Atomic Blonde Action Scene

[Bulah Landaker]

Stuntman-turned-director David Leitch (one-half of the directorial team behind John Wick) debuted Atomic Blonde, his solo $30 million action movie starring the singular Charlize Theron, this past weekend. The film didn't set the movie world on fire in terms of box office receipts, but Leitch and his two decades in the stunt world gave us a slew of action pieces that felt completely fresh. Specifically, a brutal seven-minute fight scene in a ramshackle East Berlin apartment building that appears as if he shot it in one long, exhausting take.

Leitch, who is currently in Vancouver directing Deadpool 2 with Ryan Reynolds, gave us the details on just how he made that scene work. Read on to find out how Theron battled a handful of baddies in that one scene you're still talking about.

GQ: This 10-minute sequence was something you had stashed in your arsenal for some time. What was it exactly that you'd been itching to do?
For the longest time, as a stunt coordinator and a fight choreographer, I had been presenting this idea of, "Let's do a fight-driven action oner in the style of Children of Men." When you look at [Alfonso Cuarn's iconic street scene], they've executed all these great stitches [when two scenes are secretly stitched together to make it seem like one] and it's this beautiful work. The action is going on behind the characters, and that was important for the story because that was the backdrop. I wanted to do one where the characters are immersed in action. But it's a hard sell. It takes a lot of commitment. The logistics are not easy. You can't change things in editorial. So it's always a big ask. When it was my own movie, it became a lot easier to say, This is the bold choice we want to make, so let's do it.

How did Charlize respond when you presented it to her?
She was really positive. I knew she could do it, and that was part of the reason I wanted to do it. You sometimes have an actor that can't hold the 12 or 14 moves I need to capture in a row, or won't be compelling enough with the drama in those moments. But I wasn't worried with her. She can hold the frame for a long time, be compelling as an actor and be physical and emotional. It was the perfect opportunity.

Is it her training as a ballet dancer what gives her those abilities?
It is. Fight choreography has far more in common with dance choreography than it does with actual martial arts. You learn martial arts techniques but those are just the movements for the choreography. You're working with a partner in choreography. You're working on timing. Having the dance background was invaluable.

You also had an editor on site, so you could stitch it together.
Because the ins and outs of each stitch were so crucial to make the illusion work, we had an editor with us, my amazing editor Elsabet Ronaldsdttir, who worked with us on John Wick and is now with me on Deadpool 2. I dragged her to set to make sure everything lined up.

Ever a point during the four days where it wasn't working?
I wish there was a moment like that, but after the first couple of connections, I thought, We are going to fucking do this, and people are going to go, "Holy shit, why didn't I think of that?"

"We shot the fight in continuity. You fight long, you get tired. You get hit in the face, you get a black eye. There's blood in your mouth. Special effects would come in and we had it all broken out, the different levels of damage for each stitch."

Obviously this is choreographed and you were using a stunt double, but how banged up did Charlize get?
When you do this type of fight scene it's not a walk in the park. You're doing all these reactions with your neck and your neck is thrown out of wack. You're blocking the stunt performers and there are bruises on your forearm. You are missing a punch and you hit the matte box of the camera. She did bend her fingers back and there are bruises on her forearm. She knee slides and misses her knee pad and then you've got swelling on your knee. Even when you're being safe, eight hours of choreography makes you look like you've been through a war. It's hard. It's like playing hockey for eight hours.

How often did the stuntwoman come in to replace her?
There's a moment on the stair fall where Monique [Ganderton] comes in and does this fall that leads us into slamming Charlize into the wall. In the motion blur we make a really quick switch [between the stuntwoman and Theron] but both stunts are equally painful. Either you've got a stair fall or you get to slam yourself into the wall. Which one are we certain we can do with Charlize and be sure we can shoot tomorrow? She would do both, but you had to keep shooting and you couldn't risk that type of injury.

There was also a great slam into breakaway cabinets that was so violent that even though it was a breakaway cabinet, they are hard and the edges hurt, and you couldn't risk cutting your actor, so we put in the stunt double. But it's in very few spots. Almost nothing when it comes to all the fighting she's doing.

