The Judge opens in theaters this Friday, and it boasts a wonderful cast, headed up by the legitimate screen legend Robert Duvall.
At 83, Robert Duvall is as sharp and as appealing as he’s ever been. These days, he’s a combination of a kindly grandfather, a stern professor, a knowledgeable expert of life, and an empathetic soul. Duvall has the canny ability to play both aloof and approachable, sometimes simultaneously. He can wrap an arm around you just as well as he can seem incapable of that act. He is imposing and invisible all at once.
And that makes him endlessly intriguing. I have been watching Robert Duvall movies since I was a small child, and I still feel like I’m sussing him out. Figuring what he’s capable of. Duvall performances are never showy, never powerhouses. Duvall, unlike contemporaries Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, doesn’t swing for the walls. He doesn’t do broad character work. He does the distant, stable, whole characters. He banks in subtlety. And he never lets you down. Oh sure, he’s appeared in his share of stinkers like Gone in Sixty Seconds, Lucky You, and John Q, but what legend hasn’t starred in a few bad films in their career? What’s more notable is that he has never given a bad performance. It’s like he doesn’t know how.
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Duvall spent the first several decades of his career in television, mostly as the one-or-two-shot guest star in a long-running show. He played two roles in “The Fugitive,” appeared in three episodes of “The Outer Limits,” and played an endless series of cops. If you’re a fan of American TV of the 1960s, then you have seen Robert Duvall more often than you know. Seriously. From “The Defenders” to “Combat!” to “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” to “The Mod Squad,” Robert Duvall was pretty steadily employed.
Perhaps it was that sort of workaday blue-collar approach to acting that dictated his stalwart performances later in his career. He would not try to stand out, but serve the material. Work the job, do what the director asks, and do it well. Only one of his performances provided us with a quotable oddball, but it was in a movie rife with bizarre imagery and wartime insanity.
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Indeed, Robert Duvall’s first notable film role was a silent one. He did very little, talked not at all, and yet lent the movie he was in a strange eerie weight just with his stature, his posture, his aloof and innocent threat. Indeed, in the following countdown, we’ll start in 1962 with that very role, and count our way forward through Duvall’s 14 most notable film performances.
Slideshow: The Essential Robert Duvall: 14 Must-See Films
Witney Seibold is a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can read his weekly Trolling articles here on Crave, and follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
The 14 Essential Robert Duvall Movies
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To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
You likely saw this one in school, and if you haven't watched it since then, I implore you to revisit it. Robert Mulligan's adaptation of the classic novel is perhaps just as good as the book, and a long-lasting Hollywood classic. The story follows a feisty young girl named Scout and her relationship with her amazingly moral and upstanding father, a defense attorney who is ensuring a black man be acquitted of a crime he did not commit in the local - and very racist - small town where they all live. Boo Radley is the spectre that floats over this town, and the man who... well, I leave the story for you to discover. Needless to say, Duvall, as Boo Radley, lends huge amounts of weight to a tiny role. He essentially captures the tone of this wonderful classic without having to do much of anything. Other than be professional and great.
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THX 1138 (1971)
There was a time when George Lucas was considered a Hollywood wunderkind, and not, as so many fanboys have declared, a reviled ruinator of Star Wars. In 1971, Lucas made a dystopian feature film called THX 1138 that was very much in the vein of Logan's Run or 1984. People are stripped of names and live underground, working tirelessly to support the one central surviving feature of the future landscape: malls. The people have no emotions. Duvall plays the title character who is convinced by a co-worker to stop taking his emotion control meds. Duvall is the heart of a movie that is about finding your heart in a soulless place.
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The Godfather and The Godfather Part II (1972 and 1974)
These, you know. Duvall plays a character named Tom Hagen, a mild-mannered lawyer who defends and advises the Corleone crime family. He is, in mob parlance, the family's consigliere. While Hagen doesn't have gigantic speeches or stirring moments, he does seem to serve an important function: to show that the Corleone family has the law in their hand. And that a violent crime family can raise and nurture a gentle soul. Duvall doesn't get the meaty tragedy of Al Pacino's character, but he does get to be a part of the family. He was notable enough to earn an Academy award nomination.
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Network (1976)
One of the best, most cynical films of the 1970s, Sidney Lumet's Network is a genius satirical breakdown of how bad TV had gotten. And you know what? It's only gotten worse since 1976. Duvall plays the head of the network in question who is ultimately the one to plug Peter Finch's wild-eyed character into the airwaves. In a way, Duvall has the most complex moral conflict in the movie: it will be he who will decide that TV needs less substance and integrity, and more manipulation and cynicism.
