is DUEL steven spielberg's best film?

duel is certainly my favourite

Not meaning "before you did" but "before I saw the other films".

Best? Hmmmm.....

Oh go on then.

i know these are probably really obvious points i'm making, but i love that you never see who's driving the truck - it's almost as if there IS no driver, and dennis weaver is just being pursued by this malignant, unstoppable force of nature. you can't reason with it, you can't approach it, you can't even be sure it's really happening or if you've just gone mad. hard to imagine a more frightening antagonist.

duel is great, j.d. ! no doubt about it. and people are ripping it off to this day.

Also worth searching: the Spielberg-directed segment ("Eyes") of Rod Serling's Night Gallery horror-anthology TV series. Starring Joan Crawford!

The themes that attract me the most to the movie are how a seemingly minor action can transform into huge consequences, and also (particularly apt in our road-rage culture nowadays) how we don't really know how potentially fucked the minds of the other drivers with whom we share the road might be.

(I'm putting "Schindler's List" in a different category from his other films, since I'm not sure how to assess that one)

i think what makes a spielberg film "bad" for me is different though--everyone seems to agree his sentimental and mawkish tendencies are his worst. but i dont feel that way since he seems to fucking mean it, or perhaps his sentimentality evinces some sort of desperation. in either case when spielberg does that sort of thing i receive it differently than i normally would.

when people complain about spielberg being sentimental, or whatever, it reminds me of when i was told that the voiceovers in The Thin Red Line were "shallow"--i dont even know how to respond to that!

anyway--AI is a masterpiece for me. to an extent that I cannot really bear to watch it very often.

I saw AI on your recommendation ryan, and was duly impressed. I need to see it again to digest everything, but I remember thinking at the time that I almost wish he'd ended it (SPOILER:) with david and the bear trapped, before the time jump. But the actual ending was good in a different, unexpected way.

I like it now, though. But I think I love Raiders of the Lost Ark more. Maybe if Nazis were driving the truck...

I think Raiders holds up better in the long run.
Empire Of The Sun has been ruined now that J.G. Ballard has grown up to be Bruce Wayne.

derrrr

This might be worth a separate thread because I really disliked A.I. for the elements that people really liked.

I'll stick up for Always and Catch Me If You Can

Oh yeah so would I, but that's not much of a recommendation.

"Duel" was a promising, good, disposable B-movie.

The SF ILXers were nonplussed by my $6 scoring of the A.I. 2xDVD at Rasputin Records.

>The Terminal...Maybe he could have fit in a few more BORDERS signs.<

Yeah, God knows there isn't much corporate signage in contemporary airports. "Terminal" is reasonably charming.

Sounds terrible and I mean no disrespect, but speaking of "bad" movies...I just watched "Duel" again and it is a favorite of mine!! It has such a great sense of period, like everyone's fear when you go on the road!

this movie rules and i need to see it again

Joyride good too

Steve Zahn makes that movie happen really

this movie rules and i need to see it again

It's on youtube!! I haven't seen it in forever, but I may try tonight if I have the time.

lol, can't believe this was a decade ago already

i still like this film a lot, but doubt it is actually spielberg's best

Would make a great dbl bill w/Duras' The Truck

First thing I've consciously wanted to read on Spielberg for years -- Edgar Wright chatting with him for 45 minutes about Duel plus plenty of chat about his TV work before then.

https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/edgar-wright-interviews-steven-spielberg-duel/

good talk about his early days. personally i'm fond of the "name of the game" episode "l.a. 2017" he directed, though i'm starting to suspect that it's one of those dystopian futures that's actually better than what happened in real life (i mean, putting psychiatrists in charge of the lapd would probably be a great improvement at this point).

it figures that Mr Baby Driver is breathless about pre-great Spielberg

(and I liked Scott Pilgrim)

Don't get me wrong -- it's a good interview.

rewatched today: can confirm still great

dunno that it’s his “best” because obv that ceiling is prety high (for me, liking a lot of spielberg)

but it’s definitely one of my favorite rewatches. i just love how the whole thing is on a rail - it just fuckin GOES and intensifies and then boom, done, payoff.

Weaver = absolute legend.

Hard to imagine watching it in 1971 and having to sit through commercials every few minutes.

right?

the production still fascinates me -
10 days shooting (and he had to push for it to be all on location)
three weeks to edit with five editors

tv is a whole different world

story and screenplay by the I-am-legendary Richard Matheson

truck driver = cary loftin aka the GOAT of stunt drivers