Probably what he does near the end of the scene, which is draw his dagger. His mistake is to stab at Robin’s face, rather than stabbing him in the gut, winning the fight and ruining the movie.
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Ah yes, that makes perfect sense. @cintune is on to something too.
Of course, only baddies would stoop so low as to use a dagger (or a sucker punch) in a fair fight. But that’s Basil Rathbone for you.
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We built this city!
We built this city on Britney Spears!
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What is interesting about 2 film versions of Henry V is what different part of the battle they emphasize as the winning one. In the Olivier version it is the longbow hail of arrows. In the Branagh version it was the mud and BRIAN BLESSED!!!.
Haven’t seen the Chalamet movie. Now I have to check it out.
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I would think, knee Robin in the nards and send him careening off the unrailed staircase they were fighting up. But that would not have gotten past the Breen Office.
Most swordfight scenes are really, like, why are they just dancing around like that. The only exception is the fight choreography William Hobbs did for a bunch of early 70s movies. Those were brutally realistic while still being wildly entertaining:
The Four Musketeers
Robin & Marian
The Duellists
.
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You would think, but people who get into fights often aren’t rational about it. How many times have you seen people posturing and yelling chest to chest totally within sucker punching range? Happens all the time. Lots of things that are stupid are also things people do. I mean if we were going to go by rational behavior, there wouldn’t be a thread here on BB about some people who point loaded guns at their crotch.
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Only works if you wrote the sword fighting software.
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Lloyd is full of shit on this one. We have living traditions from Europe to Japan to Africa that have training for what to do when you get into a corps-a-corps. It’s not like the movies, but it’s absolutely a real thing and has been since forever. No amount of HEMA reconstruction of dead martial arts or authoritative self-importance will change that.
Mind you, this is the same LARPED-but-never-been-in-a-fight idiot who said the backstab wouldn’t work in real life because if you are at fighting range and turn your back you’ll have time to run before the other guy can hit you. Smug. Superior. Stupid.
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Is this one of those “choose two” things?
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Hint: when he says katanas are crap he is saying things that aren’t true. His bigotry gets a bit thick sometimes
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If you go strictly by Olympic fencing footwork is completely linear, you take turns attacking, a flick is as good as a solid cut, and similar nonsense
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The pre-Marian reform army of the Roman Republic did, the five classes all had spears/javelins/lances of one kind or another.
He had been the British army fencing champion and anecdotally coached Errol Flynn for extra swash.
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Depends which period you’re talking about.
Pre-Marian reforms, spears were a big part of it (copying the greek phalanx, yes).
Then it’s light spears (javelins). Although a pilum is still a pretty damn sturdy bit of ironmongery. You can chuck it or stick it in someone.
And as always, what builds empires is logistics, not people using one particular pointy/cutty/bashy thing or another.
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“I’d quite like to see the end of it thanks” says Nikolas.
I welcome gloriously unrealistic visual story-telling in film.
I don’t know exactly what’s going on in this duel but it looks amazing…
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Excellent reference. Also the redneck Katana passage.
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Nice. So I was confused-correct
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I wanted to mention the old Fechtmeister mnemonic of “Binden, winden, drunter verschwinden”, which basically means when blocked, go into the “push”, then in the same move try to pivot the tip for a stab. If the opponent pushes back, release, let the blade tip circle under his hand, and slash from the other side. I spent a lot of time training to do it, and then training to defend against it. I was only learning to improve my stage fencing, but it did give me an idea of how fatal and quick a lot of actual sword fights were.
HEMA duels (where you aren’t on a line but can sidestep) are pretty staccato, with pausing and judging for about 20-30 seconds, and then in the next ten seconds the fight is over.
As for why fencing scenes going back to Shakespeare have such long duels, I suspect it’s due to the belief that a good swordsman will strike true, an expert will be able to parry and then strike true, but only when two masters meet will the fight go on longer. So the conceit is that both fencers really are that good.
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Oh Basil!!!
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