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Apocalypse Now (1979)
Often cited as Duvall's best performance, and certainly his most unusual, Bill Kilgore is the man whose soul has been warped and blackened the most by the war (with the notable exception of Col. Kurtz himself). Kilgore is the man who likes to play Wagner from his helicopters as he napalms the natives below. He is the one who orders his soldiers to go surfing in the middle of a bombing. And he is the one who so casually strolls past explosions as if they're nothing. He loves the smell of napalm in the morning. He only appears in a few scenes near the film's beginning, but – never as energetic as this – Duvall sets the insane tone of a classically psychedelic anti-war polemic. Once again, he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
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The Great Santini (1979)
Duvall went on to play roles like this in the future – indeed his role in The Judge could be seen as an echo of this one – but in The Great Santini, he seems to have done it best. Ben Meechum (Michael O'Keefe) is a young man who seems to be struggling with the increasing strictness of his jet pilot father (Duvall). Of course, this man's sun in setting, he knows it, and his heart seems to ache over it. Familial control is his only recourse. This classically tragic figure fits Duvall very well. It earned him his first Academy Award nomination for leading actor.
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Tender Mercies (1983)
Although he was only in his early 50s in 1983, Duvall already had the weary face of a man who had led several lifetimes. His sad, unreadable eyes and constant half-smirk put him somewhere in between inscrutable and sad. It was that sadness that drives Tender Mercies, the film that won Duvall his only Academy Award to date. Watching Tender Mercies and The Great Santini back-to-back displays Duvall's impeccable and subtle range. He can be stern, but also sad and tender. Sadness lurks under everything in Tender Mercies, a sentimental film that earns its sentiment.
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Colors (1988)
Gang violence saw a boom in the late 1980s, and racial tensions were running high. Hollywood was quick to make films about this growing real-life drama, and hit upon a rather good little cop flick in 1988 with Colors, directed by Dennis Hopper. Duvall plays a longtime beat cop who takes to the street with his rookie partner (Sean Penn). Although the film eventually skews a bit preachy, Colors is still a very serious and earnest movie about gang violence that addresses a touchy topic head-on. Duvall does world-weary better than anyone, but you can also see his optimism leaking through; he's not about to give up.
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Rambling Rose (1991)
Rambling Rose is actually Laura Dern's showcase, but she wouldn't be able to shine without such a believable disapproving father figure to stand against. Duvall plays the patriarch of a 1930s family who takes in an at-risk, would-be prostitute named Rose as their maid. Rose has becomes the crush object of every male in the vicinity, and it'll take all of Mr. Hillyer's strength to keep her under control. Dern and Diane Ladd are both great. Duvall, however, stands as the film's real emotional anchor. Serve the material. Don't take it.
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Falling Down (1993)
One of the most bitter films of the 1990s, Joel Schumacher's Falling Down condemns every single facet of modern big city society, as seen through the eyes of an insane ex-soldier played by Michael Douglas. The law, traffic, convenience stores, beggars, fast food restaurants that stop serving breakfast at 11:30 even though it's 11:33. All will get a gun shoved in their face. Duvall plays the relatively level-headed cop who is following our antihero's path of vigilante annoyance. By the end, Duvall begins to see the frustrations our hero has been having. That's not going to stop him from putting an end to the violence.
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The Apostle (1998)
Easily Duvall's best performance, and perhaps one of the best Christian films this side of Robert Bresson, The Apostle, also written and directed by Duvall, is an affectionate and non-judgmental look at the life of a Texan preacher. E.F. is a powerful preacher who can move himself and large congregations with his sermons. When E.F. beats a man with a baseball bat in a fit of rage, he must flee to state, change his name, and redeem himself in the eyes of the Lord. Eventually the law will catch up to him, and he did do a wicked thing, but he's also the best Christian he knows how to be. Complex, realistic, and a wonderful showcase for Duvall's talents, The Apostle is a must-see. Duvall was nominated for another Academy award.
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Open Range (2003)
Given his laidback acting and his fatherly presence, it's surprising to think that Duvall never made a western movie before 2003's Open Range. ("Lonesome Dove" was a TV mini-series.) In it, he seems perfectly at ease as a gentle cowboy who oversees a cattle ranch with Kevin Costner, the film's star and director. Duvall has often given me a down-home feeling. As if he is a classicist who can't help but dress well and be fatherly. Open Range sees this image of him writ large, out on the prairie, getting dappled to within an inch of his life by ambitious photographers.
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Get Low (2009)
Based partly on real life, but told as if it's an old legend, Get Low is about a 1930s hermit named Felix Bush who famously staged his own funeral, just so he could enjoy it while he was still alive. Get Low is the kind of gentle indie dramedy that so pleasantly choked up the arthouses of the 1990s, and allowed great actors to do some more daring work. Felix Bush isn't Robert Duvall showcasing himself in any sort of daring way like in Apocalypse Now or The Apostle, but it does let him do something that he's not often asked to do: Be funny. As an acerbic coot, Duvall once again falls naturally to the task at hand, embodying - rather than simply playing - Felix Bush.
