PICKING A FIGHT

In Lights, Camera. . ., a below-the-line craftsperson talks about his current film. This week: Christopher Rouse, film editor on “The Bourne Ultimatum,” on what he looks for in editing a fight scene.

FIGHT scenes are informed by the same narrative drives as nonaction scenes, and they should reflect the drama as well: Who are the characters involved in the fight and what are their states of mind? What are their stakes in the scene (what are they fighting about)? etc.

So I approach each fight differently depending upon the story, the characters involved, and the director’s style. For example, I attack a fight in a John Woo film differently than I do in a Paul Greengrass movie. In John’s films, time is often artificially suspended during a fight to create tension and suspense. In this case, I would tend to use more slow-motion shots, make the length of the cuts longer and overlap the action. Conversely, in Paul’s films, I try to make the fights seem raw, as if we were in the midst of a real confrontation. Here we are less aware of the specifics of the fight choreography, as they take a back seat to the emotional force of the struggle. The cuts are shorter, the rhythms more erratic and angles where the action is slightly obscured are used more often.

As an example, the apartment fight in the Tangiers sequence of “The Bourne Ultimatum” moves from room to room without particular attention paid to geography until the end. It is propelled by brute force -- two assassins at each other constantly -- culminating in a savage climax in a tiny bathroom. For the ending, I tried to choose pieces that set up the stakes quickly -- the small space, the weapons (Desh Bouksani grabs a straight razor, Jason Bourne a towel), and then change rhythms to differentiate the initial flurry of action (Desh attacking Bourne, Bourne disarming him with the towel) from the emotionally charged moment when Bourne -- a killer who doesn’t want to kill anymore -- is forced to strangle a man to death.

To view this scene, visit TheEnvelope.com.