My Favorite Films: Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977)

Written and Directed by Steven Spielberg
Starring Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr and Bob Balaban

Aliens. Any time the word is uttered, what do we think of? Little green men descending from the stars with probe in hand ready to steal a person away in the middle of the night and painfully examine his inner workings? Or grotesque, vile creatures invading our planet with a mission to obliterate any and all human existence? Chances are, one of these descriptions was the first to come to mind. Why? For decades, the film industry has made most of its visitors from beyond Earth into villains or sadists who must be thwarted by the latest action star. Of course, this is just one of the answers, but the one with the biggest impact on humans. Very rarely are we treated to friendly extra-terrestrial beings who are friendly, or merely curious, and have no intention of causing harm. Funny then, how we automatically think of these beings when we hear the words “I come in peace.”

Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters Of The Third Kind was one of the first, and to this day only, science fiction films to treat other worldly beings seriously, with dignity and respect. The creatures presented here are not malevolent creatures bent on the extinction of the human race. Nor are they sadistic beings examining the human body with extreme measures. They are merely a curious race of peaceful beings studying our life forms with careful observation. There is a scene about halfway through the film we are led to believe that maybe these beings are the kinds of aliens we have seen before, but in actuality it is merely a scene designed to allow the child involved a sense of adventure and wonder. When we finally meet the beings at the end of the film, they are not presented as monsters like in Ridley Scott’s Alien, but as simple, even graceful creatures--the younger aliens were portrayed by young ballet dancers to convey this innocence.

The film centers mainly around a line-operator named Ray Neary who comes into contact with an alien craft and becomes obsessed with the impressions--both physical and psychological--left by the encounter. Driven to near madness by the vision of a large mound, he frightens and alienates his family and absorbs himself in an attempt to solve his own questions. Along his journey he meets a single mother who’s only son has disappeared after spacecraft came to their house and he followed them outside. They form a friendship based on their need to discover what has happened to their lives.

These scenes are inner cut with awe-inspiring, often magical scenes involving a French scientist’s research into the phenomena occurring across the world and his attempts to make contact with the alien life forms. From the Mojave Desert where fighter planes reported missing during the second World War appear out of nowhere to the Gobi Desert where a large ocean freighter lies imbedded in the sand, these scenes inspire a child-like wonder at what could have brought these surreal situations to fruition. Joined by a translator, the scientist flies travels the globe searching for the answers.

Few films can create the magic produced within the scenes of this film. Spielberg’s serious handling of the subject brings a realistic look and feel to a genre forever riddled with flashy special effects. Of course, there are plenty of visual effects in the movie, each more glorious and magical than those before it, but they never get in the way of the story or the characters. In fact, they serve to enhance the characters’--and viewers‘--sense of amazement with the events transpiring. We see what they see and are engrossed in the proceedings.

What makes Close Encounters different from other films of its “genre” is its use of drama and emotion over action and style. In actuality the movie is a drama documenting the disintegration of a family and a mother’s desperate search for her missing child; it just so happens to feature aliens and UFOs. The scenes featuring Ray ‘s family tearing at the seams has the feel of real domestic occurrences. You feel like a neighbor watching from the street as his wife gets in the car and drives away with the kids. The performances from Dreyfuss as Neary and Teri Garr as his wife Ronnie are tense, heartbreaking portrayals that hint at trouble before Neary’s encounter with the UFO.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is the first film I remember vividly from my childhood and the film that made me fall in love with the art of cinema. From the scene where the young child opens his front door to the brilliant alien lights dancing outside to the moment when the alien mothership impossibly rises from behind the Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, Spielberg fills us with a sense of spectacular wonder, one that sticks with you long after you’ve seen the movie then re-imbeds itself on each subsequent viewing. There is such a masterful care in handling and presenting each scene that you wonder why more science fiction films haven’t approached the genre in such a fashion. Then again, if they tried, I doubt they would reach the level of emotion and wonderment found here.

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My Favorite Films Introduction