Stunting in the Cinema

I would like to defend my unhealthy admiration for stunts in movies. From the earliest days in silent films to the upcoming Indiana Jones 4, stunts have been a critical part of certain movies that appeal to lovers of action and physicality. They can be of someone jumping off a building (see Die Hard), driving a plane into a shed then blowing up (see Singing in the Rain), or doing a back flip off a bar onto the street (see West Side Story). You'll notice that short list included some musicals, pointing out that they don't have to be brainless action movies (Cobra) to have cool stunts. In most cases, these stunts are carefully planned and executed by professionals who care about their safety and artistry. Silent films lacked the safety part and were similar to Hong Kong movies of the 70s-90s, where stunt men were a dime a dozen and you weren't really trying unless you almost died.

I don't judge a stunt on the movie in which it appears. To me, sometimes the sum of a movie's parts is greater than the whole. It doesn't matter that the plot is preposterous and the dialog was written by someone with a marginal grasp of the English language. This is simply unfortunate. It doesn't change how cool someone looks while jumping off a galloping horse onto a moving tank. Sometimes this serves the plot, but sometimes it is clearly put in to give an injection of character to a hero who has none, which kinda makes it worse. However, any way you slice it, someone in real life is jumping off a roof and smashing through the window of a room across the alley, and that counts for something.

Some people attempt to do these things themselves, trying shamelessly to recreate the awesomeness of a movie stunt. They are destined to fail for a few reasons: they aren't in a movie, they don't know what they are doing and are probably going to get hurt, and nothing ever looks as cool when you do it yourself. I'm sure You Tube is full of stunts gone horribly wrong by some guys who got carried away at a party. One time at my college, a few guys pushed one of their friends down a steep hill in a shopping cart (à la Jackass). Well, the cart careened out of control and eventually tipped over spilling its human contents onto a curb where he concussed himself and had to be taken to the hospital. I have no idea if he was seriously hurt or not, but the police officers were not impressed by their attempt at stunting. I mean, how many times does some police officer say to the victims, "Listen, that was a risky thing you did and it went horribly wrong, paralyzing one of your buddies, but I bet it looked damn cool. Way to go!"? My guess it happens less often than some would like.

This doesn't mean that some people have to give up on their dreams of being able to crash through plate-glass windows or be swept over waterfalls. Stunt actors are usually well versed in many different kinds of sports, martial arts, and leather pants-wearing (to protect them from the scourges of broken materials). These things can be done with gusto by the average person. Eventually, maybe some day those skills will come in handy for a home movie. You never know. However, here is my actual defense of the art. Stunts are no different than the crazy costumes, perfect-looking actors, kissing, or karaoke that are in certain movies. Their common ground is that they are all fake and would never happen in real life. Yet people still dress up for Halloween, women still do their hair and wear make-up, couples kiss awkwardly on the first date, and karaoke is enthusiastically practiced without being that good. I would never tie a fire hose around my waist and jump off a building while the roof explodes behind me, but that doesn't stop me from dreaming about it, just like some young girl who swoons over the thought of Mr. Darcy reforming and kissing her passionately even though that probably won't happen in real life.

By the way, Cobra isn't really that bad and has a cool shootout scene in a grocery store, which is what a lot of guys probably think about when shopping for food.