Steven Spielberg is one of those filmmakers that, despite being a multi-Academy Award winner whose helmed some of the most successful and critically acclaimed films of all time, I feel can be genuinely underappreciated for the sheer talent and inspiration behind the camera. For all the criticisms that he's a sentimental director, in love with Americana and old-school style, Spielberg is also a deeply creative, often brilliant director, so good at it that he often makes it look easy, as James Mangold found out the hard way in making Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, a film I generally liked but was a far cry from the original trilogy. This was very evident to me in the making of Duel, his directorial debut from when he was a mere 25 years old. A low-budget tv movie, shot at breakneck speeds and cut together a mere matter of days before it's premiere, Duel is a fascinating peek into the early days of one of cinema's greats, tense and surprisingly character-driven in it's depiction of road rage gone bad.
Shot on a low budget of $450,000, Duel is considerably minimalist, shot almost entirely on the highways and deserts of California. There's only one physical location, a diner that David Mann (Dennis Weaver) crashes outside of and spends a fair amount of time contemplating the next move in his battle of wits with a seemingly psychotic, unseen truck driver. This adds to the film's constant sense of paranoia and isolation, as Mann, a stressed businessman on a last-minute trip out of Los Angeles, is completely alone, unsure of who to trust and where he can even go to avoid the wrath of the driver. Weaver, chosen by Spielberg due to his role in Touch of Evil, is excellent as Mann, an embattled everyman whose frustration and resentment boils over as he feels the walls close in around him, while Spielberg's decision to leave the driver as a faceless entity pays off very well. We as an audience are left to decipher the exact motives of the driver, who goes from chasing down Mann at 90 MPH one moment to helping a bus full of kids the next. Is it casual cruelty that drives the pursuit? Misplaced vengeance at a driver who cut him off? It's up to us.
The true antagonist, in a way, is the driver's truck, a worn-down Peterbilt 281 tanker hauling some form of hazardous material. The Peterbilt, a rusted, roadworn tanker with a set of license plates across it's front like a Predator's belt of skulls, serves as a looming threat, it's mere appearance (even when parked) signaling very clear danger, and it's final, dinosaur-like roar as it's destroyed makes the "vehicle as monster" message very clear. Making this a battle against a faceless threat lets us sit with Mann, his internal monologues and frantic, anxious expressions telling much of the story without saying much at all.
And of course, Spielberg's direction goes a long way. The truck is presented as death on wheels, hurtling across the road while looming large in every shot it's in, and in a particularly tense set-piece, it appears almost out of thin air from off-frame to try and run over Mann as he attempts to call for help in the only phone booth for miles. Duel often feels claustrophobic, the miles of open road lonely and hostile rather than particularly freeing, and even when Mann is around other people, it's little comfort as he attempts to surmise the identity of his unknown attacker, the camera at one point closing in on his face as he scans the room, looking for any clues that could help him. The tension becomes suffocating at points, and the final shot, a lonely Mann sitting on a hillside as the sun sets, gives little comfort as we realize just how exhausting this fight for survival, forced on him just because he was in the wrong place at the right time, has been.
Duel is a fascinating piece of cinema history and just a damn good movie overall. Spielberg would go on to do bigger and better things, but it's easy to see why this is one he often revisits. Without it, one of cinema's great auteurs might not have ever been able to explode on the scene. It's like watching the expert planting of seeds: in time, something beautiful will grow from it.
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