CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (Nov 1977) PG
Director: Steven Spielberg.
Writers: Steven Spielberg, Hal Barwood, Jerry Belson, John Hill, Matthew Robbins.
Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon, Bob Balaban, Francois Truffaut, J. Patrick McNamara, Warren J. Kemmerling, Philip Dodds, Cary Guffey, Shawn Bishop, Adrienne Campbell, Justin Dreyfuss, Lance Henriksen, Merrill Connally, George DiCenzo.
A blinding sandstorm.
A man arrives in a jeep. His first words:
"Are we the
first? Are we the first to arrive here?"
Thus does Steven Spielberg's paean to intergalactic amity begin with ferocious felicitousness. In its opening frames, in one line, co-writer and director Spielberg imbues his iconoclastic monument, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, with foreshadowing, mystery, wry humor, loaded innuendo, conceptual throughline, plot acuity, and a thousand other angles depending on how you percieve that one line. So many things can be read into it! Is this not the mark of genius?!
Iconoclastic because CLOSE ENCOUNTERS was born into a world dominated by the narrative spawned by films like THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951), WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953) and EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS (1956) where intergalactic aliens with big brains were out to teach us a lesson, or were terrifying technodroids out to deep fry us for lunch ("It's a cookbook!"). Notwithstanding the also-iconoclastic 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968), one just has to view the MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER catalog of wretchedly ignorant 50's and 60's "alien-themed" films to apprehend society's paranoia and insecurity over intergalactic alien encounters.
Speilberg's aliens are not only friendly, they're musical! (Pleasantly musical, in a classical major key--not discordantly musical like the subterranean mutants in BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES.) They observe, they communicate, they wonder about us as we wonder about them. They abduct, yes, but for benign purposes, and--as we see at the film's climax--they return all their abductees. No harm, no foul, no anal-probing.
The movie stars and storyline of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS are secondary to the emotional impact the film would leave on humankind. It singlehandedly diverted the river of extraterrestrial hatred and misunderstanding towards tolerance and empathy; there will always be bad filmmakers making bad movies about bad aliens, but a new narrative had arrived. There would come Spielberg's own E.T. THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL (1982), STARMAN (1984), COCOON (1985), and Sagan's inimitable CONTACT (1997).
Richard Dreyfuss is Roy Neary, an Indiana lineman who is called out one night
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND may not have been the first to codify the three-tiered designation of extraterrestral alien encounters, but - like the aliens in the movie - embedded it in our heads like the Multiplication Table. A Close Encounter of the First Kind is "sighting of a U.F.O."; the Second Kind, "evidence"; a Close Encounter of the Third Kind: "contact."
PLOT
Like every great Spielberg film of this era, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS isn't about stunning us right outa the gatezapping and Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) is an Indiana lineman investigating a power outage, who hin rural Idiana. has The first Kind
Richard Dreyfuss is Roy Neary,
Beautiful thing about CLOSE ENCOUNTERS was that the aliens expressed tthemselves to the huimans through art - they implanted images in people's minds - enticing them to scupt, to play music.
spielberg and his artful musical aliens.
such a beautiful thing: that's why this is a ten-cucmber movie - not one "laser" is fired, no enemies, no terrorism, no fear, - just comuncation.
a wondrous exemplification of how two intelligent speices HSOULD communitae.
all before CGI - this stuff is the best, realistic spaceship -human interaction ever seen on film at that point in time. this stuff is REAL. before CGi chromakey and process shots - so much care taken - of course money eent into tit - such attention to detail - such a love for the craft of imaginaition.
We see Mcdonalds - only 24 billion served at that point in Earth's intergalacitc history.
is it coincidence tha tLane Henriksen is her in a small role as Francois TRuffatus aide? He'll soon make his bones as Bishop in the ALIEN series.
wha ta magnificent vision - so different to everyhting that would come before or after - p-aranoid 50s 60s aliens invading - DY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and its ilk - and after would come ALIEN -with aliens invading and a remakdke of DAY THE EARTHS TOO SSTILL. Think think think if there's anything that comes close to the amity that CLSOE ENCOUNTERS spawns between alien races. Is it a coicicdence that the towin in Spielberg's film prior to this was called Amity?
mcDonalds - only "26 billion served"
Remeber when CGI was called spfx: douglas trumbull - spfx
The very first line:
"Are we
the first? Are we the first to arrive here?"
It evokes so many cross-cultural myths, from biblical stories to ancient aliens, from religion to mnythology, from creationists to the Big Bang - iT makes you think of all these things as if floating across the eons like Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End , that line is LOADED.
no anal-probing, no "abductions"
with malicious intent.
When the mothership comes over them, one wonders what lights it is blacking out as a blackened shadow creeps over the whole facility - but the whole thing is made of lithhts - a very strange decision Spielberg made.
the aliens are shaped like what the enthusiasts call "grays": smooth-bodied, big eyes, shaved-headed
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (208)
Director: Steven Spielberg.
Writers: Steven Spielberg, Hal Barwood, Jerry Belson, John Hill, Matthew Robbins.
Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon, Bob Balaban, Francois Truffaut, J. Patrick McNamara, Warren J. Kemmerling, Philip Dodds, Cary Guffey, Shawn Bishop, Adrienne Campbell, Justin Dreyfuss, Lance Henriksen, Merrill Connally, George DiCenzo.
