Raw L. The Ridley Scott Encyclopedia

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most magnificent views in the world. Drifting across it, then

down, reveals a piazza below.” Later on he describes the inte-

rior of the Palazzo Vecchio thus: “It’s under long-term

restoration, scaffolding everywhere. A large assembly of men

ranging in age from middle-aged to the Middle Ages, it

seems, are gathered round a long twelfth-century table.” Even

Florence’s inhabitants are part of its history. Bearing this in

mind, it is not surprising that de Laurentiis should suggest

that “[The city] is a character . . . next to Hannibal Lecter. It

is not just a location. We gave it the atmosphere, the right

lighting and the character comes out.” De Laurentiis’s asso-

ciation with the Hannibal franchise continued as he pro-

duced both Red Dragon (2002) and Hannibal Rising (2006).

References

Joe Mauceri, “Dino de Laurentiis: King of Producers,” Shivers 88

(April 2001): 31–32; Steven Zaillian, “Hannibal: Screenplay Based

on the Novel by Thomas Harris,” Revision (9 February 2000),

http://sfy.ru/sfy.html?script=hannibal2001 (accessed 15 December

2008), 29–30.

Bibliography

Roger Clarke,“Dino Takes a Bite out of Jody,” Evening Standard,15

February 2001, 30–31; Andrew Pulver, “Fellini Wouldn’t Cut the

Scene—So I Stole It,” The Guardian, 1 June 1999, Section 2, 6–7;

David Rooney, “Dino Night,” Var iet y, 19–25 June 2000, 44, 54.

DE LAUZIRIKA, CHARLES (?– )

A graduate of University of Southern California School of

Cinema and Television, de Lauzirika worked at Ridley Scott’s

company, SCOTT FREE Entertainment, for two years before

becoming a DVD producer. He worked on producing the

“Director’s Cut” of LEGEND. De Lauzirika completed work

as restoration producer on BLADE RUNNER: THE FINAL

CUT and DVD producer on Blade Runner 5-disc Collector’s

Edition, Twin Peaks 10-Disc Definitive Gold Box Edition, and

Scott’s AMERICAN GANGSTER: 3-Disc Collector’s Edition.

He also produced documentaries about the making of

MATCHSTICK MEN, KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, NUMB3RS,

and THE COMPANY.

De Lauzirika was involved in the creation of LEGEND:

THE DIRECTOR’S CUT (2002)—a job which, he admitted

in an interview with Film Score Monthly, was enormously

hard. Eventually he located two copies of the original 113-

minute version of the film—one in Universal’s vaults in

London, the other in Los Angeles. The 2002 release was

based on the Los Angeles print. The main difference in the

Director’s Cut, according to de Lauzirika (in another inter-

view with Sean Murphy), was it felt “more whole and satis-

fying” compared to the original film (1985): “There’s just

more character development in general . . . [and] JERRY

GOLDSMITH’s score just works like gangbusters.”

References

Sean Murphy, “Digital Bits interview with Charles de Lauzirika,”

Legend: Frequently Asked Questions, www.figmentfly.com/legend/

different4k.html (accessed 25 April 2008); “Restoring Legend:An

Interview with DVD Producer Charles de Lauzirika,” Film Score

Monthly 7, no.4 (May/June 2002): 15–16.

DE LINE, DONALD (?– )

Film producer, executive producer, and former studio head,

whose credits include Pretty Woman (1990), The Italian Job,

(2003), and BODY OF LIES.

Bibliography

“Production Notes: Body of Lies” (Los Angeles: Warner Bros. Enter-

tainment, 2008), http://mix96tulsa.com/movies/notes/body-of-

lies/note/4 (accessed 16 January 2009).

DEAKINS, ROGER (1949– )

Deakins began working as a still photographer before

enrolling in Britain’s National Film School in 1972. Among

his credits are Sid and Nancy (1986), A Beautiful Mind

(2001), and Vadim Perelman’s House of Sand and Fog (2003).

As director of photography on THE ASSASSINATION

OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD,pro-

duced by Scott, Deakins tried to create a look both austere

and sumptuous. His camera occasionally offers glimpses

of life seen through the flawed and rippled glass that was

typical of the time. In one scene, Robert Ford (CASEY

AFFLECK) while a guest at the James household, intently

and surreptitiously studies Jesse at his leisure in the yard

through a back window. Deakins suggested that such

sequences revealed “the transitory nature of reality.” In

another scene, during a nighttime train robbery, Jesse sud-

denly and dramatically appears from a billow of white

steam, as if “emerging from another world, perhaps from

hell . . . It’s as if Jesse [BRAD PITT] is a ghost already.”

Another sequence showing the characters like specks against

the vast landscape reveals “how humans are just a small part

of nature, despite our feelings of importance.”

Deakins also worked as director of photography on the

Oscar-winning NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN.

References

“About the Production,” http://party931.com/common/movies/

notes/54706-1-full.html (accessed 12 August 2008); Stephen

Pizzello and Jean Oppenheimer, “Western Destinies,” American

Cinematographer 88, no.10 (October 2007): 31–47.

DEE, RUBY (1924– )

Ruby Dee grew up and began her career as a member of the

American Negro Theatre. She received her BA from Hunter

College and later studied acting with Paul Mann, Lloyd

■

DE LAUZIRIKA, CHARLES (?– )

Richards, and Morris Carnovsky. Her film career began in

1950; since then, she has been featured in A Raisin in the Sun

(1961), and Jules Dassin’s Up Tight! (1968). In 1991, she was

awarded an Emmy for her performance in Decoration Day

(1990). With her actor husband Ossie Davis, she received the

John F. Kennedy Center Honors in 2004.

Cast as Mama Lucas in AMERICAN GANGSTER,Dee

revisited the place where she grew up; her experiences

proved helpful insight for all with whom she worked. In the

production information she observed that “The time of

Frank Lucas that American Gangster is about doesn’t seem

as much of a film to me as it does more of a memory. Gang-

sters played a very important role in the life of the commu-

nity, because they were part of the community. They

controlled the rackets.” As a child, she lived in an apartment

building on 137th Street and 7th Avenue. Of that time, Dee

recalled that “People who looked like Denzel [Washington]

would come to the door in twos or threes, and they would

give you a greeting and hand you a shopping bag. In there

would be a turkey at Thanksgiving; at Christmas there

would be toys.” Only later in life would she learn that they

weren’t just helpful citizens; there was a “political connec-

tion to the gangster element.”

