Duel: A Conversation with Director Steven Spielberg Page #5

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it makes the truck look like

it's going 100 miles an hour.

And the longer the lens is,

the faster the truck looks.

When I say "longer the lens is, "

anything around a 35 or a 50...

looked awfully good

in terms of speed.

If you went a little wider,

as long as you didn't show the road...

it still looked like you were going

fast if you stayed dead to the side.

So many of those shots

were shot slow...

but cheated with geography

moving by very quickly.

There's a couple shots that are sped up

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?

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