Robert Duvall is gone. And what a loss it is.
Watching Duvall, even as a young man, there was something legendary about his performances, something beyond his years. He was able to give even the smallest role or most sketchily defined character real depth, complexity and heart. You knew the people that Duvall played because they reminded you of people in your own life and, as the years went on and he grew older, settling into a steady stream of gruff mentor figures and world-weary sages, you wished that you could get advice from Duvall. Maybe he’d help you to get it all sorted out.
He obviously had an unimpeachable run in the 1970s, following a decade in television that would see him appear on “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “Naked City,” “The Twilight Zone” and “The Outer Limits.” Anthology shows suited him, especially because creators would often have him back several times, playing different characters. He was an expert at making you care about a character in a brief amount of screentime.
His 1970s film output began with Robert Altman’s “M*A*S*H” and somehow got more impressive from there – George Lucas’ “THX 1138,” Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather,” “The Godfather, Part II” and “Apocalypse Now,” Sidney Lumet’s “Network” and Lewis John Carlino’s “The Great Santini.” (He would get his one and only Oscar for 1983’s “Tender Mercies.”)
Even his less-remembered work from this period, in genre fare like Sam Peckinpah’s “Killer Elite” and John Flynn’s “The Outfit,” where Duvall played a variation on Donald Westlake’s immortal Parker character, is exceptionally watchable, largely because of what Duvall brought to these films.
In the same period he also somehow found time to show up in cameo roles in Coppola’s “The Conversation” and Phillip Kaufman’s Watergate-era version of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” During that same period of time he was also part of the original Broadway cast of David Mamet’s “American Buffalo.”
Truly, he was unstoppable.
His last film roles were in above-average direct-to-Netflix streaming movies in 2022 – alongside Adam Sandler in the inspirational basketball drama “Hustle” and in Scott Cooper’s mordant mystery “The Pale Blue Eye.” While the movies probably won’t be remembered, what Duvall brought to them will – a tactile humanity, underscored by effortless craft. He will be missed. We already miss him.
Boo Radley in “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1962)
Robert Duvall’s big-screen career got off to a fittingly legendary start when he made his feature film debut as Boo Radley in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” In terms of his screen time and (lack of) dialogue, Duvall is not asked to do much in director Robert Mulligan’s Oscar-winning adaptation of Harper Lee’s seminal American novel. But he is also asked to do everything.
Appearing on screen late in the film, Duvall is asked as Radley to silently be the face of all of “To Kill a Mockingbird’s” themes — its urgent call to leave unfounded bigotry and hatred behind and, even more importantly, its belief in the humanity of even those we fear. Duvall rises to the challenge, giving a small performance that feels monumental. His turn here was an early indicator of his magnetic screen presence, as well as his ability to communicate so much while saying very little. — Alex Welch
“To Kill a Mockingbird” is streaming on Hoopla.
THX 1138 in “THX 1138” (1971)
It’s funny that Duvall is so closely associated with Francis Ford Coppola, one of the so-called movie brats of the 1970s, thanks to his collaborations with the director on “The Rain People,” the first two “The Godfather” films, “Apocalypse Now” and a brief cameo in “The Conversation.” But Duvall first collaborated with another member of the movie-aware group of filmmakers: George Lucas.
An expansion of his short film “Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB,” “THX 1138” starred Duvall as the title character, a member of a dystopian future where everything is controlled – thought, sex, even diet. He wants to break free, to challenge society and to create something new, and in that sense he was an obvious stand-in for Lucas, who was constantly looking to chart his own course, oftentimes with the help of cutting-edge technology.