Dee’s major sequence in the film comes towards the

end, when she berates her son for thinking about shooting

a police officer. Such things are simply not honorable in

terms of her beliefs; she cares neither about where he got his

money nor whether he will continue in his life of crime, but

she does not want to hear him lie to her. STEVEN ZAIL-

LIAN’s script says that “she’s not pleading, but telling”—

Frank, for his part, cannot look her in the eyes. Eventually

Mama Lucas slaps him across the face; a final gesture of con-

tempt signaling the breakdown of relations between mother

and son.

References

American Gangster: Production Information (Los Angeles: Univer-

sal Pictures, 2007); Steven Zaillian, “American Gangster: Final

Shooting Script” (27 July 2006), http://www.roteirodecinema.com

.br/scripts/files/american_gangster.htm (accessed 8 February 2009).

Bibliography

Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life

Together (New York: Harper Paperbacks, 2000).

DEELEY, MICHAEL (1932– )

Film producer whose major works include The Italian Job

(1969), The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), The Deer Hunter

(1978), and BLADE RUNNER.

Michael Deeley read through HAMPTON FANCHER’s

initial treatment of the novel and agreed to produce it. He

believed that the story was “a marvelous blending of a

thriller with a romance. There was also a dramatic moral

problem at the heart of the [PHILIP K. DICK] book, the

idea that this sanctioned executioner was become emotion-

ally attracted to one he’s supposed to kill. That aspect enor-

mously appealed to me ...what ultimately appealed to me

on the project was Hampton Fancher’s script ...That sort

of ultimately pulled in Ridley Scott, as well. And he’s not an

easy person to seduce by writing, I’ll tell you.”

The full story of Deeley’s involvement in Blade Runner,

and how he ultimately came to be removed from the film,

has been told in his recent autobiography Blade Runners,

Deer Hunters, and Blowing the Bloody Doors Off: My Life in

Cult Movies (2008), described by Scott in his foreword as “an

accurate and entertaining read.”

References

Michael Deeley, Blade Runners, Deer Hunters, and Blowing the

Bloody Doors Off (London: Faber and Faber, 2008), ix; Paul M.

Sammon, Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner, 2nd ed. (Lon-

don: Gollancz, 2007), 34.

DELTA FORCE: BLACK HAWK DOWN

A first-person shooter video-game set during the United

Nations intervention in the Somali civil war, with missions

taking place primarily in the Jubba Valley and the Somali

capital, Mogadishu, based both on the actual events in 1993

and on the Scott film of the same name.

The game was developed by NovaLogic and was

released on Microsoft Windows on 24 March 2003, on Mac

OS X on 21 June 2004, on the PlayStation 2 on 27 July 2005

and on the Xbox on 8 September 2006. It is the sixth game

of the Delta Force series.

DEMME, JONATHAN (1944– )

Born Robert Jonathan Demme in Long Island. Early direc-

torial efforts included Crazy Mama (1975) and Fighting

Mad (1976), as well as episodes of the television series

Colombo. His first major commercial success before THE

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS was Married to the Mob (1988).

For the first Harris adaptation Demme won the Oscar for

Best Director.

Demme was originally slated to direct HANNIBAL,but

walked out, claiming that he did not want to work on a

sequel to the film. He might also have been disturbed by the

violence of THOMAS HARRIS’s original novel. Having

taken over the direction of Hannibal, Scott was working on

his first sequel; an ironic decision in view of the fact that he

had refused to direct the sequel to ALIEN, which was even-

tually helmed by James Cameron. When asked in an inter-

view how he felt about the fact that he had taken over

Demme’s version of the Hannibal saga, Scott replied defen-

sively, “I don’t know.”

DEMME, JONATHAN (1944– )

■

Reference

Jonathan Demme, quoted in Adam Smith, “Signed, Sealed, De-liv-

ered,” Empire 141 (March 2001), 76.

DEPARDIEU, GÉRARD (1948– )

Gérard Depardieu started his acting career at the small trav-

eling theatre Café de la Gare along with Patrick Dewaere and

Miou-Miou. After minor roles in cinema, he at last got his

chance in Bertrand Blier’s Les Valseuses (1974). He made his

English-language debut in Peter Weir’s film Green Card

(1990).

For his biographer Marianne Gray, Depardieu’s leading

role in 1492 CONQUEST OF PARADISE represented a

“make or break” chance for the actor to establish himself as

in international star: “Depardieu describes Columbus as ‘an

Italian gypsy, who is also Jewish, who made journeys com-

parable to our conquering of space. He’s often thought of as

just a famous sailor but there’s more to him than that. He

took enormous risks, telling people the earth was round and

keeping the Church happy by bringing in gold. He was

driven by the gods and had a sacred faith, and then,’ he adds

shyly, ‘you have the love story with Queen Isabella.’” Depar-

dieu has in fact worked previously with one of the film’s

stars, SIGOURNEY WEAVER, on the film Une Femme ou

Deux (One Woman or Two) (1985).

Depardieu did considerable research for the role, not

only reading most of the recent biographies, but also lis-

tening to the opera by Darius Milhaud. His biographer

Michel Mahéo believed that he brought a certain mystical,

passionate presence to the film which was something

unique. Scott admired what Depardieu did; in an interview

with the British film magazine Empire he described the

actor as “a true modern artiste, he can conjure dreams

from something passionless and technical. He is able to go

beyond the technique of the camera, and put it at the serv-

ice of the imagination.”

Depardieu summed up his role in the film thus in the

Empire interview already cited:“[H]e was an artist as well as

someone who had the temperament to convince people to

follow him. It was as if a Mexican turned up at the White

House and tried to sell a programme to go and discover

Mars.” His performance in the film is low key (at least by

Depardieu’s standards). He is someone who is not only

obsessive in his quest to discover the new world, but also

proud of his family. At times his obsession recalls Gregory

Peck’s Captain Ahab in the 1956 film MOBY DICK—a man

prepared to sacrifice everything in search of his dream.

Robert Thurston’s novelization of the screenplay makes this

clear: “[Columbus] was not quite human ...had perhaps

become mythic. Is that true, Columbus thought, or is it

merely my conceited imagination? In making my exorbitant

demands and then setting out on a voyage that made most

ordinary men tremble with apprehension, am I placing

myself in the same company with mythic beings?”

Depardieu’s combination of aggressive MASCULINITY

plus an open display of feminine qualities in the film is char-

acteristic of the actor’s star image, as Ginette Vincendeau

remarks: “While in many ways Depardieu represents a tradi-

tional vision of aggressive French machismo ...one ofthe

most common descriptions of his screen image as well as his

behaviour as a performer, to the extent that it has become a

cliché, is that of his ‘femininity’—...a fragile man, with a flaw

in his personality, a very feminine character in the end . . .

