Compare and Contrast…

Updated on November 4, 2021 By Ken Begg 4 Comments

In 1977, Ridley Scott made The Duellists, about two guys continuing a years-long series of duels. (One guy want to kill the other, his opponent doesn’t.) It starred minor stars Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel. The budget was $900,000. It ran 100 minutes.

In 2021, Ridley Scott made The Last Duel. It’s about…a duel or something. I don’t care enough to check. It stars *cough* major stars Matt Damon and Adam Driver. The budget was $100,000,000. It runs two hours and thirty-two minutes.

It’s opening weekend in the States made under $5,000,000. After several weeks in release, it’s made $23,000,000 worldwide. About half of that will come back to the studio.

Pin It

  • Beckoning Chasm

    Ridley Scott started out so very promising. Then something happened and he became just another camera pointer.

    Compare and contrast the atmosphere of “Alien” with “Prometheus.” The first one has a look and feel that are unique and contribute to the movie’s success. The second could have been made by anyone, there’s nothing distinct about it.

  • Ken_Begg

    That’s how I felt when I saw The Aviator. People thought it would be the film to win Scorsese one of those ‘lifetime’ Oscars, where you win for all the previous films you made. Eastwood instead one for Million Dollar Baby, and he should have. Eastwood’s fingerprints were all over that film. The Aviator was fine, but really, a dozen different directors could have made that exact same film.

  • The Last Duel is about the last officially sanctioned duel in France. I’ve read the book, and have no intention of seeing the movie. The book (as best as I can remember) dealt with the issue of what do you do when there’s a very heinous crime that demands justice – but you have absolutely zero evidence to go on (it is LITERALLY a “she said, he said” case). The movie, so I gather, turned that into something that plays directly to current sensibilities and dodges that question entirely.

  • Eric Hinkle

    I recall from reading about said duel years ago in another book. It involved an accusation of sexual assault made against one of the French king’s current favorites by the wife of a feared knight and duelist. Said knight having been missing for years and believed dead was part of why the wife was assaulted, with her attacker supposedly telling her to ‘Go and complain to your husband about it if you ever see him again’. Well, a short time later he did return home (he’d been held for ransom, for years), learned from his wife what had happened, and things unfolded from there.