Cinematography technique · used in 4 films
Staging a battle in driving rain and deep mud, with fighters slipping and struggling through it. The violence looks unglamorous, exhausting and physically real.
Examples
Akira Kurosawa · 1954
The final battle was filmed in the middle of winter with artificial rain, and the actors really were struggling through mud. Kurosawa wanted it to feel like an actual battle: chaotic, exhausting and with no reward for heroism. The samurai die in the mud. From the way the scene looks, you can't tell winning from losing.
Where to see it: The final battle. Samurai and bandits struggle through rain and mud, and men die with no ceremony.
Peter Jackson · 2002
Jackson and Lesnie shot the Helm's Deep sequence over about 3 months, mostly at night, in cold rain from rain machines. The rain soaks the actors and the equipment, and the footage has a physical misery that no dry set could give you.
Where to see it: The first assault. Torches go out, and arrows are fired into rain and darkness.
David Mackenzie · 2018
At Loudoun Hill, Bruce sets a wall of spears behind a ditch. The English cavalry charges into the wet ground, and the horsemen bog down in mud. The fighting looks heavy and unglamorous, with no clean heroic charge.
Where to see it: The Battle of Loudoun Hill. Bruce defeats a mostly cavalry force with a spear wall behind a ditch, and the English retreat.
Robert Eggers · 2022
Eggers shoots the raid with a single camera in long takes stitched together. The violence is unglamorous and physical: bodies doing damage to other bodies. There is no slow motion, only the sounds and the percussion of the work.
Where to see it: The village raid sequence. It is shot as a long take stitched from 4 takes, and the camera follows the violence through the firelight. You can't tell the berserkers from their victims.
Questions