En Garde! Sacrebleu!

So speaks Don Rodrigue as he challenges The Count to a duel in Le Cid, by XVII Century French playwright Pierre Corneille. This braggadocio could have been uttered as well by British director Ridley Scott regarding his gorgeous first full-length feature film, The Duellists (1977), and nobody could offer any objection. Of all the thousands of films that I have seen in my life, Scott's masterpiece is without reservation the most beautiful of all.

This film follows two cavalry officers in Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte's army who are consumed over a period of fifteen years by a blind rage, the result of some insignificant offense, which leads them to engage in a duel each time they meet. They fight with épées, sabers, pistols, on foot, on horseback, during the day and at night, even among the rotting carcasses of men and horses in the frozen hell of the Russian retreat of the Grand Army. The script is based on one of the short stories, The Duel, in A Set of Six, by Joseph Conrad (1857-1924).

The Director

Ridley Scott was born in South Shields, England, in 1937. Impassioned by the arts, he entered the West Hartlepool College of Arts and later the prestigious Royal College of Art. His talent was first revealed in his second short television production, Boy on a Bicycle (aka, Boy and Bicycle, 1965), assisted by his father and his brother Tony. Following graduation, Scott traveled to the United States and worked at the Time-Life documentary company. Upon returning to England, he joined the BBC as a chief operator and later as the director for episodes of the television series, Z Cars (1962) and The Informer (1966).

In 1973, with his brother Tony, Scott created Ridley Scott Associates, his own commercial production company. In 1977, he began his first full-length feature film, The Duellists, the story of an endless duel between two men prepared to die for the sake of personal honor. Scott overcame the meagerness of the story by the quality of his production, and was rewarded by le Prix du Jury pour un premier film (Best Debut Film prize) at the 1977 Cannes Film Festival, and by subsequent nominations for numerous awards for costumes and cinematography. He thus came to the attention of several producers, including Fox, which financed his extremely successful next project, Alien (1979). He continued on the same course of the fantastic with Blade Runner (1982) and Legend (1985). The latter resulted in a commercial failure, so he focused on action/crime films with Someone to Watch Over Me (1987) and Black Rain (1989).

Scott returned to his first love, commercials, until his next film, which re-energized his film career: Thelma and Louise (1991). Invigorated by that success, he embarked on an ambitious project, 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992), which was another failure, both artistic and financial. We should also forget about the next two films, White Squall (1996) and G.I. Jane (1997), the latter certainly his worst movie ever.

Scott's next film, Gladiator (2000), a 1960s-style film, is a great epic. It was filmed with breadth and energy, became a tremendous success, bringing him another Oscar. Hannibal (2001) and Black Hawk Down (2001) were also commercial successes, but it seemed that Scott had sacrificed his personal vision for the sake of beautiful, but empty, scenes. At present, Scott is as busy as ever with directing four films, all of which are in different production stages, as well as producing another eight films, including a mini-TV series.

Synopsis

The Duellists is based on a story written by Joseph Conrad, which, according to the author, was itself based on a true story whose origins sprang from a ten-line paragraph in a small Southern France local newspaper. That brief paragraph reported the fatal ending of a duel between two officers in Napoléon's Grand Army. The two officers had fought a series of duels in the midst of great wars on some futile pretext. As the pretext was never disclosed, Conrad invented one.

We are in 1800, in the garrison town of Strasbourg, on the Rhine. There is a lull in the Napoleonic wars, and the French soldiers are enjoying a moment of peace before resuming the slaughters. As the film opens, a young girl driving a gaggle of geese happens upon two men dueling in a meadow. Lieutenant Gabriel Féraud (Harvey Keitel), from the 7th Hussar Regiment, is in the process of settling a score with an unknown man who soon ends up skewered on the Lieutenant's épée. We learn that this man is the nephew of the Mayor of Strasbourg, and is seriously wounded, when General Treillard (Robert Stephens), Commandant of the garrison, enters his officers’ quarters and makes inquiries about this Lieutenant Féraud. Lieutenant Armand d'Hubert (Keith Carradine), from the 4th Hussar Regiment, admits to vaguely knowing the gentleman, and he is immediately "volunteered" by his Commandant to find him and bring him back to the barracks, where he will be put under house arrest. General Treillard, who must see that his soldiers obey the Emperor's rules prohibiting combat with civilians, needs to investigate what happened in the meadow. It is somewhat ironical that Bonaparte, who spent a large part of his life dueling with the rest of Europe on a rather grand scale, involving tens of thousand of participants on both sides (but was somewhat of a dilettante when judged by present day's standards), had little respect for the same tradition on an individual level.

