest his weapon at one point it's kind of like picking different kinds of swords different kinds of shields after training with them for many years you would find out kind of what your favorite was and what kind of played to your strengths as a warrior so shields like anything else are they're heavy right it's it's a big piece of metal so you're having to work from your core a lot even though these men are both very fit there's only so much that your rotator cuff can take in terms of torque right so it makes sense towards the end that they are becoming more fatigued they're ditching their shields and just going for the weapons that are going to impact the other opponent and inflict some damage to them fencing terminology i love you man bro really sorry i lost my out there i just did not see the name cortada coming oh hey man don't worry you know you came in with a pretty sweet glaze so what's cracking me up about this clip and why it just i'm sorry seems so bad is that they're mispronouncing the first two terms which could easily have been looked up and quite glazed these are all french terms and not that you have to be hoity-toity-french when you say them but it is definitely not glazad glazad it's glizzod in cortada he almost gets right but it's just everything is so anglicized with american pronunciation that it takes away any value that these guys have been studying this stuff for years wow way to go buddy in cortada and glizad are actually moves in fencing anybody see my man do you look under your plaster on the quicker the last two terms are items of equipment the first being gloves the second being the protective quilted vest in a sense that protects your organs it's like they have no sense of what they're saying what's also funny is this locker room is set up like it's a sport like basketball or football and they they just have their foils hanging there in the locker room which would not be the case um they're metal they will rust you need to oil them down you need to store them properly it's not just having like racks of basketballs on the side sportsmanship hook [Music] yes it was very unsportsmanlike for hook to use his hook to slice peter's wrist he's absolutely right that they are engaged in this combat and hook is essentially cheating bad form would be kind of an archaic way to to show that you were not pleased with the way that hook was performing but then you kind of have to go well he's a pirate so is there any code of conduct with pirates no he's just a mean old man [Music] the maneuver that peter is using to disarm hook is an envelopment with an expulsion he effectively parries hook's attack and then with a really quick revolution of his wrist he swings that around close and takes it removes it from hook's hand and then uses another flick of his wrist to send it soaring onto the ground you see peter trying to be sportsmanlike and hook coming in and playing dirty but in the end it still doesn't matter because peter's technique is better than hooks good form peter two on one star wars the phantom menace whenever you have two against one in theory it should be harder for the one to defend against the two and the two had a lot of tactical advantages so they should have been attacking him at the same time they could have started both facing off with him so that he had to defend two things or if they are behind there's a lot of vulnerable parts that they could have been attacking [Music] when darth maul runs away he is using divide and conquer right he's trying to separate them but then you see young obi-wan just kind of sauntering over to him i don't understand why that's not a running attack and why they're not still pressing him so if you're darth maul you're trying to take one opponent at a time you don't want to fight to it once we see that he finally has success when he's able to separate those opponents between the dividers and can take them on one at a time sparks blade so if you hit blades completely edge to edge you wouldn't have as much spark but if you're angling things slightly so it has to do with the trajectory and the force combined that would create it to have this amount of sparks you would obviously have to have some effects that were being laid in in post-production to create that every time that you do that you are inflicting damage on the edge of your sword creating burrs little divots that are going to have to be dealt with to maintain a sharp edge and over time it would immeasurably keep deteriorating i mean they're immortal so they probably don't care if they're doing damage to their blades some are always trying to ice skate uphill teaching game of thrones who are you you're dancing master serio pharrell tomorrow you will catch it so in this clip we see a very young arya right with syrio her teacher who is teaching her the beginning fundamentals of sword play what is the proper stance what is the way you should hold the sword what is the fluidity that you should have with the weapon that is not the way boy it is not a great sword that is needing two hands to swing it it's too heavy and we can see right away that when you've never held anything like this it's it's kind of a intricate multi-layered concept it is heavy as it needs to be to make you strong just so one hand is all that is needed the grip must be delicate there's actually a phrase that says you want to hold the sword like a bird not so tight that you crush it but not so loose that it flies away and what you mean by that is that you want to have control of over the sword but if you strong arm it and grip it tight you're going to lose fluidity and reaction all of that so they're doing a fencing style that is all about a piercing weapon how it's not something that you would handle roughly like a battle axe but it's something that's light and fluid that's all pretty good so for this particular weapon style her frame is perfect because she's quick and light kind of like a mosquito right just moving fluidly and going fast [Music] very dead there are several times within it that there are cutting techniques those are attacks that are used with the edge of the weapon as opposed to thrusts which are used with the sharp point of the sword we're not looking to cut limbs we're literally thinking of it as a needle that is trying to poke organs quick and fatal and you could bleed out easier just so fighting in a parking garage [Music] highlander [Music] so they use the environment in an interesting way [Music] i mean it's cool to fight on top of car hoods i don't know if you really need to run across them i don't know if you need to be flipping off of a car hood when you could just