So what kinds of stunt surprises should we be on the lookout for in Deadpool 2?
The thing that was great about [this scene] in Atomic Blonde is it really serviced the character and the story at the moment. We rip out all the music and we go to this sound-design moment where we hang with the lead character for close to ten minutes [while she fights in the stairwell and ends up in a car chase] and she's in dire straits and trying to survive. As we go into Deadpool, I'll look for similar opportunities. We can find gimmicks, yes, but are they working to help further the story, to help you better understand the character outside of the spectacle? We have some ideas.

Despite this year already unveiling big budget action films like The Fate of the Furious, Wonder Woman, and Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2, the best action film of 2017 might be the comparatively under-the-radar Atomic Blonde. The Charlize Theron-led spy movie may not have the budget of the previously mentioned films, but it certainly packs in just as many thrills, including an insane staircase fight scene that looks like it was filmed in one continuous take. But in actuality, was the Atomic Blonde staircase fight scene one shot?

"I'm getting the remote videos from L.A. on how she's doing every day, and I made a call back to my stunt team and I'm like, 'Guys, I think we can do this 'oner' we've always talked about,'" Leitch told Business Insider's Jason Guerrasio. "When I pitched it to her we were already a couple of weeks into shooting and I walked into the makeup trailer and I was like, 'I didn't want to tell you this before because I didn't want to freak you out, but that stairwell fight, I'm planning to make it all one shot.' And she's like, 'Ah, what?' I said, 'There will be some tricks and some movie magic, but it's going to be hard work and a lot of long takes.' And she was like, 'Has it been done before?' And I said, 'Not like this.' And she said, 'Let's do it.'"

Leitch revealed that there are actually a couple of hidden cuts within the scene, so the full eight-minute fight seen on screen isn't technically one long shot. However, it was essentially filmed as such with Theron performing all the choreographed moves as if it were, and it still consists of tracking shots that extraordinarily long, giving it the appearance of one long shot.

There are fans and lightning effects, and when it rains in the movie, it sprays water on you. There are little air bursts that hit you every time a gun goes off, and the seat will shake you or kick you in the back when a fight scene is happening.

Rather than simply telling the story that we want to tell, simply pulling our audiences into our story in an organic way, we get so obsessed with all the bells and whistles that we end up distracting our audience from what makes our screenplay powerful.

Sometimes our action, the way we put it on the screen, the way we write our dialogue can be like those annoying jets of water and those annoying sprays of air and the shaking of the seats: they can shake us out of this world that we want to experience.

So we have spoken at length about the idea of how sometimes our formatting can become our 4DX, can become that thing that is supposed to augment but instead shakes us out of the experience of the movie.

Look at the location of your scene and ask yourself; what are all the objects that are available to you? What are all the objects that have never before been used in a fight sequence? And how can you use those objects in the wrong way? How can you surprise the expectations of the characters?

So, despite its many flaws, there is a lot that we can learn from Atomic Blonde when it comes to writing action, when it comes to the specificity of our action, and when it comes to this very important concept:

The first is that the plot is so convoluted that it is hard to understand what the characters are actually trying to do. And this is something that happens all the time when you are trying too hard to set up a trick ending.

So there is a potential to allow a relationship to develop between Charlize Theron and John Goodman. To actually develop the relationship, rather than just using these two characters to deliver plot. Rather than just using the emotional relationship just to deliver plot.

The real structure of True Detective is not solving the case; it is never solving the case.
The real structure of True Detective is the relationship between two very different men who come to care about each other.

He goes on a journey, even though it is a pretend one, where he has to mourn the loss of a fake friendship, where he has to realize that the man he thought was his friend may have manipulated him all along.

You can take a couple things. Atomic Blonde succeeds because of great moment to moment craft; it succeeds because of brilliantly crafted action scenes, and it succeeds because of brilliantly shot scenes, and it succeeds because of brilliant actors.

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