The films that really popularised “shaky cam” were the Jason Bourne franchise. It was a technique used in the mid-2000s and the early 2010s to give action movies a frenetic sense of energy. The problem with that is, everyone else started copying it. 2014’s John Wick was a surprise hit thanks to its smooth, steady camera work and absurdly well-choreographed stunts, which completely threw shaky cam out of the window and brought a new trend to the world of action cinema.
Invisible Action Scenes
Back when the original Jason Bourne film came out (The Bourne Identity in 2002), nobody had really seen fight scenes play out like this before. While the stunts were all practical, the camera would move and shake to give the audience the sense that they were in a fight with the characters. It looked exciting and fast, and because it was completely unfamiliar, The Bourne Identity could be called an action cinema trendsetter. The problem came in later when almost every other film thought it was a good idea to copy them.
That’s not to take away from any of the stars, stuntmen, or anyone involved really. The James Bond films, especially Daniel Craig’s trilogy, did use this technique to a degree. Despite what it looks like on-screen, Craig himself said that filming was extremely physically and mentally exhausting.
One of my favorite film franchises, Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, unfortunately, thought it was a good idea to make the fights impossible to track. It was supposedly because he wanted to make Batman just as invisible to the audience as he was to his enemies – but as an audience member, it looked ridiculous. You could barely track what anyone was doing because there would be 10 different cuts in the span of a few seconds, and that’s not even counting all the camera movement.
Thankfully The Dark Knight Rises dropped shaky-cam for wider, stable angles. I think this is why the sewer fight in Rises is my favorite of the trilogy, and why Bane is my favorite villain. All that the filmmakers had to do was show us what was actually happening, and suddenly these scenes became iconic.
Don’t even get me started on the Taken 3 fence clip. It’s become one of the funniest and most well-known examples of horrible action filmmaking ever. The director decided to put together 14 to 15 different cuts in the span of a few seconds – all to have Liam Neeson climb a fence.
Welcome Back, Mr. Wick
A lot of people like to cite The Raid as the pioneer of great action choreography, and I don’t disagree. But if we’re talking about Hollywood action, Keanu Reeves showed up out of nowhere to start a revolution. John Wick looked like a bland B-movie to me. A lot of old 90s movie stars have disappeared, only to take a few jobs here and there in smaller films. The one scene that changed everyone’s mind on this movie was the house invasion.
Keanu Reeves trained all of his own stunts meticulously, studying jiu-jitsu with the Machado brothers and shooting for speed and accuracy at gun ranges. What really made it work was that we were clearly seeing Keanu do all that on screen.
The camera barely moved. The music would sometimes cut out entirely just so you could hear the sound of the characters firing at and hitting each other. If there were stuntmen in that scene I didn’t see any.
The franchise is directed by a former stuntman, who was dissatisfied with what he saw other movie directors doing. I think the franchise inspired a lot of what we’re seeing now, like what might be one of my favorite Netflix originals, Extraction. It follows the same logic: directed by a former stuntman, using practical effects for everything, and making the characters visible so that the audience can feel the impact.
It might as well be called a formula at this point – but it clearly works. Extraction is getting a sequel. I don’t think this is going to fall out of fashion like shaky-cam did, though. People (including myself) can never get enough of it. These are the kinds of films that you can rewatch endlessly.
What’s Next
Now that we’ve seen the past and present of successful action movies, what does the future hold? Personally I don’t think there’s much we can do with camerawork. I’m not even sure we can improve on what we’ve got. The focus on practical effects will never get old – just look at Top Gun: Maverick. We know it’s not CGI so everything feels heavier and has more impact.
If I had to pick a direction to look at, it would probably be Creed III. It hasn’t come out yet, but they’re using IMAX cameras for the boxing matches while using normal cameras for everything else.
It’s clear in the trailer that they want to put the boxing in a separate “reality” from the rest of the story. Now that we’re seeing the potential of playing with choreography and special effects, maybe playing with the filming process itself will start something new.
