[Commlist] CFP Aesthetics and Politics of the Gunfight in Films and Series

*Aesthetics and Politics of the Gunfight//in Films and Series*

An international conference organized by

Amandine D’Azevedo, Anissa Medjebeur and David Roche

Université de Montpellier Paul-Valéry, Institut Universitaire de France

February 20 - 21, 2026

This conference will pursue lines of inquiry raised during the previous 
conferences held at Université de Montpellier Paul-Valéry in 2024 and 
2025: “Fight Choreography in Films and Series,” organized by Amandine 
D’Azevedo and David Roche, and ”Action Bodies: Bodies in Action Films 
and Series of the Digital Era,” organized by Claire Cornillon and Hervé 
Mayer. This event will focus exclusively on a staple action cinema 
scene: the gunfight. Attention will be paid to the full range of 
gunfights (including duels, “Mexican standoffs,” shootouts and “bullet 
ballets” but excluding instances of mass combat) in transnational film 
genres such as the Western, the crime film and the gangster film, and 
their local variations such as the /yakuza eiga/. Speakers will analyze 
cinematic gunfights as both autonomous units and sequences that are 
dramatically integrated within a given work; the mise-en-scène of the 
gunfight will be considered as a site of aesthetic, cultural, 
methodological and theoretical issues are played out in complex ways.

Speakers are invited to investigate different genres, periods and 
geographical areas, while highlighting the central role of US, Hong Kong 
and Japanese cinemas and/or taking into account the transnational 
circulations of the gunfight scene. Historically speaking, the Western 
no doubt participated in codifying the gunfight scene according to 
specific locations (the saloon, the street, open spaces) and devices 
(the medium full shot, the shot/reverse shot); following the success of 
Sergio Leone's films, the Italian Western especially expanded gunfight 
scenes and endowed them with an operatic quality, which has had a 
lasting influence on how cinematic gunfights are dramatized beyond the 
Western genre (/Sykiyaki Western Django/, Takashi Miike, 2007; /Five 
Fingers For Marseille/, Michael Matthews, 2017). In the 1980s and 1990s, 
the films of the Hong Kong New Wave (directed by the likes of John Woo, 
Johnnie To, Ringo Lam, Danny Lee) depicted gunfight scenes of 
unprecedented inventiveness, the integration of firearms within the Kung 
Fu film creating what is now known as Gun Fu;  the Hong Kong gunfight 
sequence has since inspired filmmakers worldwide, from the USA 
(/Desperado/, Robert Rodriguez, 1995) to India (the films of Lokesh 
Kanagaraj) to African cinema (/Who Killed Captain Alex?/, Nabwana 
I.G.G., 2010). Thus, underlying the gunfight’s apparent simplicity lies 
a tangle of influences. If identifying the pioneer of the cinematic 
gunfight is no doubt a dubious task, attention to the evolution of the 
gunfight scene across film and television history and its circulation 
worldwide remains a relevant enterprise. Films about the mafia, the 
yakuza or secret societies offer a host of cultural and national 
variations that testify to the gunfight’s ability to adapt to different 
contexts. Though very often culturally specific, the cinematic gunfight 
often seems to retain a clearly identifiable, almost “universal” 
contour. Whether in a Chinese, Brazilian (/City of God/, Mereilles and 
Lund, 2002) or Indonesian (/The Raid/, Gareth Evans, 2011) context, the 
image of an outstretched arm holding a pistol often triggers a scene 
that awakens one’s cinematic memories, conjuring up images and sounds of 
other such scenes.

Visually, the gunfight scene relies on a recognizable poetics centered 
around two body parts: the hand and the gaze. Camera and gun become one 
when an image is framed by a rifle’s crosshair, as if in recognition of 
the fact that usage of either tool is referred to by the same verb (to 
shoot). Unlike fist-, knife- and swordfights, which require actors 
trained in boxing and martial combat (Bruce Lee, Steven Seagal, 
Sylvester Stallone, Michelle Yeoh, etc.), the cinematic gunfight seems 
more accessible to the majority of actors and potentially leaves more 
room for their usual work. While gunfight scenes, like other combat 
scenes, call for extras and/or stuntmen with specific skills (falling 
down, getting shot, etc.), shootout scenes in particular call for a 
completely different kind of technical expertise. These sequences 
feature sophisticated visual and sound effects. Pyrotechnics serve to 
highlight bullets that would be otherwise invisible to the naked eye, 
emphasizing the exchange of gunfire and its impact on the location. The 
gunshot—and more precisely its trajectory—is, aesthetically speaking, a 
matter of light, especially in dark or night-time sequences. 
Furthermore, the bullets’ points of exit and impact must be made 
manifest (smoke, blood) to reinforce what would otherwise remain an 
invisible phenomenon. Sound effects also play an essential role in the 
orchestration of a gunfight, allowing us to hear what is normally 
invisible. From the isolated bullet that breaks the silence to the 
deafening concert of machine-gun fire (John Woo), a cinematic gunfight 
only fully exists as an acoustic phenomenon anchored in a specific 
soundscape. It is, therefore, crucial to not only examine how the sound 
of gunfire punctuates and affects the soundtrack (notably the musical 
composition that accompanies the sequence), but also ponder the 
ambiguous status of gunfire as a more or less realistic sound effect on 
the one hand, and a musical note on the other.

