Monday, August 08, 2011

The Lusty Songs of Singing Swords

The Duellists (1977)
directed by Ridley Scott
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

It's impossible to watch The Duellists and not think of Barry Lyndon, good soul. Barry, we're told, returned to the continent and then to gambling, though "without his former success." Ridley Scott followed, to France, and went so far as to cast Gay Hamilton as another spurned middle-class love interest. In that pursuit she is joined by Diana Quick in a second, equally unsatisfying female role, but Scott did not borrow so much epaulet-centric Napoleonic finery for women. No, the more convincing romance by far is that between Harvey Keitel and Keith Carradine, both in braids and both in love. They dally across decades, with swords and, finally, a pair of pistols longer than any colonial musket. They'd rather kill one another than say goodbye.

There is the same rough charm here as among the father-son highwaymen who steer Redmond Barry on his road to adventure. Those ragged officers uniforms donned by the Pogues for Rum Sodomy & the Lash would not be out of place, and although I never quite understand why Harvey Keitel was ever a star, Carradine is great - high enough on his horse to be just the sort of man a flat-footed sociopath like Feraud would aspire to. As an existential war picture, it's fun. As an exercise in location shoots, it's a lesson in thrift. After The Duellists came Alien, and it's possible, if not easy, to see why Ridley got the job. Certainly he never directed a more convincing valentine, unless to darkness in long-quiet rooms.