Most of the movie we see a guy, driving a regular car, who is being chased by another guy in a large truck. Conversations are seldom, characters few, as well as locations; everything happens in the lifeless Deserts of California. But you don't need any of that to create a gripping movie which Spielberg was successful to do using different camera angles which emphasized speed of the chase and secretly approach - a regular guy is getting chased 'out-of-the-blue' by anonymous, eager fella and nobody knows why.
This secretly approach immediately signals that Duel is not a regular 'cat vs. mouse" movie as most of the people tend to see it. Rather, it seems to me that Spielberg tried to describe thoughts and behavior of a deeply insecure man when encountering a life threatening peril. A small car getting chased by a truck can thus be interpreted as a materialised dynamic of an interior process. With this approach all the details become meaningful: truck being dilapidated but still powerful, driver of the truck completely anonymous, action happening in the deserts with long roads and nowhere to hide, monologues peculiar to insecure people, ending itself etc.
Either way, even for nowadays audiences, Duel is tense and fun. But underneath the chase there is more than meets the eye with enough space for individual and completely free interpretation which I applaud and appreciate.
This secretly approach immediately signals that Duel is not a regular 'cat vs. mouse" movie as most of the people tend to see it. Rather, it seems to me that Spielberg tried to describe thoughts and behavior of a deeply insecure man when encountering a life threatening peril. A small car getting chased by a truck can thus be interpreted as a materialised dynamic of an interior process. With this approach all the details become meaningful: truck being dilapidated but still powerful, driver of the truck completely anonymous, action happening in the deserts with long roads and nowhere to hide, monologues peculiar to insecure people, ending itself etc.
Either way, even for nowadays audiences, Duel is tense and fun. But underneath the chase there is more than meets the eye with enough space for individual and completely free interpretation which I applaud and appreciate.