Sir Ridley Scott GBE was born on the 30th of November 1937,
He is an English filmmaker who has directed and produced films since the late 1970's.
Ridley was born in South Shields, County Durham, 12 miles from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in the North East of England.
His father Francis ("Frank") Percy Scott, was a partner in a commercial shipping business based in Newcastle and served as a Colonel in the Royal Engineers during the Second World War. His mother Elizabeth was the daughter of a miner. Frank and Elizabeth had three sons Ridley, Tony & Frank Jr.
In an interview in 2016 Scott said this about his early life and family dynamic,
"My mum brought three boys up: my dad was in the army and so he was frequently away. During the war and post-war, we tended to travel following him around so my mum was the boss. She laid down the law and the law was God. We just said, 'Yup, okay' – we didn't argue.
The young Ridley developed an interest in science fiction as a child when he read the novels of H. G. Wells as a child. His fondness for science-fiction led him to see films such as,
"The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951), "Them!" (1954) & "It! The Terror from Beyond Space" (1958)
But Ridley developed a general love of cinema. His grand-uncle Dixon Scott was a pioneer of the cinema chain and opened many cinemas around Tyneside. One of his cinemas, Tyneside Cinema, is still operating in Newcastle.
Scott did say in an interview he didn't see himself making a science fiction film until he saw Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968) on the big screen.
"Once I saw that, I knew what I could do."
Ridley Scott attended "Grangefield Grammar School" in Stockton on Tees, He then studied at "West Hartlepool College of Art" to obtain a diploma in design, He then went on to study at "The Royal College of Art" in London in the early 60s. While there he made contributions to the College Magazine "ARK" and worked to help establish the Colleges film department.
As part of his final show at Art Collage he made and showed a short film called
"Boy and Bicycle" starring both his younger brother and his father.
After he graduated in 1963, he secured a job as a trainee set designer with the BBC, He worked on the popular television police series Z-Cars and nearly landed a job working on iconic BBC sci-fi show Dr Who but that didn't pan out.
In 1965, he began directing episodes of television series for the BBC including,
"Adam Adamant Lives!" the cult TV show starring Gerald Harper & Juliet Harmer.
The titular character was an adventurer born in 1867, who had been revived from hibernation in 1966, Offering a satirical look at life in 1960s Britain through the eyes of a Victorian.
In 1968, Ridley and his younger brother Tony Scott (who went on to become a successful film director in his own right) founded
Ridley Scott Associates (RSA).
RSA was set up as a production company to make films and specialised in commercials.
If you are a regular reader of this blog you can see his career is on a very similar trajectory to Alan Parker. They were both working at the same time and would have been competing for jobs in the 1970s.
Ridley Scott directed a lot of commercials at RSA, including a Hovis bread advert in 1973 called "Bike Round" The ad utilised the slow movement of DvoÅ™ák's "New World" symphony arranged for brass and was filmed in Gold Hill, Shaftesbury, Dorset.
This nostalgia themed television advert really captured the public imagination,
In 2006 it was voted the UK's favourite commercial of all time. (Suck It! Alan Parker)
In the 1970s the Chanel No. 5 brand needed revitalisation having run the risk of being labelled as mass market and passé.
In the 1970s and 1980s Scott and RSA tackled this challenge laid down by "Chanel" and rejuvenated the brand by making a new kind of television commercial, crafting inventive mini-films with production design that evokes surreal fantasy and seduction. This approach to advertising fragrances revolutionised the industry and has remained the norm to the present day.
In 1977 Ridley Scott made his feature directorial debut with the film...
The Duellists (1977)
Directed by Ridley Scott, Screenplay by Gerald Vaughan-Hughes, Based on the 1908 novella "The Duel" by Joseph Conrad,
Produced by David Puttnam, Music by Howard Blake, Cinematography by Frank Tidy, Edited by Michael Bradsell & Pamela Power, Starring Harvey Keitel, Keith Carradine, Albert Finney, Edward Fox,
Cristina Raines, Robert Stephens, Tom Conti
& Stacy Keach.
Armand d'Hubert (Keith Carradine) and Gabriel Féraud (Harvey Keitel) are French soldiers under Napoleon. A trivial quarrel between d'Hubert and Féraud escalates into a lifelong grudge, and, as war rages on, the officers repeatedly challenge one another to violent sword and pistol duels. After 15 years, both men have distinguished themselves through their service and become generals, however, their mutual hatred never ceases, even when the initial cause of their rivalry is forgotten.
Scott intended his debut feature to be a historic drama telling the story of Guy Fawkes and the 1605 Gunpowder Plot. He hired screenwriter Gerald Vaughan-Hughes to pen the script but when the financing for the Guy Fawkes project fell through Vaughan-Hughes turned his attention to adapting the 1907 novella "The Duel" by Joseph Conrad into the screenplay
"The Duellists".
Moving into preproduction, Scott's first choices to play the two leads was Oliver Reed and Michael York but Paramount Pictures who were funding the film informed him that those actors would be unavailable to Ridley due to budgetary reasons. Paramount gave Scott a list of four actors he could afford . Off that list he picked Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel but Scott then had to spend several months convincing the actors to accept the roles.
Legendary actor Albert Finney appears in the film even though the production could not afford him. Finney agreed to appear in the film at the behest of this then-girlfriend Diana Quick who was an actress in the cast. He filmed his scene in a single day and agreed to be paid with the gift of a case of champagne.
The film was shot on location in and around Sarlat-la-Canéda in the Dordogne region of France. The winter scenes set in Moscow were shot in the Cairngorms of Scotland, near Aviemore. The final duel scene was filmed at the unrestored Château de Commarque.
The film is obviously influenced by Stanley Kubrick's 1975 film "Barry Lyndon" which is not a bad thing!
Scott even composed the last scene to reference famous paintings of Napoleon in his South Atlantic exile by Franz Josef Sandmann.
On its release "The Duellists" received a positive reception from critics. Here are some random quotes,
"The movie - uses its beauty much in the way that other movies use soundtrack music, to set mood.", "it's consistently entertaining—and eerily beautiful.", the sword fights were "the best I've ever seen".
The casting of Keitel and Carradine as French hussars is at times criticised but we know Scott was only working within his bugtery restraints.
"The Duellists" (1977) is lauded for its historically authentic portrayal of Napoleonic uniforms and military conduct, as well as its generally accurate early-19th-century fencing techniques as recreated by fight choreographer William Hobbs.
Screenwriter Gregory Widen has stated "The Duellists" was the inspiration for him to write the phantasy-adventure film "Highlander"(1986).
Most significantly for Ridley Scott this film won him the award for "Best First Work" at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival. which will have been a real boost to his reputation in the industry.
The film was reported to have a budget of $900'000 in 1976 ($5m in 2024) the box office figures are not available for this film. Although the film was not ignored I'm sure it wasn't a smash hit at the time due to its subject matter and setting but that is kind of besides the point.
His next film will not only redefine a genre and launch a franchise it will be a boxoffice juggernaut and become a cult classic.
End of Part One!
