Steven Spielberg's childhood bullies served as inspiration for Duel
“The thing that got me to really push to get hired to do Duel was because I had been bullied,” said Spielberg.
Plenty of adults hold less-than-fond memories of being bullied when they were younger. However, Steven Spielberg was able to take a traumatic experience and turn it into something positive.
The director is known for big-budget films like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and Jurassic Park (1993), but one of his earlier films relied on a fairly simple premise. One mild-mannered man, played by Dennis Weaver, is forced to fight for his life while on the road when his path crosses with an angry, anonymous truck driver.
The film was based on a short story written by Richard Matheson. As one of his first directing responsibilities, Spielberg worked hard to convince executives that he was up to the task.
According to The Steven Spielberg Story by Tony Crawley, the director’s motivation to lead the film was based on something that may surprise audiences.
“The thing that got me to really push to get hired to do Duel was because I had been bullied,” said Spielberg. “All of my friends in my little circle of friends had also been bullied, and I knew what it felt like,” Spielberg said.
Though Duel is peppered with action sequences that excite and terrify the audience, the theme at the core of the film is oddly human. Spielberg was able to take painful memories and use them for art.
“I tried really hard to anthropomorphize the truck,” said Spielberg, “as an extension of a kind of evil, bullying force, without too much regard for who was driving the truck; it did represent something that made me feel that I knew the material.”
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