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| Close Encounters of the Third Kind (CE) |
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 (10/10)
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Runtime: 137 |
| Public Rating: 9.00 (30 votes) |
Director: Steven Spielberg |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Science Fiction |
Year: 1977 |
| Writer(s): Steven Spielberg |
| Distributor: Columbia Studios |
| Reviewed by: Mel Valentin |
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If mainstream films, especially critically and commercially successful mainstream films, reflect contemporary socio-cultural norms and aspirations, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, written and directed by Steven Spielberg, mirrored the late 1970s and the twin obsessions with unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and the mysterious disappearances of airplanes and ships inside the Bermuda Triangle. Almost as importantly, Close Encounters of the Third Kindoffered a positive, affirmative alternative to the paranoid conceptualization of aliens as destructive, horde-like conquerors, irredeemably other. As a corollary, human beings react not with disgust, revulsion, or fear of the aliens (and their ships), but with curiosity, wonderment, and awe.
With rare exceptions (e.g., The Day The Earth Stood Still, It Came From Outer Space), aliens in 1950s science-fiction films were defined by their desire for world domination, with little or no concern for human life. Beneath the genre conventions, aliens metaphorically represented American fears of the anti-individualistic, communist menace. Instead, Spielberg envisions aliens as benevolent visitors interested in interspecies communication. The aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind are, in essence, the secularized versions of the angels found in Christian mythology. Aliens, in 70s pop mythology, represented multiple, ambiguous possibilities (their intentions always in dispute), but with their desexualized appearance (closely followed by Spielberg), they also represented a purer, pre-sexual state of being. Aliens were also considered intermediaries to a higher form of (harmonious) existence, one entirely unlike our own. For Spielberg's central character, Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss), his personal journey resonates on a mythic level, marked by an exteriorized spiritual quest that involves physical obstacles and challenges (i.e., climbing a mountain). Spielberg was certainly aware of the religious iconography underlying Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He tips his hand by having the central character and his family watch [i]The Ten Commandments[/i], another religious/mythological story involving a mountain, communication with a deity, and enlightenment. In 1980, Spielberg re-released Close Encounters, adding an extended, but superfluous, scene inside the mothership. Spielberg later realized the intractable problem of attempting to represent a secular version of the afterlife, and deleted the scene from the version found on the “Collector’s Edition” DVD (it can be, however, found on the DVD's extras).
Spielberg’s narrative strategy is evident from the opening scenes, which feature the discovery of WWII fighter planes in the Sonora Desert (Mexico) by government operatives and scientists, and a near collision of commercial aircraft over the Indianapolis skies followed by an air traffic controller. After these opening scenes, the audience is introduced to the protagonist, Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss), a power company technician. Neary is a harried husband to Ronnie (Teri Garr) and distracted father to his children; in short, Neary is the suburban male archetype. Despite the trappings of suburban conformity, Roy is less defined by his roles as father and husband than by his childlike sense of wonder, his openness to unseen possibilities. His nostalgic, romanticized attachment to his own childhood is evident in the opening scene: the living room has been overstuffed with the objects of his obsession, including an elaborate train set. As his wife draws him out of his distractions, a family get together is offered. Neary prefers Pinocchio to Goofy Golf, primarily because it reminds him of his own responsibility-free childhood. A local power outage leads to a midnight call from his supervisor at the power company. Neary, alone in his pickup truck, encounters a UFO at a railroad crossing. Spielberg films this scene with an emphasis on suspense, with the audience sharing Neary’s sense of increasing dislocation and disorientation. This first, direct encounter with the aliens gives little hint as to the aliens’ motives. Neary, we soon learn, has been implanted with a vision, an incomplete image that drives him into an obsessive quest for the meaning behind the image.
It's here, where Close Encounters of the Third Kind segues into family drama territory, and where Spielberg risks losing his audience. Neary's obsessive behavior clearly marks him, if only temporarily, as an unlikeable, self-centered character. Nearly loses his job with the power company, and consequently his social status within the neighborhood. Spielberg clearly signals Ronnie as being preoccupied with social status and a desire for (suburban) normality, making her a less than sympathetic character. Spielberg, however, makes the personal and social costs of Neary's obsession clear: his children quickly move from anxious incomprension to anger and despair. But Spielberg clearly drives audience sympathy toward Neary, and the artistic expression of his obsession. As Neary completes a massive sculpture in his living room, the displacement of his family from the center of his life is complete, both literally and figuratively.
