Summary

• The Duellists explores the Napoleonic Wars through compelling characters, proving to be a more successful narrative than Napoleon.
• Contrasting with Napoleon's linear approach, The Duellists effectively uses time jumps to reveal character motivations over 16 years.
• The Duellists' success highlights Napoleon's missed potential, showing how Ridley Scott could have created a more spectacular film.

Ridley Scott's Napoleon was an ambitious attempt by the director to tell the full story of the French emperor's dramatic life, but the truth is that he had already made a much more cohesive movie set in the same period nearly five decades earlier. Spanning several decades, from Bonaparte's involvement in the French Revolution to his eventual death on the tiny Atlantic island of Saint Helena, Napoleon had an epic scope – even by the standards of most biopics. However, while the story failed to come together in one cohesive narrative, a previous Scott project proves how things could have been different.

While it was by no means a disaster, Ridley Scott's historical epic was not the triumph many fans were hoping for. Made for a budget of between $130 and $200 million, Napoleon made $221 million at the box office. Critical responses were often just as muted as the audience reaction, with the film holding 57% on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, based on 333 reviews. Although the movie represents Scott's only attempt at telling Bonaparte's life story, another of his movies set in the same period shows how he could have better handled the subject.

The Duellists Is Ridley Scott's Original 'Napoleon' Movie

It's set during the Napoleonic Wars

Despite not being about the same character, Ridley Scott's 1977 directorial debut, The Duellists, is the director's first true Napoleon movie. Set in France during the Napoleonic Wars, the movie follows the fortunes of two contrasting officers – the aristocratic Armand d'Hubert (Keith Carradine) and the boorish Bonapartist Gabriel Feraud (Harvey Keitel). Initially clashing over a perceived sleight, the pair are brought together time and time again over the coming decades, as their initial duel spirals into a story of obsession and violence.

Although Napoleon himself is not a presence in The Duellists, he is perhaps the dominant background figure in the narrative. Feraud's obsession with Bonaparte partly explains his antipathy towards d'Hubert – whose aristocratic heritage immediately marks him out as an anti-revolutionary. Each of the duo's meetings is also defined by the major Napoleonic campaigns of the day, with the story beginning in 1800 and encompassing the Russian campaign of 1812, Bonaparte's exile in 1814, and the aftermath of the Hundred Days campaign. While d'Hubert and Feraud are the key protagonists, The Duellists is undoubtedly a "Napoleon" movie.

Ridley Scott's The Duellists Is A Better Movie Than Napoleon

Its characters and story make it more successful

Even though the two films take very different approaches to the period, The Duellists is more successful as a cohesive narrative. The dynamic between d'Hubert and Feraud is an extremely compelling narrative device, with the Napoleonic Wars backdrop providing an evocative period setting. Even though the story features multiple time jumps, neither the relationship between the two men nor the wider story ever feels confused – the growth and development of both characters makes perfect sense within the context of the story.

Both Napoleon and The Duellists showcase director Ridley Scott's ability to capture powerful and evocative visuals, giving the action scenes an epic sense of scale. However, while Napoleon features vast battle scenes and boasts a budget in the hundreds of millions, The Duellists is more remarkable for the fact that it was made for just $900,000, with set pieces that typically revolve around just two main players. The fact that Scott still managed to make The Duellists' fight scenes feel just as epic as anything in Napoleon makes the 1977 movie an even more impressive achievement.

The Duellists Fixes Napoleon's Biggest Problems

Its timeframe is handled much more effectively

While Scott's handling of The Duellists' characters and fight scenes is impressive, where the movie provides the most interesting comparison to Napoleon is in how it approaches a decades-long story. In Napeleon, Scott takes a linear chronological approach, trying to cram in all the major events from Napoleon's life into two-and-a-half hours. The result of this is that, while major events like the siege of Toulon, his coronation as emperor, and the Battle of Austerlitz are all ticked off, the story behind these seminal events is completely lost. So too are Napoleon's more nuanced motives – it's as though major events just happen to him.

By contrast, The Duellists is unafraid to use major jumps forward in time. Although the story spans 16 years, the period is covered by seven separate vignettes that individually reveal all the audience needs to know about the protagonists' motivations and backstories and collectively come together to give the audience a better sense of the ebbs and flows of Bonaparte's reign than Napoleon ever manages. What this proves is that the key to telling a successful Napoleon story is not simply showing the major events themselves. It's about following characters whose growth can inform the bigger picture.

...by trying to simultaneously do justice to the complete history of Bonaparte's life and explore these complicated ideas, (Napoleon) falls short

In both d'Hubert and Feraud, The Duellists has a pair of leads who help the movie explore themes of ambition, pride, obsessiveness, arrogance, and even romance. Each of these is a subject that Napoleon also tries to address. However, by trying to simultaneously do justice to the complete history of Bonaparte's life and explore these complicated ideas, the film falls short in both areas. As The Duellists proves, the most compelling way to tell a story set in the Napoleonic Wars – even one about Bonaparte himself – is to ensure the main characters are compelling before worrying about the action.

The Duellists Proves Napoleon Was A Missed Opportunity

The 1977 movie proves how great Napoleon could have been

The Duellists' success relative to Napoleon is a frustrating reminder that the 2023 movie really could have been something great. Both films make it clear that Ridley Scott has an uncanny ability to bring this particular period of history to life. The Duellists was nearly universally praised on release for its authenticity and accurate portrayal of contemporary costumes and customs. Likewise, Napoleon was nominated for Best Production Design and Best Costume Design at the Academy Awards – even if other aspects of its historical accuracy, such as Napoleon's personality, were criticized.

The Duellists is available to rent from Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime Video

Given that Scott was previously so effective at recreating Napoleonic France on a comparatively microscopic budget, Napoleon could have provided an epic sense of scale the director could only have dreamed of back in 1977. Had the film taken The Duellists' gripping storytelling and compelling characters and combined them with its impressive budget, the end result could have been spectacular. Unfortunately, as a result of its misguided approach to the subject, Napoleon will always be considered the second best of Ridley Scott's Napoleonic movies.