Steven Spielberg
Duel

It was 1971 when Steven Spielberg, just twenty-five years old and still far from the glory of Hollywood and dazzling special effects, shot in just 10 days, as the contract required, an almost metaphysical thriller on the road, produced on a shoestring budget. A man, a traveling salesman, his red car, a tanker truck with its mysterious driver, and of course, the vast roads of Nevada. These are the few ingredients of a film that, with so little, is able to rivet you to the screen, inexorably, until the end, without any chance of escape.

Due to a trivial reason, an innocuous overtaking of the cumbersome tanker truck, the unfortunate protagonist, David, embarks on a chilling "via crucis," absurd and unmotivated, initially made up of simple intimidations and annoyances but soon escalating into a mad chase involving high speeds, rear-end collisions, off-road driving, ambushes, and spectacular attempts at murder, in a crescendo of high tension, pathos, and pure terror. During brief stops for refueling and refreshment, David tries to identify the tanker truck driver, whose engine is obviously souped-up, to give him a face and possibly a name to confront him personally as a civilized person. However, something always prevents him, and the only things he manages to glimpse are a pair of jeans and brown boots, which are quite common among all the truckers in those parts.

The dialogue is kept to the bare minimum, the screenplay focuses on the thoughts of the hapless protagonist, on his conjectures regarding his terrifying ordeal, on his emotions, on his reactions that are sometimes irrational, dictated by fear and dismay, and at other times well-considered according to a precise plan. The use of cameras mounted above the wheels of vehicles, the chasing shots taken from every angle add additional dynamism to an already explosive situation. Brilliant stylistic choices like the gloomy and distressing shots on the driver's window or the shaded front of the tanker truck, in contrast with the sunlit desert, the tense and anguished close-ups of the protagonist, actor Dennis Weaver, who is perfect and sufficiently anonymous to play the part of the common man with a common job, as a husband and father, like millions of Americans, in an unusual and extremely risky and high psycho-emotional level situation. His mental balance is constantly tested in an unpleasant and unexpected context, deliberately setup to make him collapse finally, whether it's unruly and vociferous children from a disabled school bus or an elderly couple that wants no trouble, it doesn't matter.

Even appreciated by Fellini, who wished to meet the young and talented director who, with few means and time, had demonstrated early professionalism and mastery, "Duel," Spielberg's first feature film, will remain in the history of cinema as the true jewel of a director who, unfortunately, for a long time, wastes his talent in blockbuster productions with results sometimes overly-sweet and banal, sometimes admirable but invariably destined for public success at the expense of the actual quality of the work, with some exceptions. However, let's not forget the Spielberg of the '70s, someone who had the necessary competence at just a quarter-century of life to create something unforgettable and extraordinarily engaging with few means, in a context never trivial and never lacking in content that goes beyond the simple adrenaline-pumping, engaging, at times hypnotic, road movie.