A matter of honor
Just finished watching Ridley Scott's first movie, The Duellists. What an utterly fantastic film! I hate to repeat such a worn cliché, but they really don't make movies like this anymore. Everything about it - the sets and settings, the lighting and cinematography, the absolutely gorgeous authentic uniforms, and above all the dueling itself - they used real blades! and they were fighting, not dancing and leaping around like gymnasts - all created an air of reality that's utterly missing from recent films. I think the current approach is to try to create a movie that's more exciting, more action-packed, more amazing, etc., than reality. What a foolish notion! But inevitable, I suppose, when the writers don't know how to create that excitement through the story and characters.
Speaking of characters, another big difference is that the character are all people of their time. This movie doesn't take the cheap shortcut of giving the hero modern values the audience will be sympathetic toward and contrasting the villain by making him seem a monster through his embrace of values we no longer approve of. And Keitel's character manages to be villainous enough without having to be a scenery-chewing psychopath who eats babies for breakfast and clubs baby seals for a hobby. The audience doesn't need to be forced into choosing sides.
But then, The Duellists probably barely broke a million at the time, and as they said in the commentary, not one moviegoer in fifty has even heard of it today.
What I can't understand is why cable TV runs the same awful movies fifty times a month and leaves unknown gems like this languishing on the shelves. I'm not comparing it to popular modern films or classic Oscar-winners; how many more times do we need to see Demetrius and the Gladiators and how many people ever tune it in? It seems fresh and interesting really are anathema to the people who program our mass entertainment.
Anyway, if you have the chance, and like this sort of thing at all, I highly recommend you check it out.
Speaking of characters, another big difference is that the character are all people of their time. This movie doesn't take the cheap shortcut of giving the hero modern values the audience will be sympathetic toward and contrasting the villain by making him seem a monster through his embrace of values we no longer approve of. And Keitel's character manages to be villainous enough without having to be a scenery-chewing psychopath who eats babies for breakfast and clubs baby seals for a hobby. The audience doesn't need to be forced into choosing sides.
But then, The Duellists probably barely broke a million at the time, and as they said in the commentary, not one moviegoer in fifty has even heard of it today.
What I can't understand is why cable TV runs the same awful movies fifty times a month and leaves unknown gems like this languishing on the shelves. I'm not comparing it to popular modern films or classic Oscar-winners; how many more times do we need to see Demetrius and the Gladiators and how many people ever tune it in? It seems fresh and interesting really are anathema to the people who program our mass entertainment.
Anyway, if you have the chance, and like this sort of thing at all, I highly recommend you check it out.