Classic Movie Review: 'The Duellists' Ridley Scott's First Feature Film

Without knowing it, director Ridley Scott broke through in Hollywood in 1978 by exploring and critiquing what we would today call, Toxic Masculinity. Scott’s first feature, The Duellists was intended as an examination of obsession, honor and tradition. What it also ended up achieving was an examination of the nature of masculine ideals, the notion of how personal honor was a code for protecting an ego driven perception of self, especially when that perception is challenged by the 'honor' of another.

The Duellists centers on a pair of French soldiers in the time of Napoleon. Armand d’Hubert (Keith Carridine) is an esteemed member of the military and a potential rising star in the ranks. As chance has it, he happens to be someone who is familiar with another soldier by the name of Gabriel Feraud. They aren’t friends, rather d’Hubert just happens to be one of the soldiers who happens to know what Feraud looks like. Feraud is to be arrested and confined to quarters after having nearly killed the son of a local Mayor in a duel.

Lt. d’Hubert is tasked with delivering this message to Feraud, something he does after locating Feraud at a nearby Salon, a 19th century notion of high highfalutin conversation and debauchery. Feraud finds d’Hubert’s intrusion to be an offense to him and immediately challenges d’Hubert to a duel. While he tries to decline the fight, Feraud insults d’Hubert’s honor and d'Hubert is bound by honor to respond. d'Hubert manages to slash Feraud’s arm and cause him to fall and go unconscious but when tries to attend to Feraud, he’s attacked by a woman living with Feraud. This encounter leads to d’Hubert losing his post and a lifelong grudge between d’Hubert and Feraud is born.

It’s more than 6 months before the feud is able to continue. With both men posted to Augsburg while fighting on behalf of Napoleon, they take the opportunity to continue their duel. In the second duel d’Hubert is nearly killed. Surviving, he takes lessons in swordplay from a master and reignites the feud at the next chance, several weeks later, with newer, heavier swords. The two men fight to a bloody stalemate in this battle. Before they can continue fighting however, d’Hubert is promoted and their feud is halted as military rules prevent men of different ranks from dueling.

The feud cools off for five years before Feraud joins d’Hubert in the rank of Captain. However, in two weeks time, he’s to be promoted to Major and thus d'Hubert attempts to avoid Feraud until his promotion can prevent another duel. Naturally, this fails and Feraud enjoins d’Hubert to duel in honor of their cavalry, a duel on horseback. Feraud is nearly scalped in this duel and once again it appears that the fighting will end here. But, sadly no, the ego and dedication to some unspoken code of honor will bring Feraud and d’Hubert together again even as Napoleon falls and the two find themselves on opposite sides of a new monarchy.

Honor is not a bad thing, being honorable is a solid and respectable trait. Where honor crosses over into toxic masculinity is when the desire to maintain an unspoken notion of honor causes one to harm themselves and others. In the case of Feraud especially, honor curdles his very soul to the point where revenge is all he can imagine in life. Even after both have nearly forgotten what began their personal war, they remain dedicated to the idea that dueling the other man and potentially seeing him off to his death are acceptable ideas

So corrupted by their toxic notion of masculine identity and ‘honor’ these two men continue attempting to kill each other well after they or anyone else remembers why they are rivals. At one point, when the two are in the same Napoleon led regiment in Russia, d’Hubert saves Feraud’s life and this still is not enough to settle their feud. When d’Hubert saves Feraud’s life a second time in a different circumstance, he does so not out of a sense of pity or respect for Feraud but out of his own sense of honor that he should be the one to kill or dominate Feraud into submission.

I don’t think Ridley Scott set out to comment on the poisonous nature of the male ego in The Duellists. I think Ridley Scott just wanted to film some super-cool sword fighting scenes that celebrate the masculine dedication to honor and respect. That his movie ends up showing how ludicrous such preoccupations with ego and honor are, are perhaps accidental or incidental to Scott’s real purpose, paying tribute to masculinity and the lengths men will go to protect their notion of masculinity.

That there is an element of judgment and of satire of the actions of Feraud and d’Hubert isn’t some attempt at wokeness, that phraseology wasn’t in play in 1977. Rather, it’s something that Ridley Scott has always had in the back of his mind. Scott asks uncomfortable questions and seeks uncomfortable answers. For all of the celebration of bravado in The Duellists, Scott never loses sight of the absurdity of two men so dedicated to killing each other, repeatedly failing to kill each other, and still pursuing a death by duel all the way to the bitter end.

That absurdity would be there regardless of how our culture has more fully awakened to the idea of toxic masculinity. The notion of Toxic Masculinity is one that has risen to meet works such as The Duellists which use the tools of genre, action movie, film making to turn a scathing and critical eye on the preoccupations of male ego and the often destructive nature of preserving a sense of pride well beyond the boundaries of good sense.

The Duellists was the classic on the latest edition of the Everyone’s a Critic Movie Review Podcast. Be sure to like and subscribe to Everyone’s a Critic and consider supporting the show on Patreon. You can also support me on this very website by leaving a tip or via my Ko-Fi account linked here. If money is tight, you can also help me out by sharing this review and or the Everyone’s a Critic Movie Review podcast on your own social media outlets. Thanks for reading.