Robert Duvall names the most authentic scene in cinema history: “I was amazed”
When Robert Duvall compliments your work, you know you’ve done something well. The celebrated actor, best known for his collaborations with Francis Ford Coppola in The Godfather, The Conversation and Apocalypse Now, as well as his Oscar-winning performance in Tender Mercies, does not often pull his punches.
As a young, undiscovered actor living in New York with Gene Hackman, Duvall attracted a reputation as a bar brawler and habitual prankster. On the set of True Grit, he reportedly nearly came to blows with John Wayne and director Henry Hathaway. When asked decades later about the filming of True Grit, Duvall said: “The director and I didn’t get along. I don’t get along with a lot of directors.”
Not one to hold back, Duvall has even fired shots at Stanley Kubrick, calling him “an actor’s enemy” who elicited “terrible performances”. In fact, Coppola himself wasn’t immune to Duvall’s criticism. Duvall famously declined to reprise his role as Tom Hagen in The Godfather Part III, citing dissatisfaction with Al Pacino’s salary and a personal grievance involving Coppola’s excessive praise for a Maryland crab cake made by Duvall’s mother. When later asked if he regretted not returning, Duvall responded bluntly, “No, because it wasn’t as good as the other two”.
Any director would be thrilled to receive praise from someone as uncensored and honest as Robert Duvall. In a 2003 interview with Blackfilm promoting Gods and Generals—where Duvall portrayed Confederate General Robert E Lee—he was asked about the romanticisation of war in films. In response, Duvall highlighted an authentic portrayal of war and offered a rare compliment to Steven Spielberg, acknowledging his work as a genuine representation of the harsh realities of conflict.
“The opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan was as real as it got in the history of movie-making,” Duvall commented. “I was amazed he could be that good, Spielberg! You tend to romanticise something that’s pretty brutal. So it may appear romantic when you see battle scenes, but underneath, it’s pretty brutal.”
Although Spielberg might not have been too flattered by Duvall’s backhanded expression of ‘amazement’ at how good he could be, perhaps he valued Duvall’s praise of the 1998 Normandy invasion epic, which won its place in cinematic history in large part due to the hyper-realistic portrayals of warfare that Duvall highlights, all the more as the true opinion of a man who has never been afraid to speak his mind.
Unfortunately, Spielberg’s favour with Duvall would turn out to be short-lived. The two became engaged in a public spat the following year when Spielberg visited Cuba and met with its leader Fidel Castro, who Duvall described as the “killer” of dead Cubans. Duvall said of Spielberg’s trip, “It’s very presumptuous of him to go there. I’ll tell him that. I’ll never work at Dreamworks (Spielberg’s production company) again, but I don’t care about working there anyway.”
Even though Spielberg and Duvall have no love lost, his praise of Saving Private Ryan adds interesting nuance to our understanding of the actor. The film is courageous, unflinching, sometimes brutal, and resolutely dedicated to ‘keeping it real’—much like Robert Duvall.
