After an almost imperceptible slight to his honour, gruff Napoleonic soldier Harvey Keitel challenges effete cavalryman Keith Carradine to a duel. The duel is fought, the outcome is inconclusive, and thus begins 16 long years of sporadic but all-consuming bouts between these two barely acquainted foes. An ambitious 1977 Cannes Award-winning debut from Ridley Scott, The Duellists is visually sumptuous, and is nicely underplayed by both Keitel and the endearingly camp Carradine. Yet it’s a film defined by the brevity of its source material, a ‘short’ short story by Joseph Conrad. Here we have a lean narrative without subplots, and one that veers dangerously close to ‘shaggy-dog’ territory?by fight number five, perplexity can set in. Thankfully, Scott’s nascent gift for mood and tone, plus a final heart-breaking coda, somehow elevate the entire movie to enigmatic heights.
The Duellists
After an almost imperceptible slight to his honour, gruff Napoleonic soldier Harvey Keitel challenges effete cavalryman Keith Carradine to a duel. The duel is fought, the outcome is inconclusive, and thus begins 16 long years of sporadic but all-consuming bouts between these two barely acquainted foes. An ambitious 1977 Cannes Award-winning debut from Ridley Scott, The Duellists is visually sumptuous, and is nicely underplayed by both Keitel and the endearingly camp Carradine. Yet it's a film defined by the brevity of its source material, a 'short' short story by Joseph Conrad.
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