Ultimately though, this gender displacement does not entail

changes in either casting patterns, or the values associated

with femininity and masculinity, which are left at their most

traditional (male = active, female = passive). This is in a sense

consistent with the film’s gender politics, which reinforce the

idea of the aggressive, go-getting male leaving his spouse at

home to look after the home while he goes off on his voy-

ages. His partner Beatrix (ANGELA MOLINA) is presented

as an object for our admiration, as she ‘keeps’ herself for her

husband, in spite of the approaches of other men.”

References

Marianne Gray, Depardieu: A Biography (London: Warner Books,

1991), 201; Michel Mahéo, Gérard Depardieu: 25 Ans de Cinéma

(Lausanne, Éditions Favre, 1999), 154; Mark Salisbury, “In Nine-

teen Hundred and Ninety Two ...,”Empire, November 1992, 84,

88; Robert Thurston, 1492: Conquest of Paradise Based on a Screen-

play by Roselyne Bosch (London: Penguin Books, 1992), 72; Ginette

Vincendeau, Stars and Stardom in French Cinema (London and

New York: Continuum, 2000), 227–29.

DIAL “M” FOR MURDER

GB 1962 TVM r/t 50 min b/w. Production Company: British

Broadcasting Corporation. Producer: Alan Bridges. Director/

Production Designer: Ridley Scott. Writer: Frederick Knott.

Cast: Diana Fairfax (Sheila Wendice), Richard Pasco (Tony

Wendice), Barry Letts (Max Halliday), Leslie Sands (Inspec-

tor Hubbard).

A fifty-minute live television version broadcast in the

Sunday Night Play slot of Frederick Knott’s famous stage

thriller that marked Ridley Scott’s début as a television direc-

tor for the BBC. Unfortunately the original broadcast has

been lost.

DIAZ, CAMERON (1972– )

Blonde leading actress who enjoyed her first major success

with The Mask (1994). Cast as Maggie in the Ridley Scott-

produced film IN HER SHOES, Diaz at first seems as if she

has been cast as an object of male desire, as the camera lov-

ingly focuses on her half-naked BODY stretched out on the

sofa. As the story unfolds, however, we discover that this

■

DEPARDIEU, GÉRARD (1948– )

image is something Maggie has constructed for herself to

compensate for her crippling lack of self-esteem. Unlike her

sister Rose (TONI COLLETTE), who enjoys an apparently

successful career as a lawyer, Maggie suffers from dyslexia; the

only thing she can rely upon to attract people’s interest is her

own body. At one point she narrowly escapes being assaulted

by two hobos, who take her back to a parking lot and expect

‘payment’ for returning her car. While visiting her grand-

mother Ella (SHIRLEY MACLAINE) at the retirement resi-

dence, Maggie puts on her bikini and sunbathes by the pool,

much to the enjoyment of the elderly residents. Diaz herself

summed up this aspect of her role in a preproduction inter-

view: “It was important to me to exploit that aspect of Mag-

gie because that was really who she was. Her body was her

tool. It was her instrument, it was how she got through the

world the way that she had up until that point. For me it was

important to be able to exploit that part of her. We could have

gone further, definitely could have gone further, and we didn’t.

I could have actually been naked. I could have gone anywhere.

I could have really worn skimpy stuff. I didn’t really think any

of her, other than the cleavage and the bikini, I didn’t think

that anything was really inappropriate. She wore jeans and it

was winter and she was bundled up. And in Florida it was one

little short skirt. But I didn’t feel like she was . . . Everything

she had fit into a garbage bag. Everything she owned fit into

a garbage bag. She didn’t have a lot of choices.”

However, Maggie undergoes a complete change of char-

acter: not only does she acquire self-esteem (as a professor con-

gratulates her on her ability to interpret the poem, Elizabeth

Bishop’s “One Art,” that she has just read to him), but learns

to care for the retirement home’s residents. This is underlined

in one sequence where she shows her sister around, beginning

with the pharmacy and taking in the exercise pavilion and

“The Bench” (where retired lawyers pass the time of day).

Wherever she goes, everyone takes the time to acknowledge

her as a valued member of their community. Diaz herself

admitted that the role represented something of a departure

for her as an actress: “To me, I thought it was really coura-

geous and something that I’d like to portray for an audience.”

Reference

Rebecca Murray, “Cameron Diaz Talks about Her Role in In Her

Shoes” (29 September 2005), About.com, http://movies.about.com/

od/inhershoes/a/inshoescd092905.htm (accessed 8 August 2008).

Bibliography

“Cameron Diaz: In Her Shoes and in the News,” Empire 198

(December 2005): 83.

DIBENEDETTO, TONY (1944– )

Tony DiBenedetto’s early films included The Exterminator

(1980), Deathtrap (1982), and Splash (1984).

Cast as the cop T. J. in SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER

ME, DiBenedetto emphasizes the importance of duty. Even

though watching over Claire Gregory’s (MIMI ROGERS’s)

apartment is boring, often tedious work, T. J. carries it out

without demur. The fact that he is eventually shot by Venza’s

hired assassin (Harlan Cary Poe) shows how dangerous the

job can be. Unlike Mike (TOM BERENGER), T. J. does not

acknowledge his personal feelings; in fact, he is downright

inarticulate (“Detective Keegan is ...Mike ...‘Michael’

asked me to tell you [Claire] he’s under the weather....Yeah,

just ...bad gut.Y’know”).

DICAPRIO, LEONARDO (1974– )

Born in Hollywood, Leonardo DiCaprio got his break-

through part as Toby in This Boy’s Life (1993), along with

Robert De Niro and Ellen Barkin. His first major starring

role was in Romeo + Juliet (1996), directed by Baz Luhrmann,

followed by Titanic (1997).

Cast as Roger Ferris in BODY OF LIES, DiCaprio was

quoted in the production notes as saying that the character

was “well-versed in weapons training and hand-to-hand

combat, but he’s also a really intelligent, highly effective field

agent who has immersed himself in Middle Eastern culture.

He knows the language and the culture and respects the

attitudes and customs of the people. He’s become very

skilled at forging relationships and infiltrating terrorist net-

works.” For all his skills, however, there is a strong element

of mimicry in DiCaprio’s performance as he dons Arab

robes and passes himself off as a native, while displaying his

language skills. His characterization resembles that of Peter

O’Toole in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. For all his apparent

sensitivities, he still describes the Jordanian Secret Service

chief Hani’s (MARK STRONG’s) operation as a “fingernail

factory”—suggesting that they are preoccupied with tor-

ture. This actually turns out to be true, but such statements

are hardly likely to promote good diplomatic relations

between America and its Arab allies. Like MICHAEL DOU-

GLAS in BLACK RAIN, DiCaprio plays the all-American

hero—a tough, no-nonsense operator in a foreign context

combining heroism with sensitivity (particularly to the

Iranian nurse Aisha (GOLSHIFTEH FARAHANI).

