Stylization of violence in film

That’s become such a convention of “samurai”/martial arts films that Wong Kar-Wai uses it in Ashes of Time.

And of course Kubrick in the scene from A Clockwork Orange that’s quoted visually in the opening of this thread.

Is the picture after Psycho Salon?

Sin City
Psycho
A Clockwork Orange
Saving Private Ryan
Kill Bill vol.1

Hmm… I’ve seen hundreds of Samurai and martial arts films, and overcranking is pretty rare, except as an “accent” effect, where it usually fails about as dismally as repeating the action two or three times, which is more often seen. The nearest thing that is a stylistic convention is the prolonged delay, immediately following a clash of weapons, with both combatants frozen, until one (or both) falls.

That’s become such a convention of “samurai”/martial arts films that Wong Kar-Wai uses it in Ashes of Time.

Wong’s uses of multi-speed montage, in Ashes as well as other films, is virtuoso. And of course the technique become a directorial signature for John Woo.

Here’s a CGI-enhanced version from The Matrix

So where did Peckinpah get his ideas about slo-mo?

Peckinpah acknowledged the Kurosawa influence, Casey, but it’s been proven (by Stephen Prince) that Peckinpah screened Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde shortly before beginning principal photography on The Wild Bunch , so it seems pretty clear that Penn’s film was an influence too (though Peckinpah denied it). Peckinpah’s (and his editor Lou Lombardo should be credited as well) use of these stylistics, though, was elaborative and transformative beyond that of both Kurosawa and Penn. As far as I know, Penn never used multicamera/multispeed montage after Bonnie and Clyde, while Peckinpah used it to some degree in all of the films he made after The Wild Bunch.

of course, you can also do it by suggest or reinforce violence with staging—

from Raging Bull:

or, this before and after fight sequence from The City of Violence:

the POV steadicam shot that opens Halloween.