Author Archive

Anthony Ryan’s Top 5 Movie Sword Fights

BloodSongPreviously Anthony Ryan – author of this summer’s epic fantasy blockbuster BLOOD SONG – told us his top five movie battle scenes. This time around, in honour of the considerable amount of swordplay in his own novel, Anthony gives us his top five movie sword fights!

Scaramouche – Stewart Granger vs. Mel Ferrer

No fandangos here as Stewart Granger dons the guise of a masked clown in pre-Revolutionary France to pursue a deadly vendetta against Mel Ferrer’s Royalist assassin. This lavish version of Rafael Sabbatini’s swashbuckler is a technicolor spectacle topped off with the longest swordfight in movie history as Granger and Ferrer match blades the length and breadth of a Paris theatre. Can you guess who wins?

The Duellists – Harvey Keitel vs. Keith Carradine

Ridley Scott’s version of Joseph Conrad’s tale of two French cavalrymen fighting a series of duels spanning the Napoleonic Wars owes much of its visual flair to Scott’s background in TV advertising; lots of painterly landscapes and exquisitely lit interiors. But these are contrasted by the fight scenes which pack a brutally realistic punch, none more so than in the mid-point confrontation where Keitel and Carradine assail each other with sabres in a Paris wine cellar. Expert editing and choreography bring home the terror and exhaustion of physical combat to great effect. (more…)

Anthony Ryan’s Top 5 Movie Battle Scenes

BloodSongThis summer’s epic fantasy blockbuster BLOOD SONG is packed full of exciting action sequences, so we asked author Anthony Ryan to tell us his favourite movie battle scenes.

Here are Anthony’s choices, in no particular order!

Saving Private Ryan – Omaha Beach (1998, Dir. Steven Spielberg)

The immediate cinematic impact of Spielberg’s recreation of the Omaha beach landings makes it easy to forget that there was a time when filmmakers failed to present the experience of modern battle as anything other than a stark horror story viewed through the lens of an over-cranked camera. But, despite its many imitators, the real-time progress of Tom Hanks’ shell-shocked captain across the blasted and corpse strewn shore-line has never been topped for sheer visceral shock value. If you ever wondered what a burst of machine-gun fire will really do to a human body, look no further.

Henry V – Agincourt (1989, Dir. Kenneth Branagh)

Branagh’s directorial debut proved he’s as able behind the camera as he is in front of it. Naturalistic Shakespeare is a tricky thing to pull off but Branagh and cast manage it with admirable aplomb – even Brian Blessed gets through the whole film without a single shouty moment. Crucial to Branagh’s desire to present events within a believable medieval context is his depiction of the Battle of Agincourt as a mud-spattered slo-mo slogging match. Men in armour assail each other with swords, maces and daggers in a rain sodden charnel house shorn of any pageantry or chivalrous pretensions. Grimly compelling.

300 – “This! Is! Spartaaaaggh!” (2006, Dir. Zach Snyder)

Frank Miller’s stylised comic book version of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE is given lavish homage by Snyder as muscular bare chested men in leather pants engage in a mutual admiration fest before embarking on slo-mo Persian slaughter viewed through a series of prolonged tracking shots (for some reason 300 has come to be regarded as having a strong gay subtext, can’t think why). This is an unashamedly non-realist approach to ancient warfare featuring battle-rhinos, giants and grenade throwing alchemists – and is all the better for it. (more…)

David Gemmell and the Depiction of the Hero

Anthony Ryan is the British author of BLOOD SONG [UK | ANZ], a spectacular debut that is set to be this summer’s blockbuster epic fantasy release. Here, Anthony talks about the influence of David Gemmell on his work and the role of the hero in fantasy literature.

David Gemmell is now regarded as perhaps the finest exponent of the ‘heroic fantasy’ sub-genre, and his works present a rich variety of heroes, from mighty axe-wielder Druss the Legend to brooding gunfighter Jon Shannow, distinct from each other but often sharing the same traits of lingering guilt over the lives they have taken and the stark realisation that heroism often holds scant reward.

LegendThe hero has always been an aspirational figure, lauded for courage and self-sacrifice by lesser souls, and of central importance in fiction since ancient times. However, the real world is depressingly rich in heroic tales that fail to match the classic narrative. In Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers we learn that only three of the US marines who raised the flag on Iwo Jima survived the war and, despite a nationwide bond tour and huge press attention, went on to lead lives largely devoid of continued adoration and certainly not marked by any financial reward. It’s also highly unlikely more than a handful of modern Americans, other than military historians, could name them now (for the record: Corpsman John Bradley, Private Rene Gagnon and Private Ira Hayes, and yes, I had to resort to Wikipedia).

History does offer a few notable exceptions to the forgettable nature of heroes, antiquity tells of mighty Horatius holding the bridge to save Rome from the Etruscans and many in the UK no doubt still recall Colonel H. Jones winning a posthumous Victoria Cross for charging a machine gun post in the Falklands in 1982. But can you remember off-hand the name of the private who won a VC in Iraq in 2004? Or the nursery worker in London who suffered severe injuries whilst protecting children from a madman with a machete in 1996? If, like me, you had to resort to Google, you will know them as Sergeant Johnson Beharry and Lisa Potts. Sergeant Beharry is still in the army but continues to suffer from his injuries and Lisa Potts has experienced repeated bouts of severe depression resulting from post-traumatic stress. (more…)