Close Encounters of the Third Kind

I forget when I first heard of this movie but I know I saw it in my first year of university. I was a Steven Spielberg fan starting when I was a teenager and for anyone who enjoys his work, they should see "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". I got to see it on the big screen for its 40th anniversary and I'll remember that. I don't think I would blame anyone for describing this movie as boring, slow and over the top. Other adjectives however also come to my mind such as powerful, enthralling and mesmerizing. The images and other cinematic qualities capture your imagination, much like the aliens implanting subliminal messages into the minds of the characters. I don't think this is the greatest science fiction movie ever made but you can't forget it once you see it.

The opening music and opening shot do wonders in capturing the audience's attention. I like how the audience is teased with lights in the desert storm. Cary Guffey's opening scene has his character looking at what we can assume is aliens off screen. Spielberg achieved the reactions he wanted Cary to express by having people dress up in masks and costumes to surprise the child with. Another fun fact, when Barry is abducted, he is being pulled through the pet door by his real life mother. After Roy has his encounter, he wakes up his family in the middle of the night and this is taken from Spielberg's own childhood when his father woke him up to watch a meteor shower. It is a powerful moment when both Roy and Jillian begin to help shape Barry's mountain of dirt. What might be just a child's meaningless creation to anyone else is the beginning of an obsession for both adult characters. When I first saw this movie, I took note of Spielberg incorporating real life culture into his story by means of television shows, commercials and vinyl records. Some examples include Duck Dodgers and the Budweiser ad. All this grounds the fictional story in reality and the director would do likewise in his 1982 science fiction masterpiece. When Roy is on the phone with Ronnie after sculpting the mountain in his living room, we as audience members are begging for him to look at the TV news broadcast. Everything that the aliens have implanted into the characters' minds (Devil's Tower and the five tones) is depicted with such importance that the audience is affected as well. This is a testament to the power of Spielberg's direction and John Williams' music. I guess we should also include Richard Dreyfuss' performance as well. The India scene is further evidence of the influence of the first two filmmakers. Having the tones introduced in this way gives them a spiritual connotation. Roy and Jillian then fight their way to the tower not really knowing why. From a modern perspective, the trip to landing pad almost feels like a reality TV game show. Many people show up to Devil's Tower but only three escape custody and then just Roy and Jillian are the final two. Some have suggested that the film contains Biblical themes as Roy undertakes a dangerous pilgrimage of sorts to the mountain out of faith. To support this theory, a clip of "The Ten Commandments" is shown on the family TV towards the start of "Close Encounters". Every time I see this show, it is sad for me that Roy loses his family. This film was made at a time though when Spielberg didn't have children and had the film been made later in his career, the story would have been different. There are other story problems with the movie because much of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" is focused on the supernatural and visual. I tend to gravitate towards films where the story is supported by the other cinematic elements of the movie and the balance was just a little off with this particular film.

Because of the huge success of "Jaws", Spielberg was given a great deal of creative freedom while working on "Close Encounters". This is one the few films in his long career where Spielberg wrote the screenplay, although other writers gave him assistance. Also, serving as the screenwriter for his own movies was a little more common early in Spielberg's career. The song "When You Wish upon a Star" from Disney's "Pinocchio" was highly influential for him during the writing phase. When the film was completed, Spielberg used the actual song for the end credits but test audiences didn't take it seriously. He instead had John Williams subtly incorporate the song twice in the musical score. The climax of this show was shot in abandoned airplane hangers in Alabama and became the largest sound stages in the history of filmmaking up to that point. Some famous names were considered for the part of Roy including Dustin Hoffman (who would later work for Spielberg on "Hook"), Al Pacino, Gene Hackman and Jack Nicholson. While Dreyfuss was working on "Jaws", Spielberg kept talking about his next film and Dreyfuss then pressured Spielberg to cast him as Roy. I saw at least one film by Francois Truffaut while studying French New Wave cinema at university. "The 400 Blows" has a very memorable final shot and I wonder if Truffaut's walk alone towards the three spaceships is a reference to that final scene. I should have looked out for Carl Weathers, who plays a solider in "Close Encounters". Just as John Williams can make us scared of swimming with just two notes, he can make us wonder if we are alone in the universe with just five notes. Ever since I first saw this movie, I have wondered if there is a "Jaws" musical reference at the end of tonal communication between the scientists and the mother ship. Williams wrote 300 possible tone combinations and Spielberg chose the one that ended up in the final film. In this same year, the composer had just completed what is arguably his great musical score for George Lucas. After hearing the music for "Star Wars", Spielberg worried if Williams had enough left in his tank for "Close Encounters". After forty years and thirty-seven Oscar nominations later, excluding the nominations for "Star Wars" and "Close Encounters", I think we can safely say that Spielberg had nothing to worry about. This was the first Spielberg film edited by Michael Kahn. The two would work together on every subsequent Spielberg-directed film except for "E.T."

"Star Wars" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", along with "Superman" the following year, made the sci-fi genre popular again. The greatest tragedy of "Close Encounters" is that it was and is overshadowed by Lucas' masterpiece. It was fortuitous that post-production work on "Close Encounters" caused some delays, leading to the film being released in November instead of the summer of 1977. The financial loss for Spielberg's film from direct competition with "Star Wars" might have been disastrous. Spielberg was robbed of an Oscar nomination for his work on "Jaws" while the film itself earned a Best Picture nomination but for "Close Encounters", the opposite happened. Spielberg was nominated for Best Director (both he and Lucas lost that year to Woody Allen) while the film wasn't nominated for Best Picture. To date, this was Spielberg's first of seven nominations in the Best Director category. Other Oscar nominations for "Close Encounters" include Best Supporting Actress (Melinda Dillon as Jillian), Sound, Musical Score, Art Direction, Editing (Kahn) and Visual Effects. Five of those nominations were lost to "Star Wars" but Williams lost to himself. He did win two Grammy Awards for his work on "Close Encounters". Notably, Richard Dreyfuss won Best Actor that same ceremony for his role on "The Goodbye Girl". "Close Encounters" did walk away with two Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and a special achievement Oscar for sound editing.

The American Film Institute has included "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" on its lists of thrilling movies at #31 and inspirational movies at #58. At one point, AFI also considered it as one of the best 100 movies of all time. Despite its eclipse by "Star Wars", "Close Encounters" still found a place in pop culture by means of mashed potatoes, musical tones and a mountain. To me, the movie is very memorable even though it isn't the best science fiction show. The power of the visuals, direction and music is obvious. Spielberg's first pitch of the movie predicted a cost of $2.7 million but the final film cost $19.4 million. "Jaws" had also gone over budget and so Spielberg promised himself that he would not make the same mistake on his next movie. That turned out very well. When you compare alien films before 1977 with those that came after, there is an obvious difference and Spielberg wasn't finished making alien movies.

3.5 Stars out of 5