With its tripartite structure - the picture is split into three sections, each showing the same series of events from a different perspective - and grim subject matter - it’s about the last sanctioned duel in France, a 1386 standoff between two men over a grisly accusation of rape - one may expect the film to be something distant, grave, challenging, complicated. Which brings us to Scott’s latest effort, the medieval drama The Last Duel. You never know if you’ll leave the theater enthralled, excited, bored, or utterly perplexed. This tension has run throughout the course of Scott’s career, and it’s one reason that approaching any new film from him is a wonderfully suspenseful ordeal. Alien is the work of both an art student with big ideas and a first-rate entertainer Black Hawk Down is a rousing, Cubist war movie and though Kingdom of Heaven’s theatrical cut is a pandering mess, its director’s cut is, amazingly, a sublime, thoughtful masterpiece.
Each has delivered his share of masterpieces, duds, and problematic cult favorites: Visionary Ridley gave us Blade Runner but also 1492: Conquest of Paradise and The Counselor, while Populist Ridley gave us Gladiator and Thelma & Louise but also G.I.
There’s Ridley the Visionary and then there’s Ridley the Populist.
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