d'Hubert, after looking all over town, ends up at Féraud's private quarters, where he learns that the Lieutenant is attending a soirée at the salon of Madame de Lionne (Jenny Runacre). At the salon, d'Hubert meets with Féraud and informs him of his mission. Féraud, having judged himself the insulted party in his morning duel, cannot comprehend the reason for his arrest. Further, he determines that d'Hubert has in turn insulted him by bursting into the salon of Madame de Lionne, disturbing him with the General's orders as he was talking to the lady. Féraud immediately challenges d'Hubert to a duel with sabers, which ends when Féraud is wounded. Now, not only has Féraud's forearm been injured, but his wounded pride demands satisfaction.

From then on, for the next fifteen years, Féraud will be obsessed with the idea of settling his dispute with d'Hubert, holding him captive by Féraud’s tragic, ironic concept of honor.

d'Hubert goes to meet his friend, an army surgeon (Tom Conti), asking his advice on how to get out of this messy situation. The surgeon tells him first, to keep away from Féraud, second, to always stay ahead of Féraud in military rank, since only duels between soldiers of equal ranks are tolerated and third, to rely on Napoléon for keeping the wars going, as there is no dueling during a state of war.

Augsburg, one year later. Lieutenant d'Hubert meets an old girl friend, Laura (Diana Quick), one of the camp followers. She tells him she has an offer of marriage from a one-armed veteran, but they nevertheless resume their relationship. It happens that Lieutenant Féraud is in the same town, and of course they will duel again. Epées, this time. This encounter is not so lucky for d'Hubert who ends up gravely wounded. Their seconds propose that now the honor of both parties has been saved, but The Duellists both refuse the opportunity for reconciliation. Laura nurses d'Hubert back to health, but after a face-to-face with Féraud and a subsequent consultation with a fortuneteller, she realizes that these duelists will go on until one of them is killed. If it is d'Hubert who is to die, she cannot see any future in their relationship. She decides to leave him and go and marry the disabled ex-soldier.

Captain Féraud (he caught up in rank with d'Hubert, who was promoted earlier) and Captain d'Hubert meet in a third duel, again with sabers, in a cellar. The two combatants fight to total exhaustion in an inconclusive duel, and eventually, dirty and bleeding, must be separated by their seconds.

Lubeck, 1806. Captain d'Hubert and Captain Féraud duel a fourth time, on horseback. It is Féraud's turn to be wounded, seriously enough to not be able to continue the fight to its conclusion. Laura reappears on the scene. She is now a widow, and had hoped to settle with her ex-lover, Captain d'Hubert, but she sees that this is just wishful thinking. d'Hubert, too involved in this dueling matter, remains deaf to her subtle suggestion that they resume their affair.

Russia, 1812. The Emperor's Grand Army, defeated by the terrible Russian winter and the Russian battle tactics, is in retreat. Colonels Féraud and d'Hubert are now like grunts in the "sacred battalion," consisting of officers of all arms who had no longer any troops to commend. One night, around a campfire, they find themselves again face to face. They silently recognize each other. The next day, Féraud requests a volunteer to go investigate some Cossack activities in the nearby woods. The soldiers are so exhausted and despondent that Féraud had guessed rightly that d'Hubert would be the only one to follow him, with the ulterior motive of finishing their endless confrontation. Far from the camp they come face to face, each with a pair of pistols, but at that moment, a group of Cossacks appears and the two adversaries present a common front to fight them off. Following this, in a gesture of reconciliation, d'Hubert offers Féraud a drink from his hip flask, but the latter disdainfully walks away: "Pistols, next time," he says.

Tour, 1814. Napoléon is in exile on the Island of Elba and the Bourbons are back in power with Louis XVIII. General d'Hubert is convalescing at his sister Leoni's home from a bad leg wound sustained during the campaign in France, fighting the Prussians. She suggests to her brother he ought to get married, and offers to introduce him to Adele (Cristina Raines), the niece of her neighbor, the old aristocrat Chevalier de Riverol (Alan Webb). After a short courtship, the two marry. d'Hubert is visited by a Bonapartist gentleman (Edward Fox), a friend of General Féraud, who tries to recruit him to aid in the planned return of the Emperor, but d'Hubert refuses.

