Best battle scene ever filmed

[Athrabeth]

BTW, Kurosawa didn't use black and white in SS and other early films just because it was "artsy." Color film stock was beyond the budget of Japanese studios until the mid-60s. He didn't have a choice, as I understand it.

I can't recall the camera lingering on shots of spewing blood, either. I think we might have Sam Peckinpah to thank for that particular innovation.

I agree with Lord_M:

People slip and slide, they fall over, their weapons break, they hesitate, they go to hit and miss, and all up he doesn’t make it look easy. The fighting actually looks real, unchoreographed and believable, which is rare.

[vison]

Yes, The Magnificent Seven bugs me just as much. Likely more. A lot more.

And I wish you guys would stop showing me all the flaws in my arguments and pointing out I could drive a Mack truck through all the holes in my logic and knowledge. Jeez. It's disheartening. I mean, I might have to think it over and learn I'm mistaken. Jeez.

Then what? Some other cherished notion brought out and shown to be all, you know, wrong and everything? I won't be able to keep arguing about stuff I know nothing about.

Is nothing sacred?

[Holbytla]

War of the Roses.
Michael Douglas. Kathleen Turner.
Excellent battle scene.

[Túrin Turambar]

In all honesty, the whole warrior/honour/killing people/revenge stuff leaves me cold. No matter how beautifully choreographed and filmed.

It is a matter of context. If you want to make a film set in Japan during the Sengoku Jidai (ie. when the Samurai were running around), you can’t escape these sorts of things. Another of Kurosawa’s great achievements in my view is making his characters entirely believable within their dramatic, historical and cultural context. Many directors of period films can’t help ‘modernising’ characters to make them more sympathetic to a modern audience (PJ was also a little guilty of this with LotR). All of the characters in SS, though, from the desperate villagers to the proud Samurai, think, talk and act just like people in their circumstances would. Some people might not relate to that, but I found that it added an amazing element of realism and drama.

Which isn’t to say that I don’t have any philistine tendencies myself, even though I do like a lot of classic films. I really like Seven Samurai, for example, but also The Last Samurai. My favourite Bong film is Casino Royale followed by Goldfinger, and I enjoy the LotR films and The Empire Strikes Back almost as much as I enjoy Casablanca .

Speaking of the LotR films, I think there’s a simple formula for the quality of the battle scenes – are Legolas and Gimli present? If not, they’re often great. If so, they’re usually absurd. Compare Boromir’s last stand at Amon Hen, the battle for Osgilliath or the charge of the Rohirrim with Helm’s Deep or the Pelennor, for example.

[vison]

I enjoy almost any movie more than I enjoy Casablanca, but that's because I can't even look at H. Bogart without going wugga wugga all over and not in a good way. Even the divine, incandescent beauty of Ingrid Bergman can't make the wugga wuggas go away.

I don't get Bogart and I guess at this late date I never will. Since this seems to be true confession time for me, I confess that Katherine Hepburn had a nearly similar effect on me except when she was with Cary Grant. Cary Grant shone his ineffable wonderfulness onto everything and every one near him. Except Eva Marie Saint.

Jeez. On the other hand, I laffed a lot watching Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox story, and I see it's been released on DVD.

Enough Osgiliating of this thread!!!

Battle scenes: one of Mel Gibson's early movies, Gallipoli, had a pretty good battle scene or two. But battle scenes always seem too long to me.

[Primula Baggins]

I haven't seen Gallipoli. My kids assure me that it's the least grim of the films they watch in their International High School program—but that's not saying much.

I agree with you about battle scenes, vison; my mind glazes over. Even in books, though in books you can always flip ahead to the end of the scene to see who died. (One exception: the stern chase through the Roaring Forties in O'Brien's Desolation Island. Unforgettable.)

[Athrabeth]

Speaking of the LotR films, I think there’s a simple formula for the quality of the battle scenes – are Legolas and Gimli present? If not, they’re often great. If so, they’re usually absurd.

An excellent observation!

I don't get Bogart and I guess at this late date I never will. Since this seems to be true confession time for me, I confess that Katherine Hepburn had a nearly similar effect on me except when she was with Cary Grant.

So I guess you didn't like The African Queen.

I love that movie.

Yes, The Magnificent Seven bugs me just as much. Likely more. A lot more.

I saw it on TV for the first time, probably around 1963. I was about 11......the perfect age to become a shameless Steve McQueen fangirl. He was like, soooooo cool and OMG I was, like, so stoked that he didn't, like, die or anything.

When he got it in the Sand Pebbles, I grieved for days.
(Now THAT'S a movie I haven't thought about in ages. Funny what these discussions can conjur up!)

[vison]

I fell in love with him when Steve McQueen was on TV in "Wanted: Dead or Alive". OMIGAWD. Omigawd.

Why? What was it about him? Whatever "it" is, he had it, anyway.

Speaking of battle scenes, and we are supposedly doing that in this thread, there were a couple of scenes in The Last of the Mohicans that I thought were pretty good. Not necessarily "battles", but fights. Not too long and drawn out.

[Jnyusa]

I don't get Bogart and I guess at this late date I never will.

I don't get Bogart as a sex symbol either, vison. But to my eye he was as good an actor as any of the others who just played themselves over and over. John Wayne, for instance. I'd rather watch a Bogart film than a Wayne film just about any day of the week.

Mohicans was ruined for me by my brother-in-law, who chugs it into the VCR every time we're there and recites all the lines along with the actors. It's his favorite movie of all time.

With a lot of movies I have the kind of emotion vison is expressing about Seven Samurai ... I would like the movie a lot more if other people didn't think it came from Mt. Olympus. It's good but it's not that good, I often feel in such conversations. (Not talking about SS here, which I think is at the very top of great movies, but about others that might be immensely popular.)

[Primula Baggins]

Well, more Bogart for me, I guess. Tall, dark, or handsome he was not, but those eyes! That and his obvious intelligence is plenty for me.

The night scene in Casablanca—"If she can take it, I can take it! Play it, Sam!"—deserves its fame.

As for famous films, often the more famously wonderful they are, the less I'm inclined to watch them. Part of it is that I can't bring myself to care about truly despicable characters, and so often that's who populates those brilliant, icy films. Part of it is maybe a feeling akin to Jn's. I don't like to feel pressure to approve something that I may not think is all that well done.

[axordil]

My favourite Bong film is Casino Royale followed by Goldfinger

I would say the best Bong film I can think of is Cheech and Chong's Up in Smoke.

I believe I shall start a fight scene thread. With rules

[Aravar]

I see youv'e all neglected the gratest battle scene of them all: the defence of the Governor's Residence in Carry on up the Khyber.

Pure genius.

[Jnyusa]

I've never seen it, nor even heard of it, Aravar!

<rushes to imdb to find out what I've been missing>

eta: Gack ... having us on, are you?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062782/

[Aravar]

Not entirely. I love theCarry On's and think Khyber is possibly the best.

The whole thing's a funny take on the 'thin red line' etc which is played straight in films like Zulu.

On a more serois note I also rate highly Waterloo despite the inaccuracies, and Gettysburg especially Pickett's Charge.

[axordil]

Gettysburg looks great from a distance, but the problem with using re-enactors as extras is that they don't die well. Seriously. If you look at some of the people walking up that hill, they just sort of lie down, putting their rifle down gently so it doesn't get banged up.