Though the cinematic gunfight appears eminently cinematic, it also 
accomodates a form of syncretism whose efficiency and complexity stem 
from its potential for formal variation. It can be endowed with a 
musical quality when organized according to the rhythm, frequency and 
intensity of the gunfire (the /John Wick/ movies) or by a heavy silence 
that almost transforms a soundtrack primarily composed of diegetic 
noises into concrete music of sorts (/Once Upon a Time in the West/, 
Leone, 1968). The cinematic gunfight has a theatrical dimension, as it 
is plays on the positioning of bodies in space, their entrances and 
exits on stage and, of course, their movements across space (the choice 
of a strategic shooting position, the emergence of an adversary, and so 
on). Choreographed bodies waltzing through the air (/The Wild Bunch/, 
Peckinpah, 1969; /Hard-Boiled/, Woo, 1992), as well as the performers’ 
highly stylized gestures that are codified in both generic and gendered 
terms, align the cinematic gunfight with dance. Some gunfights even 
recall sculpture, as they derive their intensity from the statuesque 
immobility of bodies (the classic Western gunfight; /Sonatine/, Takeshi 
Kitano, 1993; /The Mission/, To, 1999).

The cinematic gunfight’s dramatic potential owes much to how it plays on 
the elements of action, space and time. Based, like the fight scene in 
general, on the relationship between (bodies in) action and space, the 
gunfight exploits the properties and coordinates of cinematic space 
(foreground/background, shot/reverse shot, a given location’s 
topography, etc.). Perhaps even more so than fist-, knife- or 
swordfights, the gunfight deploys a dynamic tension between frantic 
movement and quasi-complete stasis because of the bullet’s speed and the 
distance between opponents that firearms allow. Like any combat scene, 
the gunfight exploits the topography and resources of a given location. 
The opening teahouse scene of /Hard-Boiled/, for instance, indulges in a 
form of “ballistic poetics” (Cook 1999), the shots that riddle the 
bodies, windows, birds and teapots continuously reconfiguring and 
inverting the relation between figure and background. The range of 
possibilities also concerns the handling of time: on a narrative level, 
these scenes can not only last (the neverending shootouts of 
/Hard-Boiled/ and /John Wick/), but also play on the endless wait before 
a single gunshot is actually fired (the Italian Western); a similar 
tension affects the narration, which can combine hyperkinetic editing 
(Hanke 1999) and slow motion to emphasize triumphant or fallen bodies.

Like the fight scene in general, the gunfight plays on the tension 
between artifice and realism at the heart of all spectacular 
representations, and thus conjures up two ideals of film 
aesthetics—realism and attraction—that have often been opposed in film 
theory. The excesses of certain contemporary action films (notably the 
New Hong Kong cinema) ultimately remind us that the documentary value of 
duels in classical or Italian Westerns was already highly dubious. Like 
all combat scenes, cinematic gunfights seek a greater or lesser degree 
of stylization and aim for a greater or lesser degree of verisimilitude 
(accuracy, number of shots, the ease with which a weapon is reloaded 
that a more historical approach calls into question [/Meek’s Cutoff/, 
Kelly Reichardt, 2010]). Finally, the cinematic gunfight can be staged 
according to different aesthetic regimes and seeks to provoke different 
forms of sensation and emotion, the variety of which beg analysis. 
Whether it resorts to a hyperstylized or crude aesthetic, the fictional 
gunfight is fundamentally an aesthetic problem that questions our 
relationship to beauty.

It is, moreover, a dramatic situation capable of resolving political 
conflicts or ethical dilemmas on a narrative level, but also of 
problematizing them on a philosophical level. Because it sacrifices the 
disruptive element, often constituted as a scapegoat (the Western; 
/Scarface/, Hawks, 1992, DePalma, 1983; /Heat/, Michael Mann, 1995), its 
ritual quality endows the sequence with what anthropology would probably 
identify as a social and symbolic function. Whether they be 
cowboys/girls, policemen and -women, gangsters or hitpersons, heroes and 
villains are often driven by more or less explicitly formulated moral 
values, potentially grounded in a national (the myth of the American 
frontier) and/or partriarchal ideology (chivalry). Often associated with 
masculinity and described as phallic symbols (the film noir revolver 
brandished by the femme fatale obviously comes to mind), firearms also 
raise questions regarding gender politics: are certain weapons more or 
less masculine (Dirty Harry’s .44 Magnum)? Does mastery of firearms 
imply an all-male command of technology? Or do guns, on the contrary, 
reduce the physical differences between men and women (the /Resident 
Evil/franchise, 2002-2022), and more generally between more or less 
imposing physiques?

