The male ego is the primary force in Duel. Not just the ego of the deranged truck driver, one whose face we never see. A hapless traveling salesman cannot help but sate his ego when he first encounters the trucker, which then sets the plot into motion. After TV audiences first saw Steven Spielberg’s film, they probably did not notice the inherent mediocrity of the film’s protagonist because the central chase – the driving force behind the film (pun intended) – is so effective and ferocious. In fact, the TV movie was so good that that studio arranged to have the film presented theatrically, a vote of confidence for the young director who has a preternatural sense for how editing and imagery can create suspense. We can see the inklings of a master filmmaker in his early work, and inklings of his maturity through his pervasive streak of misanthropic dark humor.
There is not much to David (Dennis Weaver) when we meet him. He drives an orange Plymouth Valiant, and he is speeding through the Mojave Desert to meet a client. All we know is that he is an everyman, and he is in a hurry. Screenwriter Richard Matheson, an author who primarily worked in science fiction and based the film off his own experience of being nearly run off the road, understands that it would be a mistake to make David into a hero. He is not racing home to his family, if he even has one, and instead has the universal, solipsistic view that his time is more valuable than literally everyone else’s. That impatience is there when David encounters a tanker truck, and overtakes it on a two-lane highway. The faceless trucker then overtakes David, a show of who is king of the road, and the conflict between both men could have ended right there. But David is persistent.
After that nonverbal escalation, Duel becomes a feature-length chase film, with the trucker stalking David all across the highway. The desert photography and lack of dialogue make the material seem like a live-action Road Runner cartoon, with a number of improbable obstacles getting in the way of both men. All that is missing is ACME branding. David stops at a diner, hoping to escape the trucker, then the truck is waiting for him. David pulls over to help a school bus that overheated, then the truck is still waiting for him. In each situation, Matheson and Spielberg go out of their way to not make David likable. He is desperate, selfish, frustrated, and angry. We care about him almost by default, and because of how Spielberg characterizes the trucker, who we only see from a distance and who never speaks. Like the shark in Jaws, Spielberg frames the large vehicle with intense close-ups to suggest its menacing nature. It seems to have a mind of its own, a monster of oil, rubber, and steel.
Even today, the clarity of the chase creates more suspense than any Fast & Furious movie. Spielberg correctly understands that a chase does not necessarily need high speeds, or even explosions. Instead, the space between the pursuer and pursued tells the audience how frightened they should be, and communicating that spatial awareness is Spielberg’s primary job. A child could follow Duel because its stakes are simple, although they are life and death, and because we almost always understand where Valiant is relative to the truck. Sometimes the truck disappears from view, giving David a false sense of security, and the creative way the truck reveals itself is one of the film’s pleasures. The trucker is not merely a sadist who fucks with David out of malice, or boredom. He has a wicked sense of humor, along with a flair for irony.
Matheson and Spielberg’s dim view of David is not the only source of the film’s misanthropy. Other passersby are similarly selfish, and no one has the patience to listen. Maybe David could explain his situation if he had more time, except Spielberg never lets us, or his hero, forget that pure death waits for him on the road. It is only at the end, when David finally vanquishes his foe and his Valiant along with it, that we finally get an inkling of “The Spielberg Face,” his frequently repeated image where his characters look utterly overwhelmed by what they witness. Weaver correctly does not try to make David too sympathetic, except in the final moments when he outsmarts the trucker and is humbled by the fragility of his own life.
For almost the rest of his career, Steven Spielberg would find deep compassion for his characters, and present mostly ordinary heroes who would nonetheless capture the imagination of his delighted audiences. But before he really made a name for himself, the young director had a vicious, ruthless streak that you can still see in almost all his major achievements.
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