Duvall’s performance is the emotional center of the movie and the thing that you can really hang onto. For all of the stark, striking visuals and the inspiration that would be carried on for decades to come (the oppressive, metallic police officers, for instance, clearly led to the T-1000 in James Cameron’s “Terminator 2”), it’s Duvall’s performance that is the most unforgettable thing about “THX 1138.” We still believe in him. — Drew Taylor
Tom Hagen in “The Godfather” (1972) and “The Godfather Part II” (1974)
It is difficult to overstate the impressive nature of what Duvall does as Tom Hagen, the reliable, clear-eyed consigliere of the Corleone mob family, in Francis Ford Coppola’s first two “Godfather” films. In a pair of movies overflowing with seismic film performances, Duvall somehow manages to still make a lasting impression. His steady, unwavering performance stands apart from the other, simmering turns given by his co-stars.
That difference reinforces Tom’s unique role within the complicated mob world of “The Godfather.” By refusing to let the ferocious quality of his co-stars’ performances inform his own, soft-spoken turn, Duvall allows Tom to emerge as an unlikely, insightful counter to Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone. Across the two films, viewers come to see Tom as the friendly, disarming face of Michael’s viciousness, and Duvall makes all of that clear with little more than the occasional, smallest of smirks.— AW
“The Godfather” and “The Godfather Part II” are streaming on Paramount+
Frank Hackett in “Network” (1976)
It is evidence of Duvall’s range that, just two years after he gave one of the most impactful soft-spoken performances in all of American cinema, he delivered a completely different but no less haunting turn in director Sidney Lumet’s 1976 satire “Network.” Duvall chews up the scenery in the Best Picture-winner as Frank Hackett, the merciless, profits-driven network executive who gleefully clears the way for the film’s provocative central “news” program to reshape the world of television news for the obvious worse.
He goes toe to toe with William Holden in one of the film’s best scenes, in which he lays bare the full scope of his character’s chilling, capitalistic vision with enough unchallenged arrogance and villainous cheer that he leaves both Holden’s Max Schumacher and the viewer staggered. It is a performance of unhinged size and power, and it fits perfectly within “Network.” — AW
Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore in “Apocalypse Now” (1979)
Three years after they made “The Godfather Part II” together, Duvall and director Francis Ford Coppola reunited for the Vietnam War epic “Apocalypse Now,” which gave Duvall the chance to utter one of cinema’s most memorable lines. The brilliance of Duvall’s performance extends far beyond “I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” though. The line itself is emblematic of the nonchalant insanity of Duvall’s character — a man whose madness is reflected in the destruction and death of his troops’ wartime efforts.
Nothing could really prepare any first-time viewer for the arrival of Marlon Brando’s transformed Colonel Kurtz in the film’s final act, but Duvall’s performance offers a kind of preview of the coming attractions. Kilgore’s lunacy lingers just below the surface of his friendly behavior, and it reveals itself only in his senseless, misplaced machismo and in the obsessive ways he pursues even his most misplaced of priorities. — AW
“Apocalypse Now” is streaming on Plex.
Mac Sledge in “Tender Mercies” (1983)
Duvall’s lone Best Actor Oscar would come from his performance as alcoholic country western singer Mac Sledge in Australian auteur Bruce Beresford’s “Tender Mercies.” It’s shocking that this was his only Oscar win but also makes perfect sense. “Tender Mercies” was written by legendary screenwriter Horton Foote, who also adapted “To Kill a Mockingbird.” (Foote won Oscars for both films, one for Adapted Screenplay and the other for Original Screenplay.) And it feels like a role tailor-made for Duvall – complicated, thorny, introspective and utterly believable.
After poor responses from test audiences, Universal only gave the film a limited theatrical run, which Duvall said was because the studio didn’t understand the appeal of country music. It didn’t make much money, only appearing in 37 theaters nationwide and barely recouping its production costs, but was an immediate hit with critics (Time Magazine called it “the best American film of the new year”) and obviously resonated with his peers in the industry.
Universal still doesn’t talk much about “Tender Mercies,” outsourcing its current home video edition and rarely trumpeting it, but it’s a fine, sophisticated film anchored by an all-time performance from an all-time performer. That should be music to your ears. — DT
“Tender Mercies” is streaming on Prime Video.