Following the "Hundred Days," the return of Napoléon to French soil, the Emperor is defeated at Waterloo, and definitively exiled to the Island of St. Helena. Louis XVIII is returned to the throne. Many known Bonapartists are arrested, including General Féraud, and these will be executed as examples. Upon hearing the news, d'Hubert meets with the Police Minister of the Second Empire, Fouché, now Duke of Otranto (Albert Finney), and requests Féraud's pardon, a request that is granted. d'Hubert asks only that his intervention on Féraud's behalf be kept secret.

Having discovered d'Hubert's whereabouts, Féraud sends two of his ex-companions in arms to set up yet another, and hopefully, final duel. The Duellists meet at dawn, on d'Hubert's property, with pistols. Two shots each, fire at will. d'Hubert gets to fire the last shot, but instead of killing Féraud, he fires a bullet into the ground, and with this gesture becomes the rightful owner's of Féraud's life: "I shall simply declare you dead," says d'Hubert. The final scene shows Féraud, from the back, standing on a bluff overlooking the Dordogne River winding through the beautiful valley below. He stands wearing a two-pointed cocked hat and a long black, straight military capote, reminiscent of his Emperor's portraits on the Island of St. Helena - could it be le petit caporal (the little corporal), the Emperor himself, humiliated and defeated? It is the "end of the road" for Féraud: finally at peace, as he meditates on what has been his life.

The Production

For Ridley Scott, although having some fifteen years' experience in the making of short films (about 1,500 commercials and 100 short subjects by the time he directed The Duellists, gathering the necessary financing for a long-feature film was not particularly easy, but eventually he managed to raise $900,000. Of course, this was in 1977, but this was still a rather puny budget by any standard, and this fact may have contributed heavily to the outstanding quality of the final product, by enhancing Scott's focus and stimulating his inventiveness and resourcefulness.

The film was shot in London, at a ski resort near Inverness, Scotland, and in the village of Sarlat, located in the Dordogne, a magically beautiful area of France, rich in history and natural beauty. His choice on Sarlat turned out to be particularly auspicious. Having settled on this location, Scott gave the film manuscript to the Mayor of the village for review, in order to obtain permission to proceed. The Mayor was intrigued by the story, which sounded strangely familiar. After consulting the Town Hall archives, he informed Scott that in the early nineteenth century, in his village, two individuals by the names of Fournier and Dupont had become notorious for having dueled each other twenty five times over a thirty-year period, using all types of weapons!

I cannot overemphasize the incredible beauty of this film. If you have never taken a walk through the painting galleries of the British Museum, the National Gallery, or the Musée d'Orsay, just watch The Duellists as an introduction to the treasures of these museums. Scott's film could have been painted by a de la Tour, Corot, Jean-Louis David, or Watteau. Each of the images, carefully composed with a real attention to the aesthetic, appears as the true work of a master painter in the disposition of its elements, the harmony of the colors, and its contrasts. Scott shot the film using natural light as often as possible, resulting in many of the interior scenes being chiaroscuros. His choice of Sarlat allowed him a minimal dressing of the scenes, which are totally accurate, in effect a pictorial essay of that particular historical period.

Great care was taken toward the authenticity of the costumes. The protagonists and other characters seem to have walked out of the Invalides Museum (where Napoleon I is buried) in Paris, where more than half of the displays are objects, costumes, and memorabilia from the Napoleonic era.

Scott, realizing that the dueling sequences might be repetitious and thus boring, made them short, and each one different. These duels, under the direction of Williams Hobbs, are well choreographed and, as the rest of the details of the production, certainly authentic.

Many of the reviews of this film I have read criticize the accents of the two protagonists. The critics, while willingly accepting actors with English accents as authentic, balked at the American accents of the two main characters. May I remind these critics that this film takes place in France, and that the characters are French? Therefore, American accents are as valid as English accents. In that American-English idiom, the two differing accents reflect different social backgrounds, that of the aristocratic d'Hubert and the commoner Féraud, and are therefore most appropriate, and are certainly what one would have expected had the film been rendered in the French idiom.

The acting of the two main characters is superb. Keith Carradine is restrained and aristocratic in his demeanor, while Harvey Keitel is brash and somewhat low-class. They are supported by a group of first rate, experienced English actors, most of them with backgrounds in the theater.

Howard Blake wrote the music. On several occasions, he used period music; otherwise, he composed a beautiful, sensitive theme, which keeps reappearing in different forms and variations. Most important is his judicious use of silences in the most dramatic or intimate moments, which actually speaks more eloquently than any music could.

