Hearing the news about Robert Duvall passing at the age of 95 didn't feel like a sudden shock. It was more like watching a massive, weathered book finally snap shut, one that I've been thumbing through my whole life.
Duvall always felt omnipresent to me, he was old even when he was young. Think back to his flickering moments as Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird. I was probably first aware of Duvall during my first trips to the cinema during the 90s where despite the standard of the actual movie he would always be a stand out giving a true honest performance usually in a supporting role.
He didn't have that standard-issue Hollywood glow. He had a receding hairline and eyes that could go from terrifyingly blank to piercingly sharp in a split second. He never had Clark Gable's smooth charm or Al Pacino's manic, look-at-me energy. He was the bedrock. You bought a ticket, saw Duvall on the screen, and just knew someone up there was going to tell you the raw truth.
I've always thought of him as our greatest invisible actor, which is a crazy high-wire act most Hollywood egos are way too vain to try. So much of acting today practically begs the audience to notice the Effort, the “Transformation”. Duvall worked from the inside out. He had this spooky knack for sinking so deep into a role it was never about flashy performances.
(Tom Hagen, Posca, mixed media by Basesketch)
Then there’s his insane run in the seventies. It makes your head spin just looking at it. He was the thrumming engine of the New Hollywood era. Take Tom Hagen in The Godfather. While Brando mumbled and Pacino did his slow burn, Duvall brought the ice. He was the "Irish" lawyer who out-Sicilianed the Sicilians. The guy didn't need to yell; he already knew where all the bodies were buried, he probably filed the permits for the graves.
A few years later, he pops up in Apocalypse Now as Kilgore. Looking like a totally different species. He’s all sunburn and bravado, treating a napalm strike like a brisk morning jog. Everybody quotes the "smell of napalm" line, but watch his eyes when he says it. He isn't playing a comic-book villain. He makes war look terrifyingly fun, which is exactly why it’s such an mesmerising performance to watch.
In Tender Mercies, the one that finally bagged him an Oscar he plays a washed-up country singer Mac Sledge, he barely moves. But just watching the way he holds a guitar or drags his boots across Texas, you know exactly how many bottles of bourbon it took to get him there. He never asked for your pity. He just existed.
His own favourite part he played wasn't on the big screen it was of Gus McCrae in Lonesome Dove. It’s like a masterclass in American grit. He and Tommy Lee Jones stopped trying to out-act each other and just built something real. Gus is a talker, a trail philosopher, and Duvall gave him this lightness in a brutally harsh world.
He had to write and direct the Apostle himself because nobody else could capture that sweaty, desperate Pentecostal energy. He plays a guy who is equal parts sinner and saint, and he just lets those two sides beat the hell out of each other on screen.
Even when he got older, he kept that sure handedness bringing class to popcorn flicks such as Days of Thunder and Deep Impact. He also made everyone better in a supporting role, lifting up films such as Falling Down, Open Range and Crazy Heart.
It’s easy to say they don't make 'em like him anymore, but honestly? They never did. Duvall was a complete one-off, a happy accident of talent and an insane work ethic. He didn't look like a leading man, but he had the soul of one.
So, here’s to Robert Duvall. He gave us the smell of napalm, the quiet of Boo Radley, the ice of Tom Hagen and the weary grace of Mac Sledge.
At 95, he’s more than earned his rest. But those beautiful, flawed, breathing people he left on screen? They aren't going anywhere.
(Apocalypse Now, Indian Ink by Basesketch)