Some critics liked DiCaprio’s performance: Kenneth

Turan in the Los Angeles Times saw his Ferris as “the CIA’s

ace on the ground ...a caring,sensitive individual who val-

ues human life.” However, A. O. Scott found the actor

unconvincing, revealing “his commitment to full employ-

ment for dialect coaches ...with some good old-boy inflec-

tions that are helpfully identified by Mr. Crowe’s character

as originating in North Carolina.” Nick Curtis in the Lon-

don Evening Standard felt sorry for DiCaprio who had to try

to make sense of the film’s “daft plot” with “nothing but a

wispy beard to disguise his American features.”

DICAPRIO, LEONARDO (1974– )

■

References

Body of Lies: Production Notes (Los Angeles: Warner Bros., 2008),

www.mix96tulsa.com/movies/notes/body-of-lies/note/4 (accessed

January 16, 2009); Nick Curtis, “Body of Lies Leaves You Feeling

Cheated,” Evening Standard, 7 November 2008, www.thisislondon

.co.uk/film/review-23583655-details/Body+of+Lies+leaves+

you+feeling+cheated/review.do?reviewId=23583655 (accessed Feb-

ruary 17,2009); A. O. Scott, “Big Stars Wielding an Array of Accents,

Fighting the War on Terrorism,” New York Times, 10 October 2008,

http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/movies/10lies.html?scp=2&

sq=body%20of%20lies&st=cse (accessed 17 February 2009); Ken-

neth Turan, “Body of Lies,” Los Angeles Times, October 10, 2008.

www.calendarlive.com/movies/cl-et-body-10-2008oct10,0,

708812.story (accessed 17 February 2009).

Bibliography

Xan Brooks, “Leonardo DiCaprio Is a Boy in a Man’s World,” The

Guardian, 20 November 2008, www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/

2008/nov/20/leonardo-di-caprio (accessed 17 February 2009);

Chrissy Iley, “Leonardo’s Renaissance,” The Observer,2 November

2008, www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/nov/02/leonardo-dicaprio-

body-of-lies (accessed February 17, 2009); “Leonardo DiCaprio on

Barack Obama’s Election Victory,” Daily Telegraph,6 November

2008, www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3562910/Leonardo-Di-

Caprio-on-Barack-Obama%27s-election-victory.html (accessed 17

February 2009).

DICK, PHILIP K. (1928–1982)

Philip K. Dick grew up in Washington, DC, where he experi-

enced firsthand the poverty of the Great Depression. He

moved to California and entered Berkeley High School. He

briefly attended the University of California at Berkeley in

1949, where he declared himself a philosophy major. It was

at this time that he inherited the philosophical skepticism

characteristic of his work. Early in the 1950s, perhaps as a

result of his own association and his then-wife’s acquain-

tance with Communist Party members on the Berkeley cam-

pus, Dick was approached by two FBI agents and recruited

to spy on suspicious enemy agents at the University of Mex-

ico. The extent of his responsibilities is unclear; but from

that time onwards he became preoccupied with the para-

noia, distrust, suspicion and repressive domestic surveillance

characteristic of post-World War II America. Dick’s first

novel Solar Lottery appeared in 1955; in the same year a vol-

ume of short stories, A Handful of Darkness, was published

in London. Thereafter he wrote prolifically until his

untimely death in 1982.

Dick was primarily concerned with the question of

what it is to be human, particularly in a world in which life

seemed perpetually threatened by nuclear war. To empha-

size this point, Dick stressed that human beings were not

necessarily different from one another; the great and pow-

erful had similar aspirations and abilities as an ordinary per-

son. Storekeepers and shop clerks were just as likely as war-

lords and messiahs to be Dick’s focus of attention. Dick’s

third major theme was war and devastation and his fear of

it. This forms the subject of novels such as DO ANDROIDS

DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? (adapted by Scott as

BLADE RUNNER).

Dick had an ambivalent reaction to Blade Runner.He

had completed a pamphlet “Notes on Do Androids Dream of

Electric Sheep?” (1968) for filmmaker Bertram Berman, who

had purchased an option on the novel, but this project came

to nothing. Dick was initially skeptical about Scott’s film; in

a 1981 article he commented thus on an early version of the

script: “It was terrific. It bore no relation to the book . . .

What my story will become is one titanic lurid collision of

androids being blown up, androids killing humans, general

confusion and murder, all very exciting to watch. Makes my

book seem dull by comparison.” Dick’s attitude changed,

however, when Scott showed him twenty minutes of special

effects footage; by early 1982 he told one interviewer that the

opening sequence “is simply the most stupendous thing I

have ever seen in the way of a film. It’s simply unbelievable.”

References

Philip K. Dick, “Universe Makers . . . and Breakers” (1981), in The

Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick: Selected Literary and Philosoph-

ical Writings, ed. Lawrence Smith (New York: Vintage Random,

1995), 104; Gwen Lee and Doris Elaine Sauter, Doris Elaine, eds.,

What If Our World Is Their Heaven: The Final Conversations of

Philip K. Dick (Woodstock: The Overlook Press, 2000), 23.

Bibliography

Dominic Alessio, “Redemption, ‘Race,’ Religion, Reality and the

Far-Right: Science Fiction Film Adaptations of Philip K. Dick,” in

The Blade Runner Experience: The Legacy of a Science Fiction Clas-

sic, ed. Will Brooker (London and New York: Wallflower Press,

2005), 59–79; Aaron Barlow, “Reel Toads and Imaginary Cities:

Philip K. Dick, Blade Runner and the Contemporary Science Fic-

tion Movie,” in The Blade Runner Experience: The Legacy of a Sci-

ence Fiction Classic, ed. Will Brooker, 43–59; “Philip K. Dick: The

Blade Runner Interviews,” Featurette included in Disc 4 of Blade

Runner: Collector’s Edition (Los Angeles: Warner Bros. Entertain-

ment and the Blade Runner Partnership, 2007); Alison Landsberg,

“Prosthetic Memory: Total Recall and Blade Runner,” in Liquid

Metal: The Science Fiction Film Reader, ed. Sean Redmond (Lon-

don and New York: Wallflower Press, 2004), 239–48; Brian J. Robb,

Counterfeit Worlds: Philip K. Dick on Film (London: Titan Books,

2006); Philip Strick, “The Age of the Replicant,” Sight and Sound,

July 1982, 168–72; Lawrence Sutin, Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip

K. Dick (New York: Carol and Graf Avalon, 2005); Jason P. Vest,

Future Imperfect: Philip K. Dick at the Movies (Westport, CT:

Praeger Publishers, 2007).

■

DICK, PHILIP K. (1928–1982)

DICKEN, ROGER

Specialist model-maker responsible for the “face-hugger” in

ALIEN that attaches itself to Kane’s (JOHN HURT’s) face

and makes the crew realize that they are dealing with a crea-

ture infinitely more dangerous than even the ferocity of its

initial onslaught (on the deserted planet) had suggested.

When efforts to pry the hugger from Kane’s face prove

unfruitful, Dallas (TOM SKERRITT) and Ash (IAN HOLM)

mount a direct assault by attempting to amputate one of its

fingers. At the first incision, however, a yellowish fluid oozes

from the wound, incredibly corrosive, that eats through the

floor within seconds. The face-hugger’s appearance, accord-

ing to Ridley Scott in an interview with Don Shay, was

“enough to make audiences uncomfortable, which is what we

wanted.” More significantly, the fact that it covers the whole

of Kane’s face suggests that once he has been possessed by the

alien, Kane no longer has the capacity for self-determination.

Reference

Don Shay,“Creating an Alien Ambience,” in Alien: The Special Effects,

ed. Don Shay and Bill Norton (London: Titan Books, 1997), 28.

DILLEY, LESLIE (?– )

Born in Wales, Leslie Dilley began his career by working on

The Saint television series with Roger Moore. One of his first

film assignments was Richard Lester’s The Three Musketeers

(1974); and he subsequently worked on the first Star Wars

movie (1977).

Dilley’s work on the Ridley Scott-produced film MON-

KEY TROUBLE is evident in his use of interior design, which

contrasts the order of Amy’s (MIMI ROGERS’s) living room

with the chaos of her daughter Eva’s (THORA BIRCH’s)

room, which suggests how much the little girl has been

neglected. Dilley also creates a suitably untidy interior for

the gypsy Azro’s (HARVEY KEITEL’s) caravan, thereby

drawing a parallel between his inability to look after his

two “sons” (the monkey and his real son Peter) and Amy’s

difficulties of caring for her daughter. The film at one level

is about the inadequacies of parenthood: Dilley’s designs

draw our attention to this.

Bibliography

Pat Jankiewicz, “Time Capsule: Leslie Dilley,” Starburst 213 (May

1996): 58–61.

DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?

PHILIP K. DICK’s 1968 novel posits a religion—Mercerism—

that allows Earth’s inhabitants to extract some hope from

their lives in the wake of a nuclear holocaust. BLADE RUN-

NER, Ridley Scott’s version of the novel, retains the bleak,

dark and depressing portrait of a futuristic society. However,

it resituates the action not in San Francisco of 1992, but in

LOS ANGELES of 2019. In this new world there has not

been a world war and the city is certainly not deserted. On

the contrary, it is teeming with people, all of whom seem to

be soulless, acting according to prearranged ideas rather

than thinking on their own. The film’s center of attention is

not on Isidore (who is eliminated altogether) but on

Deckard (HARRISON FORD), who is changed from a free-

lance bounty hunter into a member of the state bureaucracy,

despairing at what he sees. As he comes to love Rachael

(SEAN YOUNG), Deckard undergoes a spiritual growth by

ignoring the constraints of a society that objectifies and

dehumanizes the androids (renamed REPLICANTS in the

film). In both novel and film, Deckard becomes progres-

sively uncertain about the replicants’ inhumanity. This skep-

ticism becomes more explicit in the novel when Deckard

visits a police station staffed by androids and presided over

by Inspector Garland. Garland reveals that both he (Gar-

land) and Resch (the bounty hunter introduced to Deckard)

are androids. Having encountered such people, Deckard

begins to question whether the androids are as inhuman as

he once assumed, and whether they should be “retired” (i.e.,

exterminated). Scott omits this sequence: Deckard experi-

ences his awakening by means of a growing sexual attraction

to Rachael. Scott also makes Rachael a more interesting

character: a replicant who thinks she is human who eventu-

ally discovers she is a replicant. The film’s ending is altered

from the book, in which Deckard kills the three replicants

before returning home to his wife. In the film, Batty (RUT-

GER HAUER) saves Deckard before dying; as he does so, he

becomes the savior for Blade Runner’s immoral world. As he

dies he releases a white dove which flies up and away from

him—a clear allusion to the fact that Batty’s soul now

ascends heavenwards. This conclusion, while optimistic in

one sense, also underlines the film’s ambiguity; it is difficult

to separate human beings from androids. This further

emphasized in the 1992 DIRECTOR’S CUT of the film,

when Deckard picks up an aluminum foil unicorn, referring

us back to an earlier dream sequence (omitted from the

original 1982 US theatrical release) when Deckard dreams

about a unicorn running through a field. This implies that

the cop Gaff (EDWARD JAMES OLMOS) has access to

Deckard’s implanted memories.

In general the film concentrates more on visual detail

rather than plot (as in the novel). Perhaps this represents one

of its shortcomings; in a 2007 documentary on the differ-

ence between the novel and film, screenwriter DAVID PEO-

PLES expressed the opinion that perhaps the film’s narrative

could have been sharper.

Reference

David Peoples, interviewed in “Sacrificial Sheep: Novel vs. Film,” Fea-

turette included in Blade Runner: Collector’s Edition (Los Angeles:

DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?

■

Warner Bros. Entertainment and the Blade Runner Partnership,

2007), Disc 4.

Bibliography

Jason P. Vest, Future Imperfect: Philip K. Dick at the Movies (West-

port, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2007).

DOBKIN, DAVID (1969– )

Born in Washington, DC, Dobkin made his name directing

music videos for Elton John, John Lee Hooker, and Bryan

Ferry.

The Ridley Scott-produced black comedy CLAY PIGEONS

was his major feature film debut, following an episode of the

television series Love Street (1995). Dobkin claimed he was

drawn to MATT HEALY’s script (originally titled “In Too

Deep”) as it was “at once very dark and very funny. It’s a very

risky film,” taking place in a SMALL TOWN, a place he

believed to be “really outrageous and interesting. There’s

something scarier about when things are isolated; they tend

to become more extreme and more personified.” The actors

admired Dobkin’s enthusiasm for the film: JOAQUIN

PHOENIX was quoted in an interview as saying that the

director “has a great sense of rhythm, with music and

imagery combined.” One such sequence could be seen in the

sequence where Lester Long (VINCE VAUGHN) knifes

Amanda (GEORGINA CATES) to death, which took place to

the strains of Elvis Presley’s “It’s Now or Never” on the

soundtrack. Not only did this sum up Long’s state of mind,

but the romantic nature of the song provides a savage coun-

terpoint to what takes place on the screen.

