Duel: A Conversation with Director Steven Spielberg Page #3

---

because the camera lost speed.

The camera actually lost speed

and went from 24 to about 12.

I didn't have any other coverage

and I was forced to use that.

- What happened out there, mister?

- Can I use your men's room, please?

Yeah, through the door

on the right.

Down the hall, turn left.

Part of the thing when he goes into the

caf was I tried to get the audience...

to have a first-person experience

with the Dennis Weaver character.

To that end, I thought

by taking him out of the car...

and walking him through the caf

after he'd almost been killed.

He's shaking. Hejust wants to

get some water on his face.

Walking him into the bathroom

and then back into the caf.

Then walking him all the way over

to where he sits down.

He looks out the window in the same

shot. The truck is across the street.

Then he turns,

that's our first cut...

and every single person

in that caf is a suspect.

This is before the days of Steadicam,

so that was simply a handheld Aeroflex.

We had to ADR everything.

We had to Foley everything.

Because the camera was so loud,

even if you put a blanket over it...

it was still a handheld Aeroflex.

Later on, it was very effective once we

got the sounds of the camera motor...

out of the picture and got

the other Foley sounds in there.

It sounded really good.

What I learned from Hitchcock was.:

Don't let the audience off the hook.

Be a whore about keeping

the audience on tenterhooks...

as long as possible...

before giving them some clue

or some kind of relief.

If Hitchcock was ever whispering over

my shoulder during the making of Duel...

it was simply that:

Don't answer these questions...

just because ABC has airtime problems

and you've got an airdate.

Take your time and draw out

the suspense as long as possible.

I don't know. All I did was pass

this stupid rig a couple of times...

and he goes flying

off the deep end.

He has to be crazy.

In the morning, he recorded lines. We

worked with his dialogue on the Nagrit.

It's playing right back to him

from the actual Nagrit...

from that small speaker

on top of the machine.

Why didn't I leave right away

when I saw his truck outside?

Then I'd know what he intends to do.

It helped him react

to his own thoughts.

To have his voice played back was like

having the thought occur spontaneously.

He was able to use those playbacks

to be able to physicalize...

and emote what he was feeling.

Would you mind checking

those radiator hoses?

I'll do that. Take a look

at my snakes if you have time.

It was fun to take reptiles people were

afraid of and put them in the movie...

to just sort of add to the chaos...

and the anxiety of

not only was the truck against him...

but all the forces of natural law

were against this character as well.

I'd like to report a truck driver

that's been endangering my life.

- Your name again?

- David Mann.

There was no stuntman at all

in that scene. The film was shot once.

That particular angle was shot from

two different angles with two cameras.

Perhaps a third camera, a real

low shot on a highhat, on a board.

But Dennis was in the booth.

That was all Dennis.

Did it himself. And Dennis was very

insistent on driving the car...

except for certain things

where all of us ran and said...

"Dennis, you're not doing

this next shot. "

But even at one point,

Dennis goes up half a hill.

You can see out the front window,

like in a jet plane, the horizon line...

just goes like this radically,

and then recorrects.

That's Dennis driving up the shoulder

of a highway and back down again.

Dennis did a lot of his own driving.

Dennis was proud he was in that phone

booth when the truck was coming.

He had plenty of time to get out. It

was practiced and rehearsed repeatedly.

There was all sorts of fail-safe points.

There were these stakes in the ground.

And Cary Loftin had his eye on

little flags, which were off-camera...

that meant

"the point of no return. "

That meant if Cary did not

see Dennis leave the phone booth...

by the time the grill of his truck

got to that red flag...

Cary simply was going to

abort to the left.

There still would have been

a lot of clearance between the booth...

and Cary's aborted driving.

Dennis did it just at the right time.

We only did it once.

I didn't want to tempt fates

and do it a second time.

Dennis got out of the phone booth,

so the truck didn't have to abort.

It just went ahead

and plowed into the phone booth.

Why did he break my cages?

Lucille Benson,

I asked her to come back...

and do the same scene with John Belushi

from Duel in 1941.

Fill 'er up- Ethyl.

Where?

- What's the matter? Car trouble?

- Well, in a way, yes.

- I wonder if you'd do me a favor.

- What's that?

In Close Encounters

of the Third Kind...

I used the two older people

in the car from Duel.

I used those same two actors

in the helicopter in Close Encounters.

I'm a sap for nostalgia.

You know what I'm saying?

I like that. I like never forgetting,

you know, the old ties.

They had a dead man's clutch on the

truck so it would continue to roll...

with nobody in the truck

and hit the car and go off the cliff.

I'm not sure how they accomplished that.

I was busy on the cliff side...

setting seven different positions

in the best spots to put the cameras.

That was the only truck we had.

We didn't have a "take two" on that.

That was the end of the movie. There

was no reshooting after that scene.

I was very obsessed

with getting all that right...

while Cary and the physical effects

people were up topside...

getting the truck rigged to plow

into the car and go off the cliff.

I know when I saw dailies from that

scene, I used one of seven cameras...

all the way down because

the shot was so extraordinary.

There was one shot- I'm not sure

who the operator was on that...

but the operator deserves a medal-

who followed the truck and the car...

all the way down,

including into a large plume of dust.

You would assume the shot would

be over, but then the massive tanker...

part of the truck,

reemerges from that cloud...

and continues its journey

down the cliff.

It was an extraordinary shot,

and that had to be the only shot used.

I don't think I saw any dailies, 'cause

I was living out in Pearblossom...

the entire time I was shooting Duel

with the company.

There was no time to see dailies there.

We couldn't go back to see dailies.

I was just relying on lab reports

to say there was no hair in the gate...

and no negative scratches

and the film was exposed properly.

I was relying on Jack Marta to tell me

if he thought it was going to be okay.

I really relied on his expertise and his

years of wisdom of being a good DP.

But when the movie was over,

I was faced with something uglier...

than having not being able

to being able see my own rushes.

I was faced with the fact that I had

three and a half weeks to an airdate...

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes