darqleo

BOM: One of the trends in action movies is that you can't tell what's happening on screen—even in Batman Begins, the action scene at the waterfront is unclear, though that's to create the sense of Batman's mystery—in which one's perception is deliberately distorted.

Nolan: It's all about subjectivity and the point of view you're trying to express. If you're trying to express the point of view of somebody who's in prison [being beaten], there's not any clarity, and there shouldn't be any clarity there—just enough to know. The camera's not objective; the camera can never be objective. All cinema is manipulation. But you can explain to me exactly what's happening and you know exactly who's doing what to whom. The essence of what's going on in the scene is entirely clear.

BOM: But you've seen these action pictures where you can't tell what's happening. Does that drive you bananas?

Nolan: It depends on the reason for it. If it's being done to obscure unimaginative or poor action, it can be irritating. But [it's not] when I see it in a film that's trying to express the kinetic energy of a fistfight, which is, in real life, an absolutely baffling, horrific thing to ever see or experience that can never be captured. My choice is to use the camera as subjectively as possible. The truth is you're using all the tools at your disposal, in editing as well as camera placement to try and create a feeling and experience of a character's point of view in a fight. Actually, I think the trend is the other way [toward greater clarity], and one of the things that made The Bourne Identity succeed is that they were going back to an old rhythm. You look at The Matrix and there's a lot of long, no-cut shots with intense choreography, and that's become more prevalent. You also have to take into account the changing rhythm of the way films are shot. Films are much more complex than they used to be—it's kind of a demand from the audience; they're fractured. But I genuinely believe it's not audiences—it's people who make films, critics, people in the media and in the industry discussing films. Audiences are led by them. I believe in the audience.

Rest of interview found here:
http://boxofficemojo.com/features/?id=1921&p=.htm

Troy Stiffler

Regarding Batman Begins... The action moves like a bat. You never really see a bat - it moves too fast. The fights work in the same respect.

First thing my friend and I discussed when the movie was over.

Terrell

Loved this movie, but no matter what the reason is, the action scenes were poorly shot. If he was intentionally doing that to create a mood, then he needs to stop.

TomOpus

It was the one thing I didn't like about the movie. It annoyed me as being lazy filmmaking.

Troy Stiffler

Am I reading too far by calling it SYMBOLIC (of the movement of a bat) - a PERSONIFICATION of the camerawork - and not LAZY?

Terrell

It's just bad camera work, not matter the intention. When you can see a thing nor follow the action, it's not a good use of the camera. Others may disagree with that, but it looked bad and it was annoying. Not all of the action scenes were shot that way, but many of them were.

Inverse

There is only one word for this rationalization and that is: Pffft!

I liked Batman Begins, but it was painfully clear Nolan hadn't solved the problem of showing Batman fighting onscreen. He just took the easy way out. Given the vast, long history every audience member has of seeing Batman fight in other media, that's the only way to view it.

The Adam West series had more satisfying fight scenes. Holy Irony!

Terrell

I thought when you get right down to it, Nolan is not the most experience filmmaker when it comes action and films with a lot of action. For the most part though, he did a very good job.

RyoHazuki

Holy dissappearing posts Batman!

LivingINClip

I thought he done a fantastic job. I didn't want to see some kind of dance. I wanted to see quick and furious action.

Hokeyboy

To be honest with you, watching scenes of somebody fighting wearing a cape will ALWAYS look ridiculous. I preferred the brutal, less-is-more approach Nolan had. If I wanna see "kewl, bad-ass" fight scenes I'll watching some HK films or wire-fu or similar fare. I know others felt differently, and this was a main criticism, but BATMAN BEGINS was as fantastic as it was due to it basically being a big-budget character piece rather than a summer action explosion popcorn fare. And those are my thoughts. Now here's Herb Dunlap with the weather...

RocShemp

I loved the fight scenes. Sure, I would have liked the camera pulled back two or three feet but I would hated had Nolan done the opposite and used a lot of wide shots. To me the only fight that was hard to follow was the dock fight and it was obvious you weren't meant to see a single thing in that fight.