jump i would be using these cars as ways to hide and try to surprise my opponent these swords now after the sprinkler system is hit and after the electricity is compromised they're basically running around with lightning rods almost that are going to be conduits for electricity the other thing that confuses me is the round off back handsprings [Music] i'm not sure how you would do those with your sword there's a lot more tactical things that you could do with this environment rather than kind of throwing everything in the kitchen sink with trying to make things more fantastical and quote-unquote cool moves of the 80s weapon selection crouching tiger hidden dragon [Music] i love the selection of the first weapon style because it's an effect double fence she's using two swords one in dominant and non-dominant hand and you really with the choreography get to see what what it would be like to have two weapons against one i also love it because it starts off with her strong suit so she's clearly choosing the weapons that she feels more comfortable with so what's so great about this clip is that you see michelle yeo's character is is older way more experienced [Music] her character brings this vast experience of all these different weapon [Music] forms [Music] to have that level of expertise you would have had to have been studying your entire life to be able to work with all those different weapons you're gonna keep picking the ones that you feel strongest until you're down to with what you've got now what is great is that her opponent would need to know the strengths and weaknesses of each of the other weapon styles so that she would know how to wear those weapons down either how to disarm them to destroy them or to keep her opponent on the move different types of opponents gladiator he has two weapons a sword and an axe and then russell crowe's character has a gladius and a shield you're both double fence you're both have your sword in your dominant hand and your additional weapon in your others [Applause] so i think russell crowe actually is doing a good job he's using that shield to deflect blows as much as possible particularly with the axe and he's also using it as an offensive weapon [Applause] when the tide turns between the two of them it's because he took the edge of his shield and knocked that helmet and then immediately goes for the vulnerable part right the foot even though maximus decimus meridius is like an amazing tried-and-true soldier on the battlefield he's essentially a prisoner of war this other guy is still way bigger than he is so it it could go either way you could say that the larger guy could have the upper hand because it's a smaller playing space [Applause] [Music] [Applause] but russell crowe is just a better fighter in the end he's faster he never stops moving he changes levels he's keeping his eye on all parts of his playing area you simply won't die it's that whole thing of wearing your opponent down really comes into play with this and taking them by surprise grabbing a blade rob roy you would definitely have damage if you grabbed a blade and we can see that with rob roy what lends itself for us to believe him a little bit more are a couple of things the first being that he's ginormous so you kind of buy that he could grab that the second thing is that it's it's a desperation move it's the end of the fight you will always sacrifice this to protect your core so even if you did shred your hand it's better than being dead so there is a bit of willing suspension of disbelief in this clip because it feels like tim roth his character is waiting a bit if someone had grabbed the end of my blade i would just pull that to do more damage those are all lost opportunities to essentially finish off that character sharps versus sporting swords die another day you want to continue of course i want to bloody continue but since we're upping the wager let's up the weapon shall we so the term sharps versus a sporting sword or a stage combat sword the sharps are are what we would call live weapons right something that is a real sword that is sharpened to a point a sporting sword or a theatrical sword those have dull edges and dull points the ones that we train with with actors are actual real weapons they're just not sharpened but you still have to teach safe technique for them because they they could still do damage honk out so we're looking at traditional foils with all of the protective gear in the sporting version of the match there's a little kind of error that i'm seeing here and that the protective gauntlet the glove comes up purposely to protect the wrist portion of your sword-fighting hand but i don't see how that foil tip with a button could have gotten to skin to make that happen let's do this the old-fashioned way first blood drawn from the torso once they switch to the sharps they're getting sabers that have a cutting edge any rules can be set whenever you're dueling in a traditional sense you set those rules those terms before you have the match you can see in the beginning when they switched to sabers that they're they're starting on a line and they're starting with a little bit of form although they have more cut they have cutting attacks but then once the first point of danger and the injury happens all of that form goes out the window once it's the stakes are up and they're using sharps they take off all of their protective gear and the fighting style starts to evolve in a sense and becomes more flailing [Music] conclusion overall i would say that hollywood tends to get right about these clips that sword fighting is exciting it's something that is otherworldly that we understand but it's we don't normally see people in everyday life fighting with swords an actual duel an actual sword fight a lot of times would be very quick but it also wouldn't be as entertaining to see on the big screen

Channel: WIRED

Views: 397,141

Rating: 4.7789264 out of 5

Keywords: swordfighting, technique critique sword fighing, fight master, sword master, fighting expert, sword expert, sword fighting expert, sword fight expert, sword battle, sword fights, game of thrones, game of thrones sword fight, sword fight got, aria stark sword, christina traister, christina sword fight, swordfighting expert, technique critique wired, wired technique critique, wired sword fight, sword expert explains, technique critique swords, fight master explains, wired

Id: lotF1-XCKjA

Length: 25min 47sec (1547 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 03 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Chris_Thrush]

That was twenty minutes of accent critique,. Still great.