Foote's legacy rose in strong characters

The annual film festival in Park City was just a pup in 1984, its sixth year. In fact, it had not yet evolved into Sundance. (It was still the United States Film and Video Festival.)

But it was a memorable year for me. I got to spend some time with Robert Duvall, who brought a small, decade-old independent production that had just been rediscovered, a black-and-white picture titled "Tomorrow."

Duvall was a hot property at the time, as his most recent film, "Tender Mercies," was expected to earn him an Oscar nomination. (It did, of course, and he went on to win the best-actor Oscar.)

At the time, Duvall considered "Tomorrow" and "Tender Mercies" among his best work, acknowledging that both were screenplays written by his friend Horton Foote — who had also adapted "To Kill a Mockingbird," in which Duvall had made his film debut some 22 years earlier. (Duvall would later also star in Foote's "Convicts.")

During the interview, Duvall was animated and effusive as he spoke of Foote's ability to develop characters who provided dream roles for actors, whose behavior and dialogue rang true, and whose stories reflected real life.

When Foote died a few weeks ago at age 92, this quote was in The New York Times from Duvall: "Horton was the great American voice. His work was native to his own region, but it was also universal."

That universality is what makes Foote's work so enduring. "Tender Mercies" doesn't feel like a 25-year-old movie. The 35-year-old "Tomorrow" could have been written yesterday. And it's because the characters feel like people we all know.

After Duvall's enthusiastic endorsement, I began watching for Foote's name, and I was rewarded over the next few years with a trio of films made for PBS (though the first two debuted theatrically): "1918," "On Valentine's Day" and "Courtship," about life in early 20th century America, fully engrossing works that pay almost as much attention to period detail as to timeless human behavior.

And unlike most movies today, Foote's works are generally about decency, about good people who find themselves trying to cope with the everyday trials that life lobs at us.

Two years after speaking with Duvall, I was able to interview Foote by phone in advance of his highly praised 1986 festival opener "The Trip to Bountiful," and I asked how he chose his characters.