Frank Childers in “Sling Blade” (1996)
Little more than a cameo, Duvall appears in one scene in Billy Bob Thornton’s “Sling Blade.” But it is a memorable one. He plays Thornton’s father and appears in a scene towards the end of the film where – spoiler alert – Thornton plays a mentally disabled person who is sent to prison for murdering his mother and her young lover, a teenage boy who also tortured Thornton’s character. In the scene with Duvall, Thornton’s character is trying to make amends and Duvall tells him that he has no son named Karl. “They turned me loose from the nervous hospital,” Thornton croaks. He offers to trim his father’s lawn. Thornton tells him that he’s thought about killing his father, but won’t anymore.
The scene is incredibly powerful and incredibly still; Duvall doesn’t even speak much but he does this little flicker with his tongue towards Thornton that explains everything – how disgusted he is with his own son (and how unremorseful he is about killing his other son), how little he cares about what will happen to him and how dismissive he is hearing how things could be better.
Duvall reportedly took the role as a favor to Thornton, who had appeared in “The Stars Fell on Henrietta” with Duvall, and the two would form a creative partnership that would extend to Thornton’s troubled “Jayne Mansfield’s Car.” (Thornton would also show up in Duvall’s “The Apostle.”) Clearly, they were kindred spirits – actors who were just as talented as filmmakers. – DT
Sonny Dewey in “The Apostle” (1997)
Duvall had directed before “The Apostle,” with 1977’s documentary “We’re Not the Jet Set” and 1983’s little-seen narrative feature “Angelo My Love.” But it was 1997’s “The Apostle,” which Duvall wrote, directed and starred in, that made him one of the most exciting filmmakers. The fact that he would only direct two more features (2002’s oddball “Assassination Tango” and 2015’s underseen “Wild Horses”) is one of the bigger tragedies of his career, especially given how powerful “The Apostle” is.
In “The Apostle,” Duvall plays the title character, a Pentecostal preacher who murders a young minister who is having an affair with his wife, flees to a neighboring state and begins anew, with the same fire-and-brimstone mentality. It’s the kind of slow-burn character study that would play at Cannes and then get Duvall nominated for the Best Actor Oscar. (It also, incredibly, made four times its production budget back at the box office.) Lisa Schwartzbaum, writing for Entertainment Weekly, said that Duvall “draws on more than three decades of experience personifying the hard contours and bruised souls of American men to create a fearless and fascinating piece of work.”
It’s a performance that stands as one of the most towering and complicated of his career and it’s a film that exemplifies that he was capable of things just as powerful behind the camera as he was in front of it. – DT
Harry Hogge in “Days of Thunder” (1990) / Martin Cash in “Jack Reacher” (2012)
Nobody played a gruff mentor figure quite like Duvall. He was a performer who you really felt had lived, in ways other actors, gilded by fame and the trappings of convenience, had not. This strand of his career, seen often, is perhaps best exemplified by a pair of films where he costarred alongside Tom Cruise, the biggest star of his (or any) generation.
In “Days of Thunder,” Duvall essays the role of Cruise’s stern mentor, a crew chief patterned after real-life NASCAR legend Harry Hogge. In this capacity, he has to instill in Cruise’s reckless hotshot racer the importance of the sport and also the importance of life, particularly after he is involved in a catastrophic crash. Duvall doesn’t have much to go on, even when screenwriter Robert Towne’s script veers into the philosophical, but he makes so much of it. It’s a truly memorable character and the emotional center of a movie that, thanks to director Tony Scott and producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, practically sizzling on the screen.
Years later, he would reteam with Cruise for Christopher McQuarrie’s “Jack Reacher,” based on the series of novels by Lee Child. He plays a small but crucial role as the owner of a local shooting range, who ends up helping Cruise’s Reacher solve a mystery (and, later, take down the bad guys). It speaks to both Duvall’s legendary status and his weight on screen that a third-act appearance by the actor, wielding a hunting rifle in a hollowed-out rock quarry, could generate actual applause in the theater. This was his magic. — DT
“Days of Thunder” and “Jack Reacher” are streaming on Paramount+.
