By The Sword Continued;)

Today I am going to talk about the origin of fencing and fencing in the movies.

Swords themselves first apeared between 1500 to 1100 B.C in Minoan, Crete, and Celtic Britain. The first picture of a sword (called a relief) appeared around 1190 B.C. in an Egyptian temple. Ninmus, King of Assyria, is usually credited with the development of swordplay as a formalized sport. He was also the first leader to use professional fencing masters to train his army.

Swords were different depending on the country. Most countries had a long sword similar to those in use today but other countries, such as Greece, had a different type of sword. The Greek sword was short, double-edged with hilts or crossbars, and ridged from point to hilt (to stiffen the blade). This design was used mainly for hacking instead of dueling.

Besides the sword, early combatants also had a shield, breast plate, helmet, shin guards, and a spear. The equipment altogether was very expensive. In Rome, for example, a sword and its sheath cost more than a good horse (which cost a lot back then). After the fall of the Roman Empire, the long sword lost ground and was replaced by these different weapons: a lance (basically a giant spear), a glaive (another type of spear with a blade on the side instead of on top) a lancegay (a light, throwing spear), a battleaxe, a hammer, a gisarme (a type of ax), a spiked club, and others.

Now let's change the subject and talk about fencing in movies. The most famous fencing movie of all time is (surprise!) Star Wars! In this movie, the light saber replaces the fencing sword but Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader still use basic fencing moves. Bob Anderson (who played Darth Vader) taught Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) how to fence specifically for this movie. Later on, he became the swordmaster for Walt Disney Films. Other films with fencing include: The Duelists, The Princess Bride, The Three Musketeers, The Warriors, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Sword of the Avenger, Zorro, The Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean and Cyrano de Bergerac.

Fencing in movies, however, was sometimes dangerous. Early films used real steel swords instead of the fake plastic ones used today. This caused many accidents. For example, in the 1941 film They Died With their Boots On, the main actor Bill Mead was thrown from his horse. He became impaled on his sword and died. The actor Lawrence Olivier had many injuries from fencing, including three ruptured achilles tendons, sword slashes across his chest, a broken foot, and more. David Niven, another actor, once tripped during a fighting scene and his blade went straight through the leg of an extra standing nearby (luckily, the extra had a wooden leg). Fred Graham, a stuntman, impaled his foot with a sword during a duel on the staircase at Nottingham Castle, and later on fell from a balcony during a fight scene. Ralph Faulkner caught his foot on a wire and he fell forward on his opponent's sword, narrowly missing his eye.

I am ending today with one of my favorite fencing scenes in a movie. It is from Cyrano de Bergerac. Please excuse the nose speech in the beginning before the fight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEacXeAbHpQhttp://