Who's To Blame For the Duel?
Who's to blame for the non-stop duelling between D'Hubert (Keith Carradine) and Feraud (Harvey Keitel)?
D'Hubert!
Lieutenant Feraud is a short-fuse, volatile tempered individual, the kind you don't want to piss off even though he looks to be only 5'6". But he must have some kind of talent and capability because he keeps rising in the officer ranks like Lieutenant D'Hubert. Eventually both men reach the rank of brigadier general (general de' brigade). Quite possibly had it not been for over ten years of non-stop European warfare, neither man would have risen that far in rank. Feraud would have been stuck at the rank of captain and D'Hubert either at major or maybe lieutenant-colonel, if he was lucky.
Okay, this is what I mean. Lieutenant D'Hubert completely mishandled the situation when he approached Lieutenant Feraud at the first time. D'Hubert spoke in a haughty and cocky manner, perhaps typical of young, brash lieutenants full of themselves. He was bound to piss off an angry personality like Feraud. If I was tasked to deliver the general's message to Feraud, I would have quickly and flatly handed him the message then left. True, D'Hubert was supposed to escort Feraud back to barracks, but there was no way an honor-bound character like Feraud was going to desert and skip town. I would not have engaged in any extraneous conversation or bantering with Feraud. He was already pissed off and just needed someone else to take his anger out on. D'Hubert allowed Feraud to pull him into an angry verbal contest that escalated into verbal vitriol then physical violence.
I don't like the Feraud character. He comes off too easily as a prick. Yet this guy does have close friends. I'm astonished that a thin-skinned, easily-offended guy like Feraud even has friends. Also, after watching THE DUELLISTS several times, I came to appreciate that Feraud did have a sense of fair play. In all his duels with D'Hubert, he never took cheap shots at D'Hubert, never attacked him from behind and gave him every chance when he fell down to get up. In the second duel, Feraud even picks up D'Hubert's dropped rapier and hands it to D'Hubert's second (assistant-friend). For his part, D'Hubert reciprocated the fair fighting.
P.S. Did anyone love that funky organ music being played at the officers' tavern in LUBECK, during the scene Captain D'Hubert visits to meet his friend and reliable second? The organ player kept playing the same short tune over and over again. It was the kind of truly off-the-wall funky, repeating tune that I would have to be really stoned in order to enjoy.