PopcornTreeCt

Well, if that was the case then the whole should have been a black screen because bats can't see.

B.A.

Add me to the list of people who had no problem w/ how he shot/edited his fight scenes in Begins.

I'm sick of the overly choreographed wire-fu bullshit. I'd much rather have the realistic nitty-gritty fights.

LivingINClip

Exactly. Like another poster said, anytime someone is fighting in a cape, it is goin' to look silly. First thing that pops to my mind is the fight scenes in 'Batman Forever'. Not to mention the way that Nolan approaches the fight scenes, it allows more people to be in the fight, instead of the typical one at a time approach ('Batman 89', anyone?!?) and it showcases just how fast this character is suppose to be. He is suppose to be just like a shadow that comes and takes over. I for one, had no problems with the filming of the fight scenes and I hope Nolan uses the same approach in the sequel.

PixyJunket

Truth.

Giantrobo

fumanstan

I agree. It doesn't matter to me if it was intentional, it just looked bad.

matome

Yep

slop101

The issue isn't if the fight scenes were realistic or not, the issue is that they were a jumbled mess. And I don't mean the bat-stuff either.

Take the fight in the begining at the prison - you already have a jumbled mess of a fight, and then for good measure, Nolan throws them all in the mud so you can't even tell the pepole apart - that's the sign of a director who is not confident in himself, at least when it comes to fight/action scenes - as far as character/mood/acting, he's aces.

hongkongdvd

You should always be able to tell what's going on in a fight no matter what mood or theme you are trying to get.

Close camera fight filming is equivalent to filming a dialogue scene by just filming the actor's lips.

The best fight directors are our time (Woo Ping, Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan, etc....) have always panned out the cameras for the fight scenes. Note
the Matrix movies where none of the fights were filmed closed in.

The close in fight filming is usually done to disguise the fact that the actors can't fight for real. In the Batman Begins film, Nolan could have used a real martial artist to be in the Bat suit and pan out the fight scenes. Hell, use the 2 Keysi martial artist instructors to be in the bat suit.

This was my only complaint in an otherwise terrific movie. If only they have hired Woo Ping to do the action but in a no-wire way, this movie would be perfection.

Still, BB is probably one of my top 5 favorite movies of all time.

Terrell

Exactly! Totally opposite from others, I'm sick of the same MTV-style handicam crap editing of today where just watching it gives you a headache.

Who said it had to look like a dance or or wire-fu. Pull the damn camera back and stop shooting as if the filmmaker is a schizophrenic.

Michael Corvin

I don't buy it. I have to agree with slop, hongkong and terrell. You can still have that same effect and pull the camera back 3 feet so we can see what the hell is going on, who is hitting who and what not. I think it is lack of experience with action and this was an easy way around that.

I still love the movie, but damn it would be nice to see what was going on in those scenes. The fight scenes could be mistaken for a Flash movie. 10 bad guys face off against hero. 10 seconds later after a few quick cuts, all the villans are all laying on the ground. That is what it felt like to me anyway.

matrixrok9

I don't know if that was his cop out around the action scenes. It seemed like he already knew what he was going for but just didn't execute it properly. Based on his interview, he went for the "hard" fight scenes, that's why he didn't pull back his camera. I'd rather have him shoot fight scenes shot this way, instead of "soft" hits like Matrix. I didn't like the fight scenes in Matrix because it looked too choreographed and the actors looked like crap doing it. Btw, Guillermo shot his fight scenes pretty well in Blade 2, especially in the beginning when he attacked their wherehouse. Maybe Nolan will pull back more in the sequel, but if he doesn't, I will still like it because the editing fits the movie.

Hiro11

I liked the KFM fighting style, but the scenes were extremely hard to follow. When you can't follow the action, the impact is lessened. For example: the finale with Neeson and Bale is shot either in extreme close-up or blurry hand-held medium shot, I had no idea wtf was going on.

I agree that "House of Flying Daggers" style wire-fu is looking a little tired and dated at this point, but there's nothing wrong with letting the audience in on a fight scene, right?