Other Reviews in this Series: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1941, Empire of the Sun, Amistad, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Catch Me If You Can, War of the Worlds, Munich, Lincoln
Other Spielberg Reviews: Jaws, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Bridge of Spies
(If you haven't already, check out my new archive over there ---->)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Richard Matheson
Cast: Dennis Weaver
Runtime: 90 mins.
1971
Duel, shot in just over a dozen days, is a low-budget direct-to-television movie about a tractor-trailer that terrorizes an everyman protagonist in his little red car. Nothing about that description sounds auspicious, or even vaguely desirable, unless you're of the sort who deliberately seeks out B-movie schlock. Thankfully, that misleading description lacked the movie's two most important ingredients: Duel was written by Richard Matheson and directed by Steven Spielberg.
I'll talk about Matheson first, since that conversation is more straightforward. Matheson was a renowned writer of genre fiction. He made his name in horror, penning oft-adapted stories like The Shrinking Man and I Am Legend (significantly superior to its Will Smith adaptation). He's a good writer; he excels at wringing strong material out of juicy concepts. Fortunately just such a concept was plopped into his lap when a truck driver aggressively tailgated Matheson and a friend to the point that they became furious and afraid. Matheson translated this experience into a story called Duel, and then adapted that story into a screenplay of the same name.
The screenplay is far from flashy. The narrative landscape Matheson constructs is minimalistic, practically existential. Traveling salesman and henpecked husband David Mann is driving to an important meeting. This trip takes him from suburbia to a long lonely deserted road. On that road he encounters a nasty smelly tractor-trailer that he casually passes. The truck then zooms past David, slowing down in a deliberate gesture of defiance. This tete-a-tete blossoms into an elaborate game of cat and mouse. David tries desperately to rid himself of this infuriating obstacle, and the unseen truck driver user every physical and psychological advantage he has to ruin David's day.
It all feels rather allegorical, with David Mann representing Man, as well as the underdog in the classic David vs. Goliath conflict, whereas the truck represents the unknown and unknowable--a force of death, disease, destruction, an enemy without compassion or humanity.
Matheson is brilliant at structuring and pacing what little plot there is. The truck driver's violent gestures unfold in a dramatic series of escalations. Even the few non-driving scenes are rife with tension. Most of the film is blissfully bereft of dialogue, riding along on that tension alone. This is undercut by some hammy voiceover that crops up about halfway to two thirds through the movie. The choice is peculiar, but it's infrequent enough that it doesn't mar the experience as a whole.
I suppose Matheson should be excused for the unnecessary expository voiceover he dumped into the screenplay. There's no way he could have known that the film's director would happen to be one of the most gifted visual storytellers of all time.
Duel was Spielberg's breakthrough film, so successful on television that it earned a theatrical release which required Spielberg to shoot more footage. Very few times in the history of film has a directorial debut by someone so young (twenty-three) been so proficient and self-assured--in a word, perfect. In fact, Duel isn't merely a good direct-to-TV movie, or even a good directorial debut. Duel is an excellent all-around movie, a genre classic that would top the list of most directors' output, but in Spielberg's filmography simply occupies a comfortable spot in the better half of his work.
From the opening shot, it's clear that Duel rests assuredly in the hands of an artist. We start in a blackout that slowly transforms into a receding garage, and we realize that our perspective is affixed to the hood of a car. For the next few minutes, as the credits play, we are a vehicle cruising down the road. We watch as the suburbs turn to the sticks, and the traffic ebbs and flows. We listen as the radio drones unintelligibly. The interplay of images, edits, and sound mixing creates a dreamlike aura that nails how it feels to be driving for hours.
Then, of course, this dream state is shattered by the antagonist. The truck.
Spielberg shoots the truck like a beast, hulking and dominating the frame when it means to be intimidating Mann, and slinking through the background of shots when it means to be stalking him. This movie should be required viewing in film school for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which being the way Spielberg characterizes a hulking ton of metal so exquisitely by framing and shooting it in so many different ways. The sound design is no slacker here either, blasting us with the tanker's gnarly engine to wipe out the calm purring of the protagonist's journey.
The way the tanker prowls in and out of view, always present whether it is visible or not, can't help but evoke Jaws, Spielberg's next movie, the one that cemented him in the cultural consciousness. The truck and the shark are shot in similar ways. One particular jump scare with the truck shooting into the back of the frame especially reminded me of the infamous chum-shoveling shot from Jaws. If anything, though, the truck is more relentless and present than even that infamous blockbuster movie monster.
You'd think the premise would get old. How many ways can a truck bother a car? How many ways can you film a driver being nervous? These are legitimate questions. Between Matheson's inventiveness and Spielberg's mastery, those questions are wrestled to the ground and forced to beg for mercy.
Some of the more visceral cinematography tricks feel like spiritual predecessors to the Mad Max series, which wouldn't hit the scene for another eight years. The high speed tension is relentless. Spielberg is and has always been a master of ratcheting up suspense using every single tool available in the mise en scene, a trick that most action directors ignore entirely, and which was recently resurrected in the popular consciousness by our good friend Fury Road.
But the real incredible work is done with mirrors. Every driver knows that a central aspect of driving is constant checking and rechecking of mirrors. It's the main tool you have to enhance situational awareness and erase the blind spots that are inherent to operating a large metal motor vehicle. Spielberg is keenly aware of this, and rather than shoot the car chases exclusively from cool angles on the outside, a great deal of the runtime is spent within the claustrophobic confines of Mann's car, which would get boring if Spielberg didn't have such precise control over reflections in his scene compositions. It's a trick that shows up again and again in just about every Spielberg movie (think the T-Rex jeep chase in Jurassic Park, or this), and I have to wonder about the chicken and egg: Does Spielberg use so many reflections in his movies because he was forced to perfect that technique for Duel, or did he use that technique in Duel because it came naturally to him? The answer is ultimately irrelevant, but I'm looking forward to tracking that visual motif through his films; reflections are an excellent way to open up a scene by including multiple visual landscapes in one, like an image-based nesting doll.
Towards the end there is a sequence or two in which the tension becomes a wee bit tiresome, and I can see how this was constructed for a television timeframe, although some of my favorite scenes were added for the feature film version, so I can't imagine the original is better in any way. The film is imperfect, but only just barely. Duel is the purest thriller Spielberg has ever constructed, one of the purer thrillers in all of film perhaps. Of course to accomplish this it sacrifices text, subtext, and any form of narrative depth. Nevertheless, Duel is a clockwork piece of pure nasty screaming cinematic bliss from a genius in the earliest years of his neverending prime. Whatever Spielberg has gone on to do, and will continue to accomplish, Duel deserves to be recognized on its own merits.
3.5 / 5 BLOBS
No comments:
Post a Comment