alien, duellists, bladerunner (my personal fav) ... could you ask for better shot movies? Truly a top notch director.
THE DUELLISTS - SPOILERS to the SWORD DUELS The following are spoilers for all the sword related duels in the Ridley Scott directed film The Duellists. DO NOT READ ON if you want to enjoy the duels in the movie with a sense of ‘what happens next?!’ Ok. If you REALLY want to know what happens …. Location: Strasburg 1800 Weapon: Small Sword Location: field at dawn Participants: Lt. Feraud v Mayor of Strasburg’s Nephew Duel duration: 1min 34secs Feraud (F) is contemptuous of his civilian opponent and seems confident. The Mayors Nephew (MN) is nervous if not scared. F’s body position is casual as if he’s not taking the duel seriously. MN’s attacks look cumbersome and are mainly gross slashes and off balance lunges. F’s slashes mainly take place as he strides about glaring at the MN but when he comes en guard he looks coiled and poised. The MN is extremely overmatched, often off balanced and when he grabs F’s blade, he ends up with a sliced hand implying that the edges of F’s are sharp. After the hand injury, the MN loses the plot and starts slashing and thrusting with little thought for defence. F backs up and block the attacks before thrusting into the MN’s stomach. The duel is concluded with a win for Lt. Feraud. Location: Strasburg 1800 Weapon: Lt. Cavalry Sabre on foot Location: Cramped garden/alley. Participants: Lt. Feraud v Lt. D’Hubert Duel duration: 50 secs Feraud (F) starts this duel almost to the point of angered frenzy over perceived insults. D’Hubert (D) is calm and relaxed and does his best to avoid the duel. F’s attacks are huge slashing cuts delivered with the arm and back while D tries to void and block each attack – apparently waiting for F to come to his senses. F attacks are frenzied and about 20 secs in D realizes that this is for real but is very much on the defensive. F shoves him into an enclosed space and winds up for a massive slash. D ‘draw cuts’ to F’s sword wrist then punches him in the face with his knuckle guard. The duel is concluded with a TKO win for D’Hubert. Location: Augsburg 1801 Weapon: Small Sword Location: Sunny Field next to a farm house Participants: Lt. Feraud v Lt. D’Hubert Duel duration: 60 seconds (from coming en guard the first time to conclusion) D’Hubert (D) has a large oven mitt on his left hand indicating a desire to grab Feraud’s (F) blade if possible. The duellists come en guard twice. The first is interrupted by D having to sneeze. Once they come en guard a second time the fight is over in 26 seconds. Most of that time is the swords touching and rotating around each other. D attacks with a series of thrusts, F parrys and ripostes hitting D about 1 inch above his right nipple. He is unable to continue much to F’s annoyance who wished the duel to be to the death. Win for Feraud but he’s not happy about it being just a wounding. Location: Silesia some time after Austerlitz 1805 Weapon: Lt. Cavalry Sabre on foot Location: Semi underground celler Participants: Capt. Feraud v Capt. D’Hubert Duel duration: unknown as scene begins at end of fight (scene length 2 mins) Both duellists are exhausted as we join this duel. Both are bleeding from a number of small wounds. Their clothing is torn, they have trouble standing, are panting and are often wielding their swords in both hands. They have obviously been fighting for some time. They slash wildly, use knees and there is no technical form here, it’s a street fight. In the end they run out of energy to hold their weapons and are wrestling on the ground. At this point the seconds separate them. Conrad wrote in the original story … ‘At last, dishevelled, their shirts in rags, covered with gore and hardly able to stand, they were carried forcibly off the field by their marvelling and horrified seconds.’ Location: Lubeck 1806 Weapon: Lt. Cavalry Sabre on horse (as a compliment to the cavalry) Location: mist shrouded, tree lined lane Participants: Capt. Feraud v Capt. D’Hubert Duel duration: about 6 seconds of real time as it’s a cavalry charge D’Hubert (D) has foreseen his own death and is a bundle of nerves. Feraud (F) is his usual confident arrogant self. They start 100 yards apart in a tree lined lane, salute and charge. Its difficult to work out the length of duel due to D’s flashbacks but lets say 6 seconds from salute to the single strike that decided the duel. F’s shako is cut in half and he takes ‘a slight cut to the forehead’. This is a MASSIVE understatement as the blood is poring down his face and a huge flap of loose skin is hinted at. A win for D’Hubert. This concludes the sword duel portion of your motion picture. Any f*ck ups I apologize for but I was desperate for my dinner.
I keep a copy of Amberger's The Secret History of The Sword next to my bed for some light reading. It has some memorable duel descriptions especially his own schlager duel. Also, one stunning old grainy photograph of the outcome of a sabre duel between two cavalrymen at the turn of the 20th century with one poor chaps head being seprated from his body. The Bear.
oddly sabres aren't very sharp (least british ones weren't). during an uprising in india during the 19th century, horror stories of brit squaddies being cut in half by fearsome native weapons began to circulate. As the rebelling natives thought of the uprising as a sporting event, when captured they took an extremely pally attitude to their captors who they considered worthy enemies. Some of the brits decided to take advantage of the pallyness to ask about these terror swords the tribesmen were using... The tribesmen grinned at them and told them they were british cavalry sabres that they captured, rehilted them then sharpened to razor like sharpness. They then went on to commend the brits for producing very good steel and advised them to sharpen their swords more. May be an apocryphal tale.
