The more I read it, the more I feel that Scott is first a narrator of the themes of "classical" (or "fate" and "historical will") and then a filmmaker. ". This 1977 "Dueler" is a companion to 2021's "The Last Showdown."
Once upon a time, duels were a form of honor. So, "The Duelist" is about the rationality of the daily life of mortals who are afraid of death finally defeating the irrational sense of honor of the warriors' fanaticism, and with the decline of Napoleon's military achievements, this sense of honor itself has gradually become unreasonable. of senseless folly. At the end of the plot, the routine/rationality of the victor uses the rules of the duel to end the endless duel, and the fanatical duelist who loses the next duel chance is panic-stricken.
If "The Duelist" is about "the defeat of honor", then "The Last Showdown", which is set in the late period of the knighthood more than 40 years later, can be regarded as "the absence of honor", and then it may be said " The death of the duel (itself)". Dueling must be based on honor as the premise and purpose, but the only person who really cares about honor in the whole film is the humiliated and damaged heroine off the court. The only people who fight on the court are two cowards who are duplicitous and strong-willed (face is different from honor, it is precisely in the former. There is no legitimacy of the latter of course). In "The Duelist", the sense of honor failed. The duelist was lost. In "The Last Duel", the heroine successfully maintained the honor, but the honor did not enter the duel arena. The duel that existed as a form of honor also went to death. .
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