Fight Clip Club: Raiders of the Lost Ark
Asps. Very dangerous. You go first.
I’ve been sick all week, people, and as such I am bringing this session of Fight Clip Club out a little late. I have picked another funny fight, but you’ll no doubt notice the length of this one. Well, I’m still not feeling 100%, and actually, this scene is totally appropriate for me feeling ill, because!
The story you may have heard about this famous scene: that Harrison Ford (and in fact most of the cast except director Steven Spielberg and a couple others) suffered mightily from dysentery that shooting day and so tossed out a whole sword fight and improvised this? It’s…mostly true. Not completely. The gastric distress part is true, and as such, Ford wasn’t able to shoot for very long at a time before he had to go…well, go. But it wasn’t an improvised off the cuff move that Spielberg just kept because it was so funny. It was much more planned than that.
But let’s watch it again, and I’ll get into more details about it after. And then I’m a go back to bed.
-no paywall today: Cheers!-
Okay, okay, here’s the stuff that happens right before this iconic scene. It is kind of the conclusion of the whole, arguably: ‘Marion!!’
Scene: Indiana Jones vs. Swordsman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981
Actors: Indy: Harrison Ford Swordsman: Terry Richards
Stuntpeople: None, the actors perform this brief fight.
Choreographer/fight director: Well, this fight as we see it doesn’t really have one. I’ll explain below. But the stunt coordinator for the movie was Glenn Randall, Jr. who has a large enough oeuvre (as do all these guys) that I’m sure we’ll run into him again.
Setting: Morocco, 1936
Style & Weapons: It’s a classic: it’s a gun in a sword fight. The sword looks like a stereotypical arab style sword: very scimitar-like. As the wielder’s character name is technically ‘Arab Swordsman,’ that makes sense.
Scenario: Indy and Marion are beset by Belloq’s bad guys. Marion gets separated from Indy, and he’s looking for her. This is an interruption in his search.
Genre: 1 (realistic), a (comedic)
It’s realistic, in that its physics and length and pain/fatigue factor and stuff are plausible, and it’s funny. It’s a punchline.
Indy is the only named character in this fight, with the swordsman as a nameless obstacle only, so let’s look at his 3 Rules:
Objective: To Find Marion.
Tactics: one tactic, and it works: whip out the pistol and end this fight before it begins.
Obstacles: this sword guy is getting in Indy’s way.
Other Questions: The reason this fight works so well is in its timing. If the sword guy had swished his scimitar around just a little more, or less, than he does, the joke’s punchline would not have worked at all. The magic of comedy is all in the timing, and this fight absolutely depends on it for its effectiveness.
Fun Fact: Ford talk about how the previously-planned elaborate swordfight that this scene originally was going to be just didn't sit right with him (bad gut or no)--he felt it was redundant, and that it dispelled the tension of the chase, which was the real point of the whole sequence.
I chose this scene because: It’s so funny. Really. It’s the simplicity of it, and it also illustrates my theory of stage combat, which is that Less is More.
