Acting Various and Sundry Writing

The Court Jester’s Duel with Ravenhurst is great. Get it?

I am still following accounts of the Writers’ Strike, which looks like it’ll be a long one, but while you can continue to check out information, like the Strike Diaries from the Hollywood Reporter, for today, I wanted to just post about film, specifically a great example where writing, performance, and fight choreography comes together beautifully. I’m talking about the climactic duel in the 1956 comedy The Court Jester.

I love the duel because, as with so much of the writing in The Court Jester, it builds on some of the previous comedy in delightfully inventive ways. The fight is a natural extension of the story and is driven by the circumstances into which the characters find themselves… which is then what the actors are delivering. In the video, Jill Bearup shares her knowledge and enthusiasm from the fight choreography angle. Basically, this is why I like theater and film in how different creative elements can come together in a collaboration larger than the sum of its parts.

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