TMR 320 : Duel (1971) : TMR Movie Roundtable

"I'd like to report a truck driver that's been endangering my life."—David Mann (Dennis Weaver) in Duel. For the 20th TMR Movie Roundtable we are joined once again by our good friends Frank Johnson, Antony Rotunno, Mark Campbell and Oscar Campbell for a five-way discussion on the nerve-rattling 1971 thriller Duel, directed by the young Steven Spielberg and starring Dennis Weaver as Everyman pushed to the edge by a relentless, anonymous foe. David Mann (Dennis Weaver) is just an ordinary chap minding his own business and driving his beloved red Plymouth Valiant through the California desert, when a predatory monster of a smoke-spewing lorry (sorry, truck) inexplicably picks him as its unsuspecting prey. What starts as a routine car journey swiftly spirals into a heart-pounding game of cat-and-mouse with no rules and no escape. What's fuelling the truck's murderous pursuit? How does Spielberg turn a regular highway into a battlefield of primal fear? And what might this filmic clash of Man versus Machine have to say to us today? Join us as we examine the tension, explore the film's minimalist brilliance, and ask what "takeaways" might be gleaned from Spielberg's early TV/cinematic masterpiece. [Podcast theme music by Antony Raijekov (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). In accordance with the conditions of that licence TMR wishes to state that the fact that this music appears in TMR podcasts should in no way be understood as implying that its creator endorses anything produced by TMR.] [For show notes please visit https://themindrenewed.com]