Reference

David Dobkin, Joaquin Phoenix, interviewed in “Production Notes:

Clay Pigeons,” included on the European DVD release of the film

(Frankfurt: BY Internationale Medien und Film, 1998).

Bibliography

“Clay Pigeons,” Entry in Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Clay_Pigeons (accessed 8 November 2008).

DOBROWLSKI, MAREK (?– )

Dobrowlski’s films include Last Action Hero (1993) (Art

Director), The Craft (1996) (Production Designer), and Into

the West (Miniseries, 2005) (Production Designer).

As production designer for THE COMPANY,Dobrowl-

ski created a world of shadows and dark corners appropri-

ate to the world of spying. Filming took place in several

locations, including Toronto and Budapest, a city which,

according to Dobrowlski in the production notes, “pre-

sented logistical challenges, but ...offered beautiful gleam-

ing architecture and, right alongside it, some wonderfully

old, rough-hewn structures with run-down alleys and

decrepit courtyards that connote foreboding images of lurk-

ing spies and intrigue. It’s a wonderful backdrop for a Cold

War battleground.”

One sequence in particular was filmed in Vac Prison, a

long-term detention center forty minutes outside the city.

Built in the eighteenth century as a college for aristocrats, the

building was turned into a prison a century later, and housed

many political prisoners rounded up by the Hungarian secret

police (AVH) during the period of Soviet rule. Dobrowlski

and art director Laszlo Rajk found the experience of filming

there a painful one: Rajk said in the production notes that

“there were so many writers, anti-government leaders and

intellectuals held in Vac that it was referred to as ‘the best

political union in the world.’” Scientists and academicians

were so numerous in the prison that the Communist govern-

ment relied on them to conduct research in physics and math

and to translate English literature into Hungarian.

Reference

Production Notes: The Company, http://www.tnt.tv/series/thecompany/

bts/ (accessed 12 August 2008).

DOCTOR WHO

Long-running British science fiction television series

(1962–89) recently revived with great success. Some critics

of Scott have claimed that he worked on the series in the

mid-1960s, but Scott himself emphasizes that he had no

connection with the series, other than to work with VERITY

LAMBERT on ADAM ADAMANT LIVES! (Lambert herself

was responsible for the famous police box in Dr. Who.)

Bibliography

“Director Ridley Scott Quizzed,” BBC News Forum, 26 March 2001,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/forum/1234177.stm

(accessed 26 February 2009).

DOMINIK, ANDREW (1967– )

Born in New Zealand, Dominik worked in music and video

production before making his first feature film Chopper

(2000) starring ERIC BANA.

According to the production notes, when he read Ron

Hansen’s THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE

COWARD ROBERT FORD (NOVEL), he was intrigued by

the characters—especially Robert Ford: “This was a portrait

...I had never seen before ...It gives you a sense of what

that event might actually have been like for him—to shoot

a man in his own house with Jesse’s wife and children nearby

and then to wait around for days with a brother who was

completely unnerved, and try to deal with the enormity of

public reaction. You see his anxiety, his neediness and his

ambition and you think, ‘That’s probably what it was like.’

That’s what moved me about the book and what I wanted

to capture on screen.”

■

DOBKIN, DAVID (1969– )

The film itself was part funded by BRAD PITT’s own

company Plan B and Ridley Scott’s SCOTT FREE. It was

eventually completed in November 2006, but release was

delayed a year while the final cut was assembled. Evidently

Dominik was removed from the production at this point.

The Assassination of Jesse James bears strong resem-

blances to earlier Westerns involving two characters; for

example, Sam Peckinpah’s PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE

KID, that tell of “violent, real-life criminal[s].” However, the

film’s visual style was very different, as Dominik explained

to the British film magazine Empire: “We looked at a lot of

old period photographs. You realise that the era [1882] didn’t

seem Western; it was more Dickens, more Victorian. It

looked like Oliver Twist.” In another interview with Paul

Whittington Dominik explained further: “The story is set

mainly in St. Joseph and Kansas City, which were big, rap-

idly expanding cities at that period, so it wasn’t like the old

frontier. Nobody wore cowboy hats, they wore homburgs

and bowlers. So the idea of making a Dickensian Western

was very appealing.”

References

“About the Production,” http://party931.com/common/movies/

notes/54706-1-full.html (accessed 12 August 2008); Mark Salisbury,

“Sticking to his Guns,” Time Out, 7 November 2007, 61; The Assas-

sination of Jesse James ...By the Coward Robert Ford. Big Title,

Big Ideas,” Empire 220 (October 2007): 12–14; Paul Whittington,

“The Big Interview: Andrew Dominik, The Assassination of Jesse

James,” Irish Independent, 30 November 2007, www.independent.ie/

entertainment/day-and-night/the-big-interview-andrew-dominik-

the-assassination-of-jesse-james-1233098.html (accessed 6 Febru-

ary 2009).

DOUGLAS, MICHAEL (1944– )

Born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the son of Kirk and

Diana Douglas, who divorced when he was six years old. His

first real break came as Inspector Steve Keller in the televi-

sion series The Streets of San Francisco (1972–1976), oppo-

site Karl Malden. He left the show to produce One Flew Over

the Cuckoo’s Nest (1976). Perhaps his greatest success came

in 1987, when he played Gordon Gekko in Wall Street,

recently voted Number Twenty-Five in Premiere magazine’s

Twenty Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.

Douglas suggested in an interview published to the

film’s release that he was drawn to BLACK RAIN on account

of its subject matter: “I felt . . . that there was something

between us and Japan that was unresolved, that was a mix-

ture of hostility and admiration on both sides—really con-

fused . . . I thought . . . that this particular picture, as a

cop-action picture, could explore some of the differences in

customs and behavior—explore some of the hostilities that

our two cultures and societies have for each other.” Although

producing as well as starring in the film, Douglas did not

travel to Japan for the location-scouting expeditions as he

wanted to see the country with fresh eyes. In an interview

accompanying the film’s DVD release he recalled that he was

also looking for an alternative to the unsympathetic roles he

had played in Wall Street and Fatal Attraction (also 1987).

Douglas plays the central character Nick Conklin as a

fundamentally good person, dedicated to his job, who has

fallen prey to temptation by accepting bribes from the mafia.

Scott suggested in an interview accompanying the DVD that

this was inevitable, given the fact that he was paying alimony

to his ex-wife and living on a subsistence salary. To atone for

his guilt, he seeks to prove himself the best biker in town as

he races along the banks of the Hudson River in NEW

YORK. The fact that he wins in the end provides at least par-

tial compensation for an unfulfilled existence in which he

can see his children very infrequently, except to take them to

school or offer them rides on the back of his bike.

Douglas’s Nick rarely departs from the stereotype of a

hard-bitten cop, similar to Mike Keller in The Streets of San

Francisco. He swears at his Japanese counterparts when they

fail to understand him and leaves himself open to ridicule

when he complains that no one speaks “fucking English,”

only to find that Masahiro (KEN TAKAKURA) does indeed

speak the language. However, Nick’s obstinacy is also his

greatest virtue as he refuses to be dissuaded from the task of

catching the yakuza leader Sato (YUSAKU MATSUDA). His

worst enemy is “the suits”—those bureaucrats who prevent

him carrying out his duty by quoting the rulebook at him.

Nick undergoes something of a change of heart as he

realizes that things can be accomplished more smoothly if

he works with Masahiro rather than resenting him. He

encourages his Japanese colleague not to think too much but

to “grab [his] balls”—in other words, rely on spontaneity.

Nick tries to eat noodles with chopsticks like the locals,

despite finding it difficult. None of these scenes actually

extend Douglas’s range as an actor, but at least they show

him portraying the character more sympathetically.

In the end, however, Nick remains a man’s man, favoring

the security of male bonding over female company and per-

petually seeking to prove himself through violent means. This

is especially true at the end when he seeks out and captures

Sato at the sake factory. The film ends with Nick triumphantly

leaving the country having acquired some understanding of

local customs (he can now eat noodles with chopsticks). This

seems somehow appropriate for Douglas’s star persona dur-

ing the late 1980s, which sought to move away from the Wall

Street image of a tough, no-nonsense operator and instead

combine heroism with sensitivity (hence his choice to star

in comedies such as The War of the Roses).

Not all critics liked his performance. The British

monthly Film Review took him to task for his “obvious

DOUGLAS, MICHAEL (1944– )

■

desire to be Mel Gibson. He runs down the road with a gun,

sports a mullet [haircut] more dangerous than the gang he’s

pursuing and behaves in a generally bad-ass way.” However,

Douglas told Films and Filming that he was pleased with the

fact that “the movie has not only done incredible business

in Japan, but all the reviews talk about it as an accurate por-

trayal of their country by foreigners. That’s very important

when you’re making a film about somebody else’s culture.”

References

“Black Rain,” Film Review, November 2000, 48; Donald Chase, “In

Black Rain, East Meets West with a Bang! Bang!,” New York Times,

17 September 1989, B7; Michael Douglas, interviewed in “Black

Rain: The Script, The Cast,” Special Feature included in the Special

Collector’s Edition DVD release of Black Rain (d. Laurent Bouzereau)

(Los Angeles: Paramount Pictures, 2006); Jeff Hayward,“The Rain

Man,” Films and Filming 422 (December 1989): 26; Ridley Scott,

interviewed in “Black Rain: The Making of the Film Part 1,” Spe-

cial Feature included in the Special Collector’s Edition DVD release

of Black Rain (d. Laurent Bouzereau) (Los Angeles: Paramount Pic-

tures, 2006).

DUDLEY, ANNE (1956– )

Born Anne Jennifer Beckingham in Chatham, Great Britain.

She was an original member of the 1980s rock band the Art

of Noise. Her film and television scores include The Crying

Game (1992), The Full Monty (1997), and Bright Young

Things (2003). For TRISTAN + ISOLDE Anne Dudley had

some big Wagner-shaped shoes to fill: rather than try to

reproduce the nineteenth century rhythms, she returned

instead to the story’s Celtic origins. Reviewing her score for

the trade journal Music from the Movies, Michael Beek wrote

that “the music is broad and full of colour; the stylistic

blending of classic orchestral devices, modernistic elements

and Celtic hues help to bring the story to life and work well

with the beautiful locations and the pretty faces of the

romantic leads. [The score for] Tristan + Isolde is, in that

sense then, aesthetically pleasing and while it doesn’t really

do anything too unexpected, I discover more to enjoy with

each listen.”

Reference

Michael Beek, “Tristan + Isolde,” Music From the Movies 50–51

(October 2006): 96.

“THE DUEL”

1908 short story by Joseph Conrad. Based on actual events,

Joseph Conrad’s “The Duel” depicts the story of an absurd

series of duels between two officers of Napoleon’s army at

first fought with swords; however, the conflict escalates into

a dangerous obsession with HONOR and is finally settled

with pistols. Conrad borrowed freely (consciously or uncon-

sciously) from an 1848 Harper’s article, though he claimed

in his 1920 author’s note to A Set of Six that he had found

the story in a “ten-line paragraph” in a “small provincial

paper in the South of France” and had to “invent” the plot

himself. Conrad called the story of Feraud and D’Hubert

“simply entertainment.” Joseph Conrad and Ridley Scott

compared their earliest work in fiction and film to adversar-

ial conflicts, each using a metaphor common to his time—

the pen as sword for Conrad, and the camera as gun for

Scott. Conrad called the pen “the cold steel of our days” and

constructed an epic simile for the scattered results of his

early writing attempts, comparing the manuscript pages to

the wounded on a battlefield. Scott’s metaphor for filmmak-

ing is apparent when he says that, when he was “shooting”

his first feature film THE DUELLISTS based on “The Duel,”

he was thinking of it not as an art film but as a Western.

Scott’s other films, especially ALIEN, BLADE RUNNER,

and THELMA & LOUISE suggest that he was drawn to “The

Duel” for two reasons. First, since its theme (the custom of

dueling) was already an anachronism at the dawn of the

twentieth century, Conrad was able to deal with dueling with

the kind of detachment that seemed appropriate to Scott’s

sensibility. Second, dueling has formed a central theme in

Scott’s subsequent films. The Duellists emphasizes duality as

it explores Conrad’s motifs of the secret code. Nor does Scott

leave Conrad behind after The Duellists.In Alien, for exam-

ple, the spaceship is called the NOSTROMO.In Blade Run-

ner dueling and duality is treated on an even larger scale as

Scott shows how the positive aspects of the American Rev-

olution had been transformed into the POSTMODERN

nightmare of American corporate and technological tyranny.

