ad101867 said:
And how does choppiness = "a real struggle between the fighters"? That doesn't make sense.
...When has anyone ever written to a comic-book publisher to complain that the action is "too visible" or some such thing? To make that kind of comment about a Batman movie seems ridiculous.
There is a fundamental difference between actually being in a fight and watching one on film. If you're actually in a fight you both feel it and see the action from various angles at once, through your peripheral vision. Your senses are fully engaged and the adrenalin is pumping. This sensation explosion cannot be duplicated on film merely by choppy editing.
Charlie, tell me something: What did you appreciate about the fight choreography?
I can understand folks not liking the fight sequence style, as it is one that isnt common in films and folks may just want the regular fashion. However there is one issue that i found Nolan avoided by doing this in the film and it has to do with the setup of this particular mysterious fighting style and a creative reaction to previous fight sequences in a batman film.
First of all, when Bruce Wayne enters the League of Shadows secret cottage in the mountains, Ras Al Ghul made it apparent that all of what Bruce was taught before he got there was nonsense in comparison to the secret form they knew up there. It was a mixture of all fighting styles that could take on a multitude of people at once. Not only this, but the style evolves for the individual based on the opponents tendencies.
"You can take on 6 men. We can teach you how to engage 600."
"Looks familiar, dont you have anything new?"
Nolans reasoning was that in order for this fighting style to be believed, there needed to be a technique used that nobody has ever seen before.
...Bringing me to the previous films. Burtons films are great, but even there you can see that the fighting is obviously choreographed. Especially in Batman Returns, some folks bend over, throw a slow punch or jump into the proper position to be grabbed by batman, in particular the sword swallower. Chris Nolan bypassed these issues of choreography filmed almost non stop and created a style in which the fighting looked like hes hitting 3 people at once.
And finally, the fighting of Keaton would be classified as martial arts mainly it looks like. And to this day most of the fighting in Batman Begins doesnt look the slightest choreographed now does it? Can you identify the fighting style as simple karate? It works for me. Not only this, but he used the camera to make it look like something from a live camera or such... something people correlate to visceral and actually happening, like from the news or such. There are small mind tricks directors like this use to sell the ideas and while it may not make sense to you, this type of instinct is necessary.
This is why i know some folks who said Batman Begins batman would kick the stuffings out of Keatons, which i dont compare but seems to me the editing style with the setup for Begins worked like a charm.