Bob Anderson Will Be Missed

Bob Anderson in the Vader costume, but without the dark helmet. He almost didn't get credit for his work as saber-Vader, as George Lucas didn't want to take credit from David Prowse. But you can't keep a great artist behind the plastic mask forever.While trawling the Charlotte Observer this morning, I read that Hollywood swordmaster Bob Anderson has died on New Year's Day.

He was an Olympic fencer for Great Britain in the 1950's who went on to work in movies as a swordmaster: you can see him fencing as Darth Vader in the first Star Wars movies.

He made onscreen sword-fighting a ballet, an art, something worth watching that contributed to both characterization and the story.  He was inventive at finding ways to make sword fights comedic, spirited, or adventuresome, and used style to say something about the characters: consider Darth Vaders' heavy hammering of Luke Skywalker on the bridge of Cloud City, or old Obi-Wan Kenobi's elegant, elusive spin away from Vader's jabs.  Or Aragorn's instinctive awareness of enemies behind him.  These small moves in fight sequences say things about each character.  Anderson really understood that you can't divorce a fighting style from the personality, at least not in art.

He staged sword (and light-saber) fights and trained the actors for the in the Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Highlander, James Bond, and Zorro franchises, as well as choreographing and training the actors for the brilliantly comedic fencing scene in The Princess Bride, which I think may be his best work.

Notice in the video below the sword-play's casual, effortless elegance forming an ironic dramatic bedrock for the funny dialogue and a shift in the relationship between two major characters.   Momentum shifts between them several times as they advance and retreat from one another, fighting through one another's secrets and building towards mutual recognition.  They begin as unknown quantities to one another, but learn to know one another through the fencing, and gradually develop a mutual respect that carries the story forward:

If you didn't notice the first time through, watch again how The Man In Black wrongfoots Inigo by maintaining his fencing discipline and calm as well as his secret identity.  When Inigo, the drunken and emotionally turbulent Spaniard, does lose, it's because of a series of wild, emotional cuts with his blade that show his recognition that he is outclassed by a man he cannot truly understand.  And yet they share in common deep love of different kinds, and they are (as The Man In Black recognizes) peers of a kind.

Bob Anderson's art will be missed. 

Some of his last work will be seen in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit.

Comments

[emma]

Was he part of the fencing scene in the new Star Trek movie? Our main hero learns that the person he is depending on to help him fight his way out only has fencing as his training he has "oh shit" on his face. I love that he is proved so wrong and the side kick, kicks butt.
His work was amazing and made fencing cool again.