I think the reviser's pacing comments are not a fair critique and I was struck when he says the movie is boring. Is this because modern action films don't go longer than three minutes without something blowing up, catching on fire, or falling off a cliff? Many modern films are all action and very little narrative. The dialogue is largely irrelevant and the reason for the film to exist is vague or not even bothered with by the writers. Scott took a Joseph Conrad story and turned in it into a movie. Since the span of the duels is 20 years, the movie has to give us some sense of the passage of time and Scott does this by slowing the pace after the frenetic desperation of the fights. Either of them can die in any of the duels. This creates a lot of tension and Scott paces the film to slow down the action in the fights to show us what else is going on in that world. Conrad's most famous story is Heart of Darkness. It has a very slow pace as the narrator moves slowly up the Congo River. It was Conrad's attempt to bring Freud's dream analysis to the realm of fiction. He was trying to illuminate the nightmare. The most famous exposition of this in film is Apocalypse Now which takes a long time to get the assassin of Col. Kurtz. There is action in the film but the pace is dictated by the movement of water. In The Duellists, the pace is dictated by the span of the Napoleonic Wars. I don't think the slow pacing is a mistake. It was done on purpose to give the viewer a sense of how insanity doesn't burn out over time, it only becomes hotter and more dangerous. Then the ending, which this man loves, shows us an unmistakable allusion to Napoleon staring at the river while standing on a cliff completely alone. I think the implication is that Feraud jumps.
There’s nothing wrong with a slow paced movie though? Yeah I found this film a bit slow for my taste, but I’m also a big fan of films that have a slower pace to them. I’m not some guy that can’t handle slow pacing, in fact I prefer these smaller films with a slower pace to the big bombastic action we get today. Just because I found the pacing slow for this film, and maybe a tad boring for me, is not the point. Everyone has their own unique opinion and what they like and don’t like. The film, just didn’t connect with me, but there are plenty of others that have, doesn’t mean I can’t handle something like this. I still really enjoyed the film and I’d watch it again, but I still stand by I wasn’t as invested as I wanted to be.
The movie is filled with images and scenes of the cultural and social changes that happen over the time period of the film. This is handled in quick shots and short remarks that are easy to miss if you are not looking for them. Sometimes I have to watch a movie two or three times to get what the director is saying. Chinatown is a good example. I see new stuff in it each time I watch it. The uniforms of the soldiers change several times in the movie. The way the Hussars wear their long hair changes. The hats change. The Hussars are in tight pants and blouses. In the early scenes Hubert comes to his rooms and the mistress is wearing a loose chemise with her tits hanging out. She is low class and takes off her engagement ring & tells Hubert she'll marry the guy later. She knows that Hubert will never marry her. We get a vivid sense here of class differences. This is elaborated more near the end where Hubert runs into Feraud's seconds in the field. He tells them they are in Royalist country and it is dangerous for them to be there. Hubert's dress, while still formal, is not as restricted as it had been at the beginning. The seconds look like thieves and Feraud walks around trying to look like Napoleon. Many of the scenes of the countryside are almost like the painting of the era and the music is very much of the time. Things were slower, more deliberate, more stately if you had money. Every dueling scene has domestic animals in it or in the setup: Cattle, horses, geese, etc. are near or on the fighting ground. These are visual reminders of how life then was dominated by farming and agriculture. When the fight on horseback is about to begin, Hubert rides through the row of birches that are like pickets in a fence. He is trapped in cage he cannot escape from. This is brilliant exposition of his dilemma in picture form. Even the horror of the retreat from Moscow has information embedded in it that you have to know in order to see the importance of the remark. At one point, Feraud says, "Tomorrow we cross the Berezina." The French Army had already lost 550,000 of its original 600,000 men before they had to fight across the river in -20° temperatures. The army lost 25,000 in the fight and got back to the starting point with only 10,000 men about two months later. One small sentence with great sorrow in it for the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in a pointless invasion of Russia. I watch a lot of film noir and one element that is in many of those movies is a tile floor that looks like a chessboard. Often the protagonist walks across that floor. This is a visual clue from the director that the poor guy is in a deadly game and he doesn't know it yet. Sometimes a real chessboard is in a scene or the man is challenged to play a game. Another major image in film noir is the labyrinth. It may be a cave or a city sewer system or the dark network of alleys and shadows and rain, but it is there to represent the how lost the main character is and how far from safety he has gone. It can be found in cheap B movies from the 40's and is fun to notice and figure out. Film makers spend a lot of time thinking about the setup for each scene. Ridley Scott went to art school in England and almost certainly knows the paintings of the 18th & 19th centuries. He used this knowledge to set the tableaus in many of the vivid outdoor scenes in The Duellists. It may be that the metaphor does not interest you, and that's fine. But if you don't know what the director is trying to show us or tell us that is something quite different. Ridley Scott has a lot to say in almost all of his movies. It is just not always in the dialogue or the action.
@Bessie Hillum I did not say the pacing was too slow or that I did not like the pace. I said Ridley Scott slowed it down for a reason. I have seen Remains of the Day and I think it is excellent. I think The Duelists is excellent too.
@@ImJaredRoss Give us a few examples of "slower" movies you like. To me - so far - you don't sound convincing at all when you claim you like slower movies.
@@TheNeutralViewFromSwedenAKAHer Slower paced movies I like include: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner 2049, The Age of Innocence. These particular films also have a slow pace but I’m still able to connect with them, but just was not able to connect with the Duellists.
Just saw this movie last night and was looking for a review, surprised that I basically agree with everything you said. Well spoken and articulate review.
I agree, it's not an exciting movie but has some exciting scenes, i.e., all the duels. As a history buff I loved the costumes and sets. The frozen soldiers in the snow, in the retreat from Moscow, were well done, and Ridley Scott found some truly beautiful places to shoot the last few scenes. The ending is satisfying but you have to go through many dull scenes before you get there. One detail that I like is that the weapons change, and so the style of fighting changes, from one duel to the next.
Agree 100%. The rapier duel is graceful and somewhat civilized. The Sabre duel later is brutal. IDK why this movie impressed me so much I could see how it could bore people.
Your late to party to buy the Blu ray or even DVD, they cost between $60 and $100. Long out of print. It is streaming on amazon video and was (maybe still is) on film struck. Anyway, great film.
