Dual Thumbs Up for The Duellists!

"Napoleon I., whose career had the quality of a duel against the whole of Europe, disliked duelling between the officers of his army. The great military emperor was not a swashbuckler, and had very little respect for tradition.
Nevertheless, a story of duelling, which became a legend in the army, runs through the epic of imperial wars. To the surpise and admiration of their fellows, two officers, like insane artists trying to gild refined gold or paint the lily, pursued a private contest through the years of universal carnage. They were officers of cavalry..."
- from the opening of Joseph Conrad's "The Duel"

The Duellists is loosely based upon Joseph Conrad's short work "The Duel" (1908) from Stories and Tales of Joseph Conrad, and follows the careers of two officers in Napoleon's 7th Hussars as they maintain their honor by fighting 6 duels over a span of years. Each duel is woven together with the major historical battles and European occupations by Napoleon's forces, until the defeat of Napoleon and the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy puts an end to the officers' military careers, and brings them together for one final duel to the death.
Our protagonist, the aristocratic, introspective and emotionally balanced officer Armand D'Hubert (played by Keith Carradine) is continually challenged to duel with his foul-tempered nemesis, the blue-collar officer Gabriel Feraud (Harvey Keitel) as a result of an offense that D'Hubert cannot understand and Feraud cannot explain. Although their paths cross infrequently, whenever they meet they routinely duel using swords, pistols, or whatever is at hand. D'Hubert struggles with the notions of Honor, Love and Life as he seeks to end the warfare with Feraud and, ultimately, within himself.

It's a war film, I suppose, because our major characters are military men, but this isn't Hamburger Hill. Warfare and duelling are themes here, not selling points. The duels are punctuation; the story lies within the character of D'Hubert as he counts the cost of sacrificing military promotions and life-long love to the rigidity of honor, the tension of self-doubt, and a gnawing fear that he will be overcome by Feraud's animal fury.

This was director Ridley Scott's first feature-length film (followed by Alien, Blade Runner, Legend, Someone to Watch Over Me, Black Rain, Thelma and Louise, White Squall, Gladiator, Hannibal), one to which he devoted five years of preparation before filming. The Duellists won the special Jury prize at Cannes. Who knows why the American Academy overlooked this film? Duellists contains all the elements of an epic Oscar nominee, if not a multiple Oscar winner (perhaps merely because Scott, Carradine, and Keitel were unknowns in 1977 and didn't have the oomph in Hollywood - yet. Duellists was the breakout film for them all, however).

The Duellists is the film "Enemy at the Gates" dreamt of becoming, with its theme of two men at war with each other within a war, but with a true main character and no straw-man romantic interest tossed in merely because Hollywood requires one. This is the soul-searching film that "The Patriot" wanted to be, but never matched the inner turmoil of a hero with the surrounding turmoil of his historical battles as well.

The acting's all of the highest caliber; Carradine, Keitel and a supporting cast that includes Albert Finney and Tom Conti. The attention to period detail is meticulous; costuming and sets are dirtily realistic. At the same time, Ridley Scott is known for stamping his films with a visual prettiness (Scott frames each of his shots like a painting, and his unparalleled use of lighting has earned him the nickname "the Rembrandt of Film"), and this is no exception. The cinematography is excellent. The musical score is powerful. The pacing is tight. The Duellists is a cohesive dramatic package (why aren't you on your way to the video store yet?).

Let me include one feaux-negative: the film lacks modern special effects (...but do we need them for a period piece? Wait. Forget I asked that. Scott himself spent all that dough on CGI for Gladiator, which predates The Duellists by a thousand years). One of the few special effects involved electrifying the actors' swords with car batteries to produce sparks when the blades clashed. That's how it had to be done before computer retouching. Contact with the voltage running through the metal floored Harvey Keitel more than once during filming.

While I've qualified this film with the "con" that it contains violence and intense scenes, note that it was rated PG in 1977, before that rating was given its recent latitude - one will find it nowhere globally near the violence and bloody intensity of say, "The Patriot."