These questions and others can be addressed the 2026 conference in 
Montpellier. Proposals in English or French (including a 400-word-long 
abstract and a short bio) should be sent to Amandine D’Azevedo 
((amandine.d-azevedo /at/ univ-montp3.fr) 
<mailto:(amandine.d-azevedo /at/ univ-montp3.fr)>), Anissa Medjebeur 
((anissa.medjebeur /at/ univ-montp3.fr) 
<mailto:(anissa.medjebeur /at/ univ-montp3.fr)>) and David Roche 
((david.roche /at/ univ-montp3.fr) <mailto:(david.roche /at/ univ-montp3.fr)>) by 
*July 1, 2025*.

Scientific Committee: Julien Achemchame (Université de Montpellier 
Paul-Valéry), Claire Cornillon (Université de Montpellier Paul-Valéry), 
Lisa Coulthard (University of British Columbia), Térésa Faucon 
(Université Sorbonne Nouvelle), Antoine Gaudin (Université Sorbonne 
Nouvelle), Marianne Kac-Vergne (Université de Picardie Jules Verne), 
Hervé Mayer (Université de Montpellier Paul-Valéry), Fabien Meynier 
(Université de Montpellier Paul-Valéry), Lindsay Steenberg (Oxford 
Brookes University), Vincent Souladié (Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès).

**

**

**

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*Selected Bibliography***

Bordwell, David. /Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of 
Entertainment/. Harvard University Press, 2000.

**

Brenez, Nicole. « Pourquoi faut-il tuer les morts ? » et « John Woo par 
lui-même : la prise et le plan ». In /De la figure en général et du 
corps en particulier/. De Boeck Supérieur, 1998, pp.43-63, 283-84.


  Cook, David A. « Ballistic Balletics: Styles of Violent Representation
  in /The Wild Bunch/ and After  ». /Sam Peckinpah's/The Wild Bunch.
  Cambridge, edited by Stephen Prince, Cambridge University Press, 1999,
  p. 130-54.

Coulthard, Lisa and Lindsay Steenberg. « Red Circle of Revenge: Anatomy 
of the Fight Sequence in John Wick ». I/n the World of John Wick: One 
Year’s Work at the Continental Hotel/, dirigé par Caitlin G. Watt et 
Stephen Watt, Indiana University Press, 2022, pp. 41- 62.

Faucon, Térésa et Caroline San Martin (dirs.). /Chorégraphier le film : 
gestes, caméra, montage/. Mimesis, 2019.

//

Gaudin, Antoine./L’Espace cinématographique/. Armand Colin, 2015

Hanke, Robert. “John Woo’s Cinema of Hyperkinetic Violence: From ‘A 
Better Tomorrow to Face/Off.’” /Film Criticism/, vol. 24, no. 1, 1999, 
pp. 39–59. /JSTOR/, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44018960 
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/44018960>. Accessed 13 Mar. 2025.

Hans, Birgit. «  The Ethics of the Gunfight  ». /Studies in the 
Western/, vol. 10, 2010, p. 44-55.

Lanuque, Arnaud, /Police VS Syndicats du crime. Les polars et films de 
triades dans le cinéma de Hong Kong/, Gope, 2017.

Morris, Meaghan, dir./Hong Kong Connections: Transnational Imagination 
in Action Cinema/. Duke University Press, 2011.

Neroni, Hilary. /The Violent Woman: Femininity, Narrative, and Violence 
In Contemporary///

/American Cinema/. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005.

Pommerance, Murray, dir. Bang Bang. Shoot/ Essay on Guns and Popular 
Culture. Pearson 2000.

Purse, Lisa. /Contemporary Action Cinema/. Edinburgh: Edinburgh 
University Press, 2011.


  Schwengler, Olivier
 <https://research-ebsco-com.ezpupv.scdi-montpellier.fr/c/6lbqll/search/results?db=mzh&isDashboardExpanded=true&limiters=None&q=AU+%22Schwengler%2C+Olivier%22&redirectFromDetailsToResultsPage=true&initiatedBy=typed-in>.
  «  Exercices de style à OK Corral  ». Western: Que reste-t-il de nos
  amours? dirigé par Gérard Camy, /CinémAction/; 1998, pp. 110-115/ .

Teo, Stephen. /Director in Action: Johnnie To and the Hong Kong Action 
Film/. Hong Kong University Press, 2007.

Work, James C. «  Variations on the Gunfight in Western Short Stories ». 
/Heritage of the Great Plains/, vol. 8, no. 1, 1995, p. 21-29.

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