Jack and Will's fight in Pirates of the Caribbean the curse of the Black Pearl
may be my favorite movie fight ever definitely in the top five and you may
think that's pretty heavy lifting for a fight in a movie based on a Disney
ride but trust me it's just that good my name is Jill Bearup and when I'm not
making youtube videos doing ridiculous things with my hair or attempting early
years education my hobby is theatrical violence the art of pretending to hurt
people for stage and screen and this is one of my favorite fights because my
preferences run in the direction of the small the deeply character connected
and the layered like lasagna like the good kind of lasagna not the kind which
just has two lousy sheets of the stuff the first Pirates movie is a ride pun
fully intended it buckles its swash and it goes like a summer blockbuster should
albeit for slightly too long in my opinion but it's glorious wonderful
ridiculous slightly creepy fun the CGI holds up pretty well the plot exists and
is mostly coherent and the cast are perfect and perfectly set up for this
scene Will's introduction as a child is mysterious and brief but it sets up the
history between Will and Elizabeth when Will is introduced again as an adult we
get a quick and thorough overview of his character painfully earnest skilled as a
blacksmith in love with Elizabeth kind of a dork and unwilling to risk what he
has or to be more specific unwilling to risk her you see that that obviously
cost him something no matter how much he might be in love with Elizabeth he is
not willing to risk her reputation by being anything less than completely
proper in public so that's Will to be honest though a large part of this
movie's charm and one of the reasons it was such a big success is Captain Jack
Sparrow who in this film at least is delightfully over-the-top and
surprisingly layered I hear they're planning some kind of reboot without
Captain Jack Sparrow I also hear people have opinions on this but I do not have
an opinion on this because I haven't seen it yet
Jack's introduction in the first Pirates of the Caribbean is beautiful because
rather like the man himself it sets up and then subverts your
expectations several times in rapid succession
dramatic music beautiful framing and it's a tiny little boat with one sail
that he's having to bail out with a bucket the salute to the dead pirates
hammers home that he is also a pirate which you
expected but it also contains compassion and respect for the dead which perhaps
you didn't everyone turning to look because Jack is a consummate show-off
but they're not looking because he's so impressive and then that beautiful mast
hop from the sunken ship gorgeous we follow this with him paying off the
guy at the dock so he doesn't have to give a name and then immediately
committing petty thievery and lifting a purse which probably has more than it than we just gave that guy. Jack is a
dashing rogue but he's also the butt monkey. He is a stinkier Han Solo with an
even shakier moral compass he thinks he's cool he is at best intermittently
cool Murphy's law loves Jack too much for all of his schemes to work all of
the time and he's not as clever as he thinks he is but he is clever and
intermittently heroic so having established these two characters now
we're going to pit them against each other about 20 minutes in having saved
Elizabeth and being captured by Norrington Captain Jack makes a daring
escape and sneaks into the blacksmith's shop to free himself from the irons on
his wrists he is interrupted by Will who correctly concludes that he is the
pirate the entire garrison is looking for and they fight the music the
choreography the stunt work that character moments the props it's
gorgeous particularly the character moments
because we don't know these characters very well yet but everything we're about
to see will gel with the things that we've already learned the thing is it
could have looked and sounded great and still have been hollow
fight scenes in movies should be there to serve the story but it's entirely
possible just to have a bunch of entertaining things happen which don't
really tell us very much at all topic for another day perhaps but I prefer
more meat on the bones of my fights so let's get to it
we have Jack we have Will we have their environment we have clear and
conflicting objectives for each of them will must capture Jack Jack must escape
from will we have their characters which they must stay true to during the fight
and the choreography is flashy and exciting and just the right amount of
ridiculous because the characters are taking this fight seriously but that
doesn't mean that the audience should Jack's journey in curse of the Black
Pearl is the price of being a bad man and the consequences of listening to
your conscience Jack would be a whole lot more successful and a whole lot less
interesting if he consistently did the selfish thing but the conflict is what
makes him I mean he could have just used the
distraction of Elizabeth falling off the cliff to push these two guys neither of
whom can swim into the water and make good his escape on the Interceptor he
could have shot will at the end of the duel and made good his escape from there
but that would be a bit OneNote no wills journey in curse of the Black Pearl is
about the price of being a good man and the consequences of following your heart
when things aren't quite what they seem and so it goes we begin as Jack escapes
from his irons with will being a tidy freak and caring for an unconscious
drunken master - is probably the closest thing to family that he has and jack
threatens will with a sword because nobody touches the hat the type of sword
Jack's using is called a hanger which is basically a slightly longer version of a
Cutlass Cutlass is worth basically the sort of choice for sailors of all
varieties because they weren't as long and unwieldy as rip yours which is
useful when you're on a ship Jack probably does more fighting than rope
cutting though so I suppose he'd want the extra length of a hanger no jokes
please Jack sword is also in a state rather like the rest of him look at it
is it even sharp if he cut you with it would you die of blood loss or tetanus
first say thank you to the props and costume and hair and makeup departments
Jack Sparrow is a has-been pirate who smells really bad and sailed into Port
Royal on a tiny sinking boat of course his gear is looking worse for wear
will my contrast grabs one of the many swords that he has made like all of them
it is new and shiny but this particular one is phase so it's not gold filigree
laid into the handle but it is very well got your cast iron grip you've got your
half basket hilt to protect your fingers but most of all it's Will's sword and
swords are for cutting and fighting and things so it does what it does without
any particular flash but it doesn't well much like well it's well made and well
maintained but there's nothing expensively fancy about it and we
haven't even started fighting yet time for some talking so that Jack can try
and psych out his opponent do you think this wise boy well will is just very
focused on the whole Elizabeth thing when we actually begin the fight we
learn a couple of things very quickly first the the neat precise personality
that means he knows exactly where his hammer should be no jokes please carries
over to Wills fencing style second that after a very short time jack knows that
will is pretty good at this sword fighting thing you know what you're
doing I'll give you that excellent form around here we call the
sections into which fights are divided phrases and a phrase ends anytime there
is opposed and you can use that pause just as oppose or you can consider your
next move which will of course be in time to the music or you can switch your
sword around like your Anakin Skywalker or whatever and generally fights are
learned section by section phrase by phrase because otherwise if you try to
learn it all once you just get very confused jack attacks and advances and
is parried Jack attacks and advances for a longer phrase and is parried will has
hit the steps in count back up further so swipes at him instead then we reverse
and do a similar thing in the opposite direction Jack has been feeling out
Will's defense and I we see what will is like on the attack and he is pretty good
this being established what do we already know about Jack well that he's
tricky considering his human corkscrew of a personality it would be weird for
him to just have a straight fight so how's your footwork will is a very
by-the-book fencer and he knows the correct response to Jack's footwork and
Jack is relying on this lawful good tendency of wills to get into the door
at this point we reinforced wills basically a decent human being character
by having him lock the door with the sword
rather than cleave Jack's head into so now Jack can't escape and it's here that
we get into a more environmentally-conscious fight not not
that kind of environmentally conscious I mean that we're not just going back and
forth across the floor with swords anymore we'll grabs the poker jack is
looking for an escape and so they're having to fight to run the pillar Jack
uses the remains of his irons to try and catch wills hand will dives into the
wheel light of the way they each grab more weapons and we learn something more
about will who makes all these I do well we kind of already guessed that from his
reaction to governor Swann saying extend my compliments to your master yeah that
guy but still it's nice to have reinforcements at the point and who
practices with them three hours a day which would neatly explain why Jack
Sparrow pirate and presumably no slouch with a sword because you know he's still
alive is not making much headway and also it's wills workshop the camera
circling around and being blocked by various pieces of the set helps to
establish that they are in a clearly defined and not terribly large space
which helps to obscure when it's a stuntman fighting but also adds to the
complexity which increases the tension makes it more exciting the best fights
are stories within a story and so they should have arcs of their own fights
which are OneNote are very boring but there are a multitude of ways to spice
things up and two of those ways are to either increase or decrease the level of
complexity in the fight as you go on my first stage combat exam was three exams
back-to-back so both partners started with rapier and dagger and then by some
means both of us were disarmed onto our single swords and then both of us were
disarmed down to just being unarmed and fighting hand-to-hand and then we were
done which is a pretty convenient way of combining your three exams into one
fights getting less complex as you go through is pretty realistic because the
characters would be getting tired and more sloppy and so you can make it feel
realistic or gritty or intimate or tense the other way to increase the tension is
to make things more complex as we go on pacific rims boast our fight between
marko and rally gets more complex as it progresses each phrase longer than the
last to emphasize their increase in connection in this fight we increase the
complexity with changes in the environment and weapons which works
perfectly for a summer blockbuster designed to entertain you and we cram in
some more character moments to perhaps the reason you practice three hours a
day is that you already found out Jack followed by another change in
environment this time to the wagon seesaw which is both ridiculous and
entertaining to character points for will here one will talks a good game
about meeting pirates and killing them but given the opportunity he still
doesn't kill Jack he chains him up he loves Elizabeth and that remark was a
little close to the bone but he's still not a killer by nature too when he gets
flung up into the rafters our fourth environment if your kind thing he
chooses to bring Jack up to him instead of jumping done he chooses to stay in
the place favoring him with his very careful footwork over Jack who has more
experience fighting actual opponents than will but also looks like balance
could be an issue for him will disarms Jack again but having got back down to
the grind Jack ends the fight quite decisively with a combination of cocoa
powder and a pistol I knew they used cocoa powder for this but I've
legitimately no idea what it was meant to represent play I don't know
distracted sorry we then end with Jack's refusal to use his pistol on will the
closest thing to a guiding moral that has at this point and then having
established that Jack is not completely heartless we end with the anticlimax of
mr. Brian smashing him over the head with a bottle
the anticlimax serves a few purposes first the removal of Jack's agency do I
shoot will or don't I reminds us that jack is only intermittently cool it
reinforces that well regardless of how good or clever or skilled he is never
gets the credit and it delays a crucial character moment until the right point
in the story we need Jack to make a decisive character choice at a pivotal
moment and we're not there yet it also plans a seed of doubt in wills head
about Jack's moral status Jack could have killed him but he didn't he asked
him to move it was very nearly pleading it was not what we'll expected from a
pirate who might also sometimes be a good man this scene is what it is and
what it is is darn near perfect it's a small-scale fight with
imaginative use of setting executed well with clear objectives for everyone it's
fun it's dramatic it makes use of four different parts of a relatively small
set and the sword clashes are in time with the music which is also some really
excellent music there are lots of flashier more expensive more complicated
fight scenes in the Pirates franchise but honestly for sheer craftsmanship
this one's probably my favorite for more videos on storytelling using fights you
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