Neary, however, isn’t alone in his vision quest. Others have been called by the aliens (to what purpose, however, remains unclear). Enter Jillian Guiler (Melinda Dillon) a single mother who lives with her son Barry (Cary Guffy) in a semi-rural area. They too encounter the unseen aliens, but here Spielberg emphasizes the ambiguity in the aliens’ actions: their arrival is heralded by the activation of Barry’s toys, which in turn adds a layer of discomfort and anxiety to the scene. The aliens, it seems, are interested in luring Barry outside to play with them. As he disappears into the nearby woods, Jillian gives chase, only to cross paths with Neary, as he pursues the UFOs around a bend in the road. Barry’s safety, however, has been compromised, and a second visitation by the aliens, this time played for horror (with glowing red lights burning through the windows and keyholes), leads to his abduction. Again, the reasons for the aliens’ actions remain ambiguous, unanswered, unsettling.
But the audience has been given an advantage over the two leads: the opening scene introduced the audience to Lacombe (Francois Truffaut), a French scientist who leads a secret, intergovernmental agency seeking direct contact with the aliens. The organization, with an assist from the U.S. military (apparently under the aegis of the United Nations) has decided to withhold information from the American public about the alien visitations (or their ambiguous intentions), as well as coded message from the aliens that has alerted the scientists to a potential rendezvous. To that end, a secret airstrip has been built at the coordinates specified in the message, at the base of Devil’s Tower, the same site found in Neary and Jillian’s visions. The secret organization, reflecting Spielberg's own predilections, has already decided to err on the side of cautious optimism. Spielberg has little room for the Cold War pessimism reflected in other science-fiction films of the era. Even the secret organization's decision to withhold information is seen, at worst, agnostically (their good intentions allow for only the mildest of criticisms, from Neary and later Lacombe, who recognizes that Neary and the others have been "called" to Devil's Tower by their visions and should, therefore, be given the opportunity to make contact with the aliens).
Neary and Jillian, reunited after the loss of his family (and almost his sanity) to his obsession and the loss of her son to alien abduction, must find their way through a series of literal roadblocks: in order to clear the population near Devil's Tower, the U.S. military has created a suitable rationale, the accidental release of a nerve gas. Neary and Jillian also have to overcome their own doubts, but it's no surprise that their encounter with the military (complete in hazmat suits) leads to a temporary separation, followed by a flight up the mountain on foot as darkness falls. From there, Close Encounters of the Third Kindenters the realm of the metaphysical, with Neary joining the scientists, the technicians, and government agents, in witnessing, and then participating in, the first "official" interspecies contact. This sequence, the longest of the film at nearly 35 minutes and filmed inside a renovated airplane hangar in Alabama, culminates with the arrival of the alien mothership. It unfolds with minimal dialogue, as humans attempt to communicate with the aliens through music (by John Williams). This sequence was more than likely inspired by Stanley Kubrick's 2001 (Douglas Trumball, Spielberg's special effects supervisor, held similar duties on Kubrick's 1968 film). As one character puts it, "They're teaching us a basic tonal vocabulary and today's the first day of school." Here, light, color, sound, music, and movement combine to create what some critics have called "pure cinema," a cinema that bypasses logic and reason to engage the audience on an emotional, and therefore, nonrational/spiritual, level. In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, however, pure cinema is first and foremost used to complement Neary's personal journey for the meaning behind his vision, a journey that culminates with the physical and metaphorical flight inside the alien mothership into the night sky and an unknown (perhaps unknowable) destination.
© Mel Valentin, 24th November, 2004
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 Printable Version
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*Available subtitles: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Thai, Chinese (Unspecified)
* Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), French, Spanish
* Feature Length Making-of Documentary
* 1977 Featurette Watching the Skies
* 11 Deleted Scenes
* Number of discs: 2
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