The shock and emptiness of the battle scenes that make up 2/3 of the entire movie “Black Hawk Down”

Why was the movie made to have such a long battle scene?

"Black Hawk Down" condenses the entire story of the capture operation, known as the "Battle of Mogadishu," into a running time of 2 hours and 15 minutes, devoting almost the entire film to depicting it.

I noticed the "restlessness" of the battle scenes in this movie when I watched a preview screening of this movie at the Kansai branch of Toho Towa, the distributor. From the beginning, I was immersed in the story as usual, but about an hour and a half into the movie, I began to feel a sense of discomfort, thinking, "I've only seen gun battles for a long time now," and gradually, my concentration was taken up by the question of when this seemingly endless scene would end.

I vividly remember when we came out to the lobby after the screening, the people I was with looked at each other, let out a deep sigh, and said with a half-smile, "Well done."

"Black Hawk Down" (C) 2001 REVOLUTION STUDIOS DISTRIBUTION COMPANY LLC AND JERRY BRUCKHEIMER,INC.TM, (R) & Copyright (C) 2014 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

So how long was it, in fact? I later went to a preview screening of the film and decided to measure it with a stopwatch.

If we start measuring when the special forces leave their base and head to Mogadishu, and stop when the surviving soldiers escape into the stadium, the total time is about one hour and 35 minutes, or roughly two-thirds of the entire film.

But why did the battle scenes become so long? Of course, if you put a 15-hour battle into one movie, it's only natural that the battle scenes would take up a large part of the film. But that's not the only reason, and there are several other reasons attached to it.

One of the reasons is the rivalry between the director of this film, Ridley Scott, and Steven Spielberg. I touched on this in detail in my column on Saving Private Ryan , so please refer to it, but the struggle between the two masters who pursued the ultimate in visual expression was the driving force behind the extremely long battle scenes.

“Editing” becomes a battlefield reminiscent of the movie