I remember when this came out (I was 12) and my Dad and his coworkers (all engineers) trading stories about rude, aggressive truckers they'd seen on the interstate.
Just yesterday, I just had an exceptionally aggressive driver behind (and eventually ahead of) me -- though a Prius (!), not a truck, and now I'm thinking I should comment on two more things about the movie in a separate post: (1) the anti-physiognomy when it comes to aggressive drivers: you search for their face, but you can't find it -- especially of course if they're driving a truck. Spielberg said he chose the Peterbilt specifically becase it "had a face" (i.e. wasn't flat-nosed), which was meant to compensate for the absence at the center of the story. You are screaming at and pleading with someone whose human response is entirely invisible. And (2) the Nationwide Truckers strikes of the 70s (the first of these was in '67, I believe, and there's a funny correlation between unionization and appearance as a villain in horror films). So the possibility for "organized" rudeness as a specter haunting "Duel".
Now I want to watch it again! I saw it once on TV in the 80s (or perhaps even the late 70s), but boy did it stick in my mind over the decades!
I remember when this came out (I was 12) and my Dad and his coworkers (all engineers) trading stories about rude, aggressive truckers they'd seen on the interstate.
Just yesterday, I just had an exceptionally aggressive driver behind (and eventually ahead of) me -- though a Prius (!), not a truck, and now I'm thinking I should comment on two more things about the movie in a separate post: (1) the anti-physiognomy when it comes to aggressive drivers: you search for their face, but you can't find it -- especially of course if they're driving a truck. Spielberg said he chose the Peterbilt specifically becase it "had a face" (i.e. wasn't flat-nosed), which was meant to compensate for the absence at the center of the story. You are screaming at and pleading with someone whose human response is entirely invisible. And (2) the Nationwide Truckers strikes of the 70s (the first of these was in '67, I believe, and there's a funny correlation between unionization and appearance as a villain in horror films). So the possibility for "organized" rudeness as a specter haunting "Duel".