In AMERICAN GANGSTER the plot revolves around a duel

of wits between Frank Lucas (DENZEL WASHINGTON)

and Richie Roberts (RUSSELL CROWE).

Reference

Ridley Scott, quoted in What’s On in London, 10 July 1991, 78.

THE DUELLISTS

GB 1977 r/t 100 min col. Production Companies: Enigma/

National Film Finance Corporation (NFFC). Producers:

David Puttnam and Ivor Powell. Director: Ridley Scott.

Writer: Gerald Vaughan-Hughes from an original story “The

Duel” by Joseph Conrad. Director of Photography: Frank

Tidy. Production Designer: Ann Mollo. Music: Howard Blake.

Cast: Keith Carradine (D’Hubert), Harvey Keitel (Feraud),

Albert Finney (Fouché), Edward Fox (Colonel), Cristina

Raines (Adele), Robert Stephens (General Treillard), Tom

Conti (Dr. Jacquin), Diana Quick (Laura), Meg Wynn Owen

(Leonie), Stacy Keach (Narrator).

The Duellists was Ridley Scott’s second attempt to make

a feature film after fifteen years of directing television com-

■

DUDLEY, ANNE (1956– )

mercials. He had previously worked with screenwriter GER-

ALD VAUGHAN-HUGHES on a screenplay of the Gunpow-

der Plot (1605), but failed to find funding. He had written

two screenplays himself—“Castle X” for THE BEE GEES,

and “Ronnie and Leo,” a heist movie with Michael York and

Ernest Borgnine—neither of which were produced.

For The Duellists Scott secured the $900,000 budget

from Paramount Pictures, but the studio was initially reluc-

tant to give the go-ahead, especially as the weather was likely

to hold up production. Eventually they relented on condi-

tion that Scott provided a completion bond; Scott offered

himself as the bond and waived his director’s fee. Filming

began in September 1976 in the town of Sarlat in the Dor-

dogne region of France and took fifty-six days.

The creative personnel had all worked with Scott dur-

ing his career in advertising. Cinematographer FRANK

TIDY had never made a film before. Filming began; after five

days Scott, dissatisfied with the results, decided to operate

the camera himself while instructing the actors at the same

time, which helped him to focus more specifically on aspects

of the mise-en-scène—specifically, sets, lighting, and posi-

tioning actors within the frame. This method of working

helped Scott to establish his reputation as a pictorial direc-

tor, someone who later on would be able to make epics like

GLADIATOR or KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.

Unlike Joseph Conrad’s original story “THE DUEL”

(1908), Scott switches the focus of attention to the duels

themselves. There are six in The Duellists, each escalating in

terms of the danger of the weapon used: two are with rapiers;

two with sabers; and two with pistols. In the first of these,

Feraud is wounded, justly, because he has broken the code of

HONOR by not providing seconds. In the second rapier

duel, D’Hubert is wounded, again justly, because D’Hubert

is fully aware of the absurdity and illegality of what is going

on. In the third duel, fought with sabers, seconds are

arranged but the duelists do not adhere to the rule of first

blood, fighting to a standstill and falling into each other’s

arms at the end. The next saber duel is fought on horseback,

and goes to D’Hubert; if only by luck rather than judgment.

Of the final pair of duels, fought with pistols, only the

last is in Conrad’s story. Scott adds another duel taking place

in Russia during the retreat of Napoleon’s army from

Moscow. Neither the bitter cold nor the political ambitions

of the ruler can deter Feraud from trying to complete his

revenge. As the two men stand ready to fire at one another,

a Cossack clad in skins (Richard Graydon) appears on horse-

back and mockingly laughs at the two men settling a point

of honor in such treacherous conditions. Feraud responds

by shooting the Cossack dead, while the other Cossacks in

the background are shot by the other three balls in the two

duelists’ pistols. Ridiculous as they are, they are still good

soldiers when they put their guns to proper use.

Richard Collins, in an illuminating article on the film,

suggests that such moments focus our attention “on the

ludicrous aspects of the adversaries’ personal war.” This is

further emphasized by the photography; for example, the

second duel scene is at dawn with the two characters pic-

tured in a long shot against a brightening dawn sky, the trees

and bushes towering above them. This suggests that the

characters have been quite literally swallowed up by the

landscape; their fight (which seems so important to them

that they are prepared to keep it going on any and every

occasion) appears tremendously insignificant. Life will go

on, whether or not one of them perishes at the other’s

hands. Neither D’Hubert and Feraud are longer part of civ-

ilization any longer; rather, they resemble pygmies cast into

the wilderness fighting for nothing in particular.

The fourth duel scene—fought on horseback with

sabers—takes place once again at dawn. Here Scott takes

great care with the mise-en-scène as the camera zooms in on

D’Hubert’s face, ominous music in the background. As he

begins to ride towards Feraud, the action dissolves into a

sequence of rapid cuts that show his state of mind as he pre-

pares to fight. His life passes before him: his girlfriend, his

past life as a soldier, a close-up of Feraud’s face, and then

back to D’Hubert’s face. The camera cuts between two track-

ing shots of the two soldiers riding towards one another as

the music gradually mounts to a crescendo of discordant

violins. The scene ends with a shot of Feraud’s ceremonial

peaked cap crashing to the ground, and a close-up of D’Hu-

bert’s bloodied sword before showing D’Hubert on his horse

jumping over a haystack and riding off into the distance.

This moment, following the example of classic Westerns like

John Ford’s The Searchers (1956), clearly suggests that he is

once again being swallowed up by the landscape. Although

continuing to live the life of a soldier in Napoleon’s army, he

clearly prefers the wilderness.

The climactic duel scene shows the two protagonists

quite literally merging with the landscape. All pretense of for-

mality has been abandoned; this is a fight to the death. D’Hu-

bert stands in front of a clump of tall pine trees without

leaves, a wan sun glinting down on his pistols. Meanwhile,

Feraud walks down a steep hill towards a lonely isolated wall,

brushing some twigs out of the way as he does so. Nothing

can be heard on the soundtrack except the sound of violin

music (once again) and the crack of leaves and twigs as the

two protagonists search for one another. Richard Collins is

right in saying that the whole sequence is reminiscent of Fred

Zinnemann’s High Noon (1952). Again Scott employs

another shot where Feraud is photographed against the vast

background of the landscape, emphasizing his insignificance.

The climax is shot as a series of intercut close-ups between

the two men, pistols in hand, pointing them at one another:

truly a Gunfight at the Paris Corral. The scene ends with Fer-

THE DUELLISTS

■