Zweihander then 
Don’t Zweihanders have these little tines sticking out of the blade about a hand’s length above the hilt?
Sorry. Just giving you a hard time.
I agree with everything Sleel said above + check out Beat Takeshi in Zatoichi. Loved that film.
Not always, no, the earlier ones just have a blunted ricasso. One imagines enough chopped hands led to the secondary guard, but the one being used in this woodcut detail don’t seem to have them.
Yes, that’s what I implied…
Most of the problems with Braveheart have been mentioned. Another one is the lack or armor. Wallace would have fought in full mail kit and great helm at that time. Perhaps even some plate here and there (pauldrons, gorget), NOT half-naked and in a friggin’ kilt. completely unarmored soldiers cannot stand up against heavy infantry in a toe to toe fight, ain’t gonna happen.
Also Wallace’s great sword might not have been very accurate, but it’s more plausible that the typical design of a claymore most people are familiar with. The modern picture of a claymore would be much happier as a renaissance longsword (a particularly large one - though I would not call it a zweihander) than a medieval longsword (or greatsword - again, a particularly large longsword).
The Higgins Armory in Worcester regularly putrs in exhibitions of fighting from all eras, using period works to get the styles and details right. Movie fighting rarely resembles what thery do very closely. I’m particularly impresssed by a fight I saw between two fully-armored knights. They held the bladers fairly close to the tip as they tried to cram them into joints in each other’s armor at extremely close range. They loked like two crabs trying t pry eacjh other’s shells open. Other forms look oddly stylized, and the various other parts of the sword – hilt and guard – are used more often and in other ways than you’d think.
But I’ve long held that there are three types of fighting, in any style – 1.) Tourbnament Fightring, with limits and rules, 2.) street fighting, and 3.) “Show” fighting for movies and plays. We get to see mainly the last of these in flicks, obviously.
Besides, the truest and most accurate form of swordfighting obviously involves the triple-bladed, jet-propelled swords used by Lee Horsely as Prince Talon in The Sword and the Sorceror:
The Higgin’s Armory guys are a great bunch. I’m very happy they are still educating the public.
I don’t think we’ll ever see historically accurate swordsmanship in movies for several reasons:
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Ignorance is bliss. Most people don’t know or care about what a real sword fight would be like. To them swords should be heavy blunt objects used to crush people in armor, which, btw also weighs 200 pounds +.
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Opposing goals. HEMA teaches one to kill your opponent as quickly and efficiently as possible. If stage combat took those teachings to heart we’d have a lot of injured/dead extras and actors. Safety is paramount when you’re dealing with untrained people, sometimes wearing little protective gear (you can’t have the lead hottie wearing a helmet!) Even plastic props can be dangerous. Also efficient killing, even if make believe does not make for long, drawn out engaements where a story can be told. There’s also little room for banter. Swordsmen don’t lock swords and start to push against each other in some silly strength contest while questioning the other’s parentage in real combat.
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No one wants to learn something new if they don’t have to. No hollywood combat choreographer wants to devote what will likely be a very long time learning medieval and renaissance fighting techniques, and then try and work them into stage combat that is safe for the actors, interesting for the audience, helps tell a story, AND retains at least some historical accuracy. It ain’t gonna happen.
The best they will do is likely what they did in Kingdom of Heaven. Mention some guard or technique, use it once in some lame training exercise, along with some false commentary on it and bad examples of its use, and then never use it again instead going back to the innefective “blocks” (not parries) and bashing around like they always do.
Flesh + Blood starring the always wonderful Rutger Hauer is great. It has the added bonus of being really smutty too.
Heston told an interesting story about making that movie. Seems they were filming in some marshy places in California, a stand in for the marshy fens of England. A teenage kid kept sneaking onto the location set, to watch the filmmaking, and everytime he was caught he was thrown out. Finally the director let him stay, as he wasn’t getting in the way or causing trouble, he was just wanting to learn about making movies.
Kid’s name was Steven Spielberg.
An even bigger inaccuracy, IMO, was the existence of Katsumoto’s village. Samurai had been removed from the countryside by the early 1600s in order to eliminate any source of financial independence they might have apart from their lord. Katsumoto and his samurai would have been based out of a castle town. Similarly the portrayal of village life would have been inaccurate even for the 16th Century (samurai could not participate in village festivals, and samurai families did not dine together, for example.) The battle scenes were cool, though.
I suppose. And I know that one can be purposely anachronistic in storytelling. I’ve seen operas by Puccini and Mozart staged as modern pieces.
But I hate it.
And while the Arthurian legends are legends, they do take place in a (more or less) specific place and a (more or less) specific time. Seeing plate is, to me, like seeing samurai swords. Or six-shooters. It’s just wrong.
I just saw this movie for the first time last night. It is awful and the swordplay is worse.
Jim
What about Anthony Hopkins’s battle scene in the opening portion of The Lion in Winter? Or even the one orchestrated by John Castle’s character? Are those of any use?
They were OK. Tom Cruise and the samurai leaders made a big noise about their awesome battle plan for the climactic battle, but it didn’t seem like an especially well thought out or effective plan.
Several of his movies have already been mentioned, but check out the body of work credited to fight arranger, William Hobbs. The man changed the entire industry.
Yep, you’re right about those too. I limited my list to three brief comments related to fighting/military so it wouldn’t end up being a page long. We could easily tear the movie apart on an historical basis. Not that it’s guilty of any more egregious errors than most “historical” movies.
Want a real bullshit-meter pinging moment? Algren being able to put on hakama properly the first time he tries. I guarantee that someone who has only seen hakama being worn will not be able to figure out all the ties. He’d need help putting that stuff on for at least the first 2 or 3 times.
I loved the big swordfight scene in Branagh’s Hamlet, but it come near the end of almost four swordfight-less hours.
my bold
You know, i’ve never heard half-sword as picturesquely (and accurately) described before.