Spielberg’s Masterful Duel: Man vs. Machine, Women and Himself

Duel (1971) Genre: thriller Distributed by: Universal Studios Directed by: Steven Spielberg Written by: Richard Matheson Starring: Dennis Weaver Budget: $450,000 Running Time: 74 minutes (television broadcast) 90 minutes (theatrical cut) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MtAMc4i8OA (trailer)

Duel was Steven Spielberg’s second full-length feature and was originally broadcast on ABC television in 1971. It went on to have theatrical releases in numerous countries outside of the U.S. While winning a Golden Globe for Best Movie Made for T.V. (1972) and Emmys for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography and Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing, cineastes around the world embraced it for its perceived existential, political and psychosexual themes, and praised the young filmmaker for creating a philosophical and technical masterpiece. As John Kenneth Muir states in his online article: “European critics actually read Duel as a Marxist commentary on class warfare and capitalism in America, with the blue-collar class trucker pressing the gas hard as revenge against the entitled white-collar David Mann. This is an interpretation which Spielberg famously and publicly resisted.” (http://reflectionsonfilmandtelevision.blogspot.com/2010/12/cult-tv-movie-review-duel-1971.html)
Notwithstanding academic debate over its meaning, Duel has become a cult classic, and has been hailed as Spielberg’s best film by many, including the legendary New Yorker film critic, Pauline Kael, who, as Paul Rossen states in his online article, “ had championed Spielberg’s films in the 1970s, expressed disappointment in his later development, stating that ‘he’s become, I think, a very bad director…. And I’m a little ashamed for him, because I loved his early work….And he’s become so uninteresting now…. I think that he had it in him to become more of a fluid, far-out director. But, instead, he’s become a melodramatist.’“ (http://www.paulrossen.com/paulinekael/perilsofbeingpauline.html )
To many, the young Spielberg exhibited the most bold artistry in his two earliest films: Duel and Sugarland Express.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi1yRgFGC_s Sugarland Express trailer
Duel has minimal dialogue, and the plot is about as minimalistic as it gets. The film, adapted from a short story that originally appeared in Playboy magazine, is a Hitchcock-esque tale about a middle-aged salesman named David Mann (Dennis Weaver) who, on a business trip in his red 1971 Plymouth Valiant, is stalked and terrorized for reasons unknown by an unseen, but apparently malevolent driver of a rusted-out, smoke-sputtering, thunderous tanker truck. But make no mistake-Duel is no mere car chase, action flick. Through mise en scene, metaphor and personification (the truck looks and sounds more like a prehistoric beast than a truck), Spielberg created what is arguably a complex Freudian exposition of male frustration and fear of castration as seen through contemporary man’s battle with civilization, industrialization and himself. For interspersed between the seemingly endless number of often breakneck, thrilling and intense encounters between the two vastly contrasting vehicles on a winding, two lane, mostly deserted stretch of Southern California highway, Spielberg gives us David’s inner dialogue through voiceovers by the actor, as well as quite a bit of David talking to himself out loud. And the stage is set for a “battle of the sexes of sorts” when, early on in his road trip, before the motorized menace appears, the mild-mannered David is taunted by a radio talk show he is listening to during which a male caller bemoans his emasculation by his “Women’s Libber” wife. Arguably, the radio talk show is key to discerning the main theme of the film, delivered through allegory, and that is: the American male who suddenly finds himself in the midst of The Women’s Rights Movement, which was upending the status quo of gender roles, a modern man who has been tamed by a civilized society so much so that he manifests symptoms of Avoidant Personality Disorder, strives to retain (or regain) his sense of primal masculinity, his sense of power and control, and some modicum of physicality and potency in a world that has automated everything (David does not even pump his own gas) and reduced him to a suit and tie. (Is it any wonder this story appeared in Playboy magazine, one of the last bastions of unbridled, male dominance in its most primal form?)
In a key scene in which David makes a pit stop at a gas station/ laundromat, he calls home, and through that conversation, we learn of David’s current ongoing spat with his wife over what occurred at a party they recently attended. David’s wife, who is depicted as shrewish and nagging (further evidence of the film being a product of the backlash against The Women’s Movement) complains that he did not take action when a male party guest made lewd advances toward her, suggesting that he is not “manly” enough. Pertinent to the story is the fact that David barely argues back or even defends himself. He only meekly opposes her and appears to be quite henpecked. (This is just one of many details that convey David’s impotence. In a more visual example, David encounters a school bus full of children. The driver asks David to push the bus while he steers it off the road to safety, but David’s pushing is ineffectual, leaving the children in harm’s way). But, in that same gas station/ laundromat scene, in what is arguably an attempt at asserting his power, David puts his foot up on a counter opposite the payphone.
(This is one of numerous metaphors for the phallus Spielberg uses to convey the theme of male power. In another instance, we see the pointed cowboy boots of the maniacal driver who has already nearly driven David off the road several times and another phallic symbol is suggested when the gas station attendant inserts the gas pump nozzle into David’s gas tank).
However, just as David strikes this “manly”pose, a rather large and unattractive woman (again, evidence of a misogynistic viewpoint of the filmmakers) enters, and David is forced to put his leg down so she can pass and get to the washers. She then opens the round door of a washer to put
her laundry in, and Spielberg shoots David through the glass door. David is framed by the door, symbolically engulfed and made insignificant by the vagina/womb.
Thus, David’s battle to overcome his feminization and impotence is gradually played out as his road trip and the almost supernatural stalker’s pursuit of him continues. Influence of Hitchcock’s Vertigo is in the subtext of Duel. In it, a retired detective is stricken with vertigo whenever he attempts to reach any height and is unable to climb a staircase to save the woman he loves-a metaphor for male impotence. Additionally, the fact that the viewer does not see the driver’s face is perhaps an homage to Hitchcock’s philosophy that what we do not see is scarier than what we see. It also serves to plant suspicion and doubt in the viewer’s mind that all of this may be going on only in David’s head. Hence, as a horror film, and surprisingly, it is, it is far more similar to the master Hitchcock, as well as Rod Serling’s exploration of psychological and existential themes in The Twilight Zone series, than modern horror movies which rely almost entirely upon the visceral and the “boo! effect,” i.e. the current trend of scaring the viewer with images, monsters, etc., popping onto the screen.
As for the film’s technical merits, it is masterful how Spielberg managed (on a low budget, at that) to film the chase scenes seemingly with no photographic tricks and of course, no CGI. The editing is powerful in these scenes, as he cuts from the truck to inside David’s car and back. The tension is palpable and it builds at a frenzied pace. Dennis Weaver superbly expresses David’s confusion, disbelief, fear, horror and finally, rage-fueled determination. In his portrayal, the viewer sees the “everyman”-he is relatable to the audience, which enhances the tension for the viewer, as is the case when the audience makes strong character identification. And in the fashion of the “New Hollywood” filmmakers of the 1970’s, Spielberg leaves the mystery unsolved and the audience never quite knows what it just witnessed other than a man who was pushed too far.