Ridley Scott’s first outing in Napoleonic France may be an improvement on his second but it’s not by all that much, while it has what I’d call some of my new favorite shots of the 1970s and two fun leads from Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel there are unfortunately some big issues that hold it back for me. For one despite the beautiful French meadows and forests I never felt connected to the time period, that’s due to the rough editing style which I’ll get to but also because of the script and overall story which is where my biggest gripes lie. Although I’m a big fan of both the concept and the era it’s taking place in the story did almost nothing for me. The structure felt off with the time skips happening abruptly and randomly, the attempt at a romance subplot fell completely short, the sparing use of the narration felt weird, and the actual narrative, which I stuck with all the way through hoping for at least a good conclusion to it all, didn’t even give me that, with all that I’m left feeling pretty empty on the story despite a few highlights. Where the biggest highlights of this watch came for me was in seeing the flashes of greatness that Ridley Scott would develop, it’s really crazy to me that he made Alien just a few years after this because it was very rough around the edges but every now and then you’re blessed with a shot that reminds you who the movie’s director is. That vision Scott developed for this world with cinematographer Frank Tidy was far and away the best thing about the movie, the skies look so beautiful (the backdrop I chose serves as a perfect example) with the wide shots leading up to the fencing battles being my favorites, sadly a good bit of the magic created by the cinematography and lovely production design was negated by that off-putting editing style I mentioned. I’m sorry if this makes me sound pretentious but I just don’t like these rapid cut claustrophobic close-ups for dialogue scenes, I much prefer a single distanced shot away from the characters, maybe one close-up to show who each person is if they look or are wearing something similar, this style just takes me out of those moments which makes me especially sad in this case because I can clearly see how magical it could’ve been with some different creative choices. All in all though I was quite rough on it this wasn’t exactly a bad directorial debut from Mr. Scott, I often call him a hit-or-miss director but what I really mean by that is ‘hit-or-mediocrity’, and sadly for The Duellists it falls into the mediocre half of the Ridley Scott dichotomy.
Ridley Scott’s first outing in Napoleonic France may be an improvement on his second but it’s not by all that much, while it has what I’d call some of my new favorite shots of the 1970s and two fun leads from Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel there are unfortunately some big issues that hold it back for me. For one despite the beautiful French meadows and forests I never felt connected to the time period, that’s due to the rough editing style which I’ll get to but also because of the script and overall story which is where my biggest gripes lie. Although I’m a big fan of both the concept and the era it’s taking place in the story did almost nothing for me. The structure felt off with the time skips happening abruptly and randomly, the attempt at a romance subplot fell completely short, the sparing use of the narration felt weird, and the actual narrative, which I stuck with all the way through hoping for at least a good conclusion to it all, didn’t even give me that, with all that I’m left feeling pretty empty on the story despite a few highlights. Where the biggest highlights of this watch came for me was in seeing the flashes of greatness that Ridley Scott would develop, it’s really crazy to me that he made Alien just a few years after this because it was very rough around the edges but every now and then you’re blessed with a shot that reminds you who the movie’s director is. That vision Scott developed for this world with cinematographer Frank Tidy was far and away the best thing about the movie, the skies look so beautiful (the backdrop I chose serves as a perfect example) with the wide shots leading up to the fencing battles being my favorites, sadly a good bit of the magic created by the cinematography and lovely production design was negated by that off-putting editing style I mentioned. I’m sorry if this makes me sound pretentious but I just don’t like these rapid cut claustrophobic close-ups for dialogue scenes, I much prefer a single distanced shot away from the characters, maybe one close-up to show who each person is if they look or are wearing something similar, this style just takes me out of those moments which makes me especially sad in this case because I can clearly see how magical it could’ve been with some different creative choices. All in all though I was quite rough on it this wasn’t exactly a bad directorial debut from Mr. Scott, I often call him a hit-or-miss director but what I really mean by that is ‘hit-or-mediocrity’, and sadly for The Duellists it falls into the mediocre half of the Ridley Scott dichotomy.
