The Last Duel

I wasn’t really drawn to it when it first came out in theaters, but Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel had been sitting on “My List” since I activated my HBO-Max subscription. During free time, I would look at it and then dutifully pick something else. But last night, I finally watched it. Knowing the story, it is not surprising that the movie, sort of, reflected the kerfuffle in regards to Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett-Smith, and Will Smith and the Academy Awards. I’m not going to retell that story, but if you aren’t aware of what happened, Variety has a pretty straight-forward take on it. I’m also not going to revisit my initial speculation on whether it might have been a prank, which you can read on my Medium page. Much like the OJ Simpson trial, this one incident seems to divide us against each other and, in many cases, along racial lines.

The morning after the incident I just said simply to my composition students, “Boy, if I’d done that my wife would’ve let me have it. She’s not a big fan of me defending her honor; she doesn’t need me to defend her.”

So, here I am, after a long week, watching a movie where a man is “defending the honor” of his wife. The movie, if you aren’t aware, is the story of the last trial by combat in medieval France. Though it had big, bankable stars and an acclaimed director, it didn’t do very well. Of course, though the film was greenlit in 2015, shooting didn’t start…