The Themes

The main themes of The Duellists are honor and integrity. One of the definitions of honor is, "the quality of being honorable and having a good name" (for an alternate definition, one should refer to Antony's eulogy of Caesar in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar). Honor is a subjective concept, which regulates the behavior of individuals according to their different associations, groups, religions, etc. Very often, honor means blind obedience, and chauvinism. Obviously in this story we are concerned primarily about the military code of honor. The two main characters are part of the Emperor's Grand Army, and their honor consists of defending and upholding the reputation of their country, their army, and their regiment according to the code.

The insult which led Féraud to duel with a civilian in Strasbourg was, according to Féraud, caused by the civilian's disrespect toward the 7th Hussars Regiment. Féraud's first duel with d'Hubert was precipitated by the apparent injustice that Féraud perceived in the order issued for his arrest, due to his having fought a duel in the defense of the honor of the regiment (obviously, Féraud had not stopped to think about the fact that his commanding General was unaware of Féraud's motive). As Féraud could not possibly strike out at the General, he turned his wrath toward d'Hubert, who had sought him out in the salon of a famous lady, comrades in arms just don't do such a thing to one another. Be that as it may, given his hot temperament (he is from the Gascogne region of France, whose habitants are reputed to be testy), Féraud felt compelled to demand reparation for the insult in the only acceptable, honorable way, a duel.

On the other hand, d'Hubert is also subject to the same code of honor. At first, he tried to dissuade Féraud’s challenge (which is still honorable), but failed. As both men were on their way to the back garden where the first duel took place, it probably entered d'Hubert's mind to avoid the duel by running away. However, this would bring dishonor to his regiment, to his uniform, and to himself. He had no choice, therefore, but to submit to the military code of honor. As a result, d'Hubert became the captive, the slave to the barbaric universe of the code of honor. Caught in a tempest that he could not allay, he sacrificed one quarter of his life and any of his hopes for calm.

Fortunately for d'Hubert, he still had an exit available, as he could and did return to civilian life, where the code of honor is so different as to be in conflict with the military one. In the military, one gets rewards for killing, while in civilian life, one gets sent to prison. When, at the conclusion of the last duel, d'Hubert should have killed his adversary according to the military code, he chose only to perform a "virtual" killing by declaring Féraud dead. In so doing, he also preserved at the same time the civilian code, which forbids the killing of another person. Féraud, an honorable man if a hot-headed one, was also prisoner of his code of honor, but he did not have the luxury of escaping to civilian life. Although discharged from the army, it was the only life he knew, and he was a military man at heart. Therefore, he adhered to his code, and tried his best to kill his adversary to uphold his (military) honor.

Féraud is honest: contrary to d'Hubert, he is a consistent person, a man of integrity. With Féraud, what you see is what you get. He will be faithful to his Emperor until his dying breath, even though the Emperor has lost. d'Hubert, on the other hand, although having proved himself as a competent warrior for Napoleon, abandoned him, either out of opportunism or selfishness. In this respect, Féraud was right in saying that d'Hubert "never loved the Emperor."

Laura is also a person of integrity. She does not pretend that her behavior is driven other than by her own self interest, and she acts accordingly. Of course, the duplicitous Fouché, traitor to every man and to every principle and motive of human conduct, is the worst of opportunists, the archetype of a person with no integrity.

The Duellists also raises the question of class warfare. Napoléon, although not a commoner, did not belong to the French aristocracy. He tried to level the playing field, and for a long time during his reign, everybody advanced from the same starting point. All the Emperor's generals got to their positions through their battlefield performances, rather than through their birthrights. Despite the apparent move toward equality, there was still a resentment and suspicion on the part of the commoner-class people toward the nobles. Certainly, one of the reasons Féraud had for not giving the benefit of the doubt to d'Hubert during their first encounter is that everything in the demeanor of d'Hubert sets him apart as an aristocrat, and Féraud is a commoner. In Féraud's mind, d'Hubert probably got the cushy job of being an attaché to the General not for his achievements, but because of his station in civilian life. He contemptuously calls d'Hubert the "a proper general's poodle."

The Duellists is a remarkable film for the beauty of its images, its intelligent production, and solid acting by every member of the cast. Unfortunately, it had a very limited distribution in the United States, and only few people saw it on the big screen, as it was meant to be viewed. Its recent issuing on DVD is now probably the only possibility available for viewing this film. Fortunately, everything about the DVD transfer by Paramount, in its Widescreen Collection, is excellent. The sound is in English 5.1 Surround, English Dolby Surround, and also in a very good French mono version. English subtitles are available. The film is in color and runs 100 minutes.