The Duellists

dudemar

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All right so I know there are a lot of old timers here on CPF, so I thought I'd bring up a fun thread.:)

I was watching the making of Alien by Ridley Scott and caught on to "The Duellists", his first film from 1977. I watched a preview on YouTube and it looks like a visually stunning film, and very cool I might add! Harvey Keitel sure looks young compared to his later appearances in Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, and Keith Carradine (his brother is the guy from Revenge of the Nerds, LOL) fights pretty good with pigtails.

Jokes aside I wonder what everyone's thoughts are on this film.:whistle: I'll be watching it tonight, albeit VERY slowly (I'm on dial-up after all, lol). The sword fighting scenes look AWESOME, the characters seem well played and the costumes/sets look beautiful.:thumbsup: Anyone actually see this movie in the theater?
 

Monocrom

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At its heart is a code of conduct that has been dead longer than anyone on the face of this planet has been alive.

Honor, integrity, mutual respect . . . All of these are on their death beds, hooked up to oxygen tanks. The film harkens back to a time when even war was seen as something very different than it is today. The only silver-lining is that such a film could never be turned into a modern-day, crappy, re-make. Even the concept behind a duel is dead. Two honorable men settling a dispute. Nowadays it would be one decent human being and . . . the jack-*** who cut him off in traffic?? Or maybe some other pathetic low-life? Wouldn't work today.

Excellent film. But I was two years old in 1977, so didn't see it in theatres.
 

cratz2

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As a fan of both leads and the director, I can't believe I didn't see this until last year.

Not my favorite film by any stretch, but certain lovely and worth watching.
 

StarHalo

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Sounds like a fun one, it's ten bucks on iTunes and Amazon Instant..

And you're no Harvey Keitel fan unless you've seen Bad Lieutenant, where he plays a completely debauched and corrupt cop; worth seeing just for the scene where he's getting sports scores over his car radio..
 

dudemar

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Wow. Just wow. I didn't think it was a good film.








It was a FANTASTIC film! Loved it. They don't make movies like that anymore. It was way ahead of it's time for an American audience to appreciate. With the budgets studios throw around on production these days it's a shame really.

Monocrom: I agree honor is on life support, but I don't think it will die. It will remain in the background, irrelevant to modern society perhaps, but it'll still be there even in the darkest of moments.
 
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