Would you review The Deluge, a Polish film from 1974? It is highly regarded for the sabre duel, and the grandson of one of the actor's is now a champion fencer, being ranked the 1st place in both the longsword and sabre for in the past two years.

The whole film rules. From the beginning  psychological domination of the duel to the sun coming out over the valley.

I enjoy movies where battles and fights aren't always flawlessly executed. The stumbling, the desperate movement, the scrambling...to me that feels authentic especially when fights are not under ideal terrain or conditions.

Thank you Matt. The Duellists is a great movie made on a very small budget with talented young actors and actresses. They placed electric wires in the stone walls of the cellar to create the excessive sparks when the swords scraped the walls. Keith Carradine said he had a battery with a wire running to the saber. Carradine does a great interview talking about his experience making the movie I just saw it on YouTube a couple days ago.

It baffles me that Ridley Scoot started out with such a historically rich and beautiful film as this and now he scoffs at anyone questioning the tripe that was his Napoleon.
Anyway, another film-duel worth taking a look at is the short yet brilliant smallsword duel in An Officer and a Spy.

As one of my Aki ju-jutsu instructors likes to say;  "there's a huge difference between dojo art, and pub-carpark technique".    Put some fear of death into the mix and training ca ngo right out of the window.
But, as a fellow Brit, I can confirm Mr Easton's verdict.  Gabrielle Feroux IS a total f'ing nutter.

I was pleasantly surprised by THE DUELISTS, I'm not even sure what attracted me to it in the first place... probably because of Ridley Scott. Watching THE DUELISTS felt as if I was getting an authentic look at life in the Napoleonic Era and the way men fought with the premier weapons of the time. None of this Errol Flynn-style jumping around and fancy flourishes but down-and-out street brawling with blood, sweat, dirt and huge steak knives. It was a little weird seeing Harvey Keitel in such a role, but then again it works because he's so brutal a fighter as I would expect him to be. I also liked that little aside scene where they stop briefly to let d'Hubert sneeze. I love little character moments like that.

I literally just came across this video and the detail that makes the Duellists feel so convincing is that the fencing gets uglier as the danger rises. The hanging guard and wrist stop-cut in the garden still look recognisably technical, but by the cellar fight exhaustion has reduced elegant sabre work to grappling, hacking and survival. I spend a lot of my own channel digging into the gap between romantic history and what people actually experienced, and Hobbs understood that perfectly. Real combat probably stopped looking like a fencing manual the moment somebody genuinely thought they might die.

My fencing instructors in college had us watch this movie, we all loved it.

Bill's favourite fight scene was the one he choreographed for "Rob Roy" and was broken down blow-by-blow in one of his books - "Fight Direction for Stage and Screen".
I fenced him many a time, he was a great fencer and nice guy. Much missed.

It’s this and Barry Lyndon that are the truly visually brilliant and period evocative movies.

Hobbs was the fight coordinator on "Royal Flash" which was released two years prior to The Duellists. Royal Flash (set in 1848)  has many sabre duels in which the main character, Harry Flashman (Malcom McDowell), frequently uses a hanging guard type of starting stance. I would imagine Hobbs would have brought over some ideas from the earlier film's duels.

Matt, your comments on the significant effect of ground conditions made me think of a video I would love to see you do.

How about a video on a boat (ideally a period replica) showing the effect of a moving, rocking deck, alongside the effect of the presence of rigging, deck hatches, etc when cutlass fighting. Foot placement, stance, the dangers of a lunge, the problems of a moulinet, and so forth, might all also come in.

I always wondered if Ridley Scott was inspired buy Kubrick's, "Barry Lyndon" . Kubrick spent a long time trying to capture the look of a candle lit world. He chose lenses and film that could capture the elusive candlelight... As well as the beauty of the magic hour. It's a fantastic looking film, and it drops you into the middle of that era. 😊😊😊

The barn fight in one of my favourite movie fights. William Hobbs was a genius at fight choreography.

happy birthday, Matt!

Please consider doing the Deluge, that is such a good scene

The DVD commentaries are always fun, including that Kwitel was not comfortable around horses, while Carradine was a fairly skillful rider already.

The nuance of your analysis is amazing, taking into account the treatises, the cinematic requirement to look good and tell a story, and the human element that these characters must be experiencing. Bravo!

One oher thing I do love about the film is the origin of the story. It is based on a short story, The Duel, which was by an author that went deep into historical sources including diaries and memoirs of people involved in this era. There was a real duel of life long druges similar to this that was noted in a number of sources, and while it may not be based on that, it could easily have been an influence. In other words, the origin story was very tied to the reality of the time. The limits on who could duel and when were accuratly represented in the film. The fact that some officers seemed to be obsessed with dueling and that some sword trainers specialized in personal combat was very real. Rather than a sword as a weapon of war, the one-on-one fights happened and the story that was translated to the film did a very good job of capturing that. Also, they did not try to come up with BS French accents and instead just played the parts in their own voices and let the action, storyline, and such tell it as a French story.