Episode 273: THE DUELLISTS (1977)

Two years before ALIEN (1979), Ridley Scott packed a bunch of audacious ideas about empire, masculinity, and class into his feature debut: THE DUELLISTS.

Rival officers in Napoleonic France, Gabriel Feraud (Harvey Keitel) and Armond d’Hubert (Keith Carradine) are thrown into a mythical, divinely comic cycle of nearly deadly clashes after d’Hubert is instructed to rein in Feraud’s glorified bloodlust. No matter how far he goes, d’Hubert always finds himself at the tip of Feraud’s sword. Over the course of almost two decades, Feraud and d’Hubert orbit concepts of honor, loyalty, and the essence of servitude as each hones their blade on the other’s ego.

In this discussion, we talk about how some of the movie’s ideas feel far ahead of their time; how the movie deflates and then glorifies the art of honorable single combat; how important a love story really is in a movie like this; and how THE DUELLISTS serves as something of a codex for almost 50 years of Ridley Scott’s directorial endeavors.

Donate to help our friend and previous guest Nick Ransbottom get life-saving cystic fibrosis care: https://www.gofundme.com/f/get-nick-lifesaving-cystic-fibrosis-care
“Sword Master Rates 10 More Sword Fights In Movies And TV | How Real Is It?” by Insider (Feb. 16, 2021): https://archive.org/details/youtube-0edTDUQfqys
“Harvey, the Haughty Hussar” by Alex Kies for Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/2024/03/16/harvey-the-haughty-hussar/
Contribute to Perisphere, the Trylon blog: https://www.perisphere.org/perisphere-blog-post-guidelines/
Get tickets to the 43rd Annual Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival (April 11-15): https://mspfilm.org/mspiff/

#TheSimmeringFuryOfHarveyKeitel #35mm

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Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Closing audio: “Main Theme” by Howard Blake from the THE DUELLISTS soundtrack.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 273: THE DUELLISTS (1977)

3:50 - The episode actually starts

6:37 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary

11:18 - It’s goofy until it’s not

16:22 - The DNA of Ridley Scott’s filmmaking

19:36 - Modern-feeling characters in a movie set during the Age of Enlightenment

23:53 - Ridley Scott’s strengths and how he adapted to the constraints of this project

33:34 - Managed doses of Harvey Keitel vs. Keith Carradine, the doofus

43:23 - Laura and the point of d’Hubert’s romantic subplot

59:38 - The ending

1:10:22 - The Junk Drawer

1:19:23 - To All the Loves We’ve Tried Before: 1977

1:21:06 - Cody’s Noteys: Spot the Scott (Ridley Scott tagline trivia)