Post by dirtyvinylpusher on May 2, 2012 17:54:22 GMT -5
I just rewatched it the other night.
It had been a few years since the last viewing and I was keen to watch it again.
It's definitely one of those movies that you either love or find incredibly boring.
Many people I've spoken to say "Meh, it's just a truck and a car. What's so good about that?"
Personally I love these old desert highway movies.
The cars, the music the scenery ....
There's very little dialogue and for the most part it's just the driver talking to himself as he gets more and more paranoid.
You really feel what he's going through and the movie puts you right in the driver's seat.
There's a great moment of clarity when he realises that he must stop the truck.
The camera zooms in on his face, he gets in to the car and puts his seatbelt on.
RIGHT, LET'S GO!
While there's obvious flaws with continuity and repeated use of the same shots, it's a pretty damn good movie for a first time director.
That director, of course, being Steven Spielberg.
(Ok he'd done a few things prior but this was the first full length feature)
It's easy to see that he would go on to bigger and better things when you watch this movie.
The camera angles, the "artistic" shots and the use of the truck as the menacing entity.
You can draw many parallels between the Duel truck and Jaws.
For the first couple of minutes we see the world in "bumper view" from the main character's car as he leaves his home, drives through city traffic, on to the freeway and ends up on the desert highway.
All accompanied by random talk from the radio.
There's also lots of great close-up shots of Dennis Weaver's face as he gets more and more terrified of the truck.
Am I the only one who wishes they'd still make movies like this?
No complicated plot, no soppy love story, no drama.
Just good old fun.
A few main characters and action from the word go.
Nerd alert:
Filmed in 13 days
Budget approx $450 000
Next on my "Classic movies to rewatch-list" - Bullitt
Been a loooooooooong time since I've seen that.