Patheos.com: Revisiting “Close Encounters,” 40 Years Later
(Warning: This review contains spoilers and assumes that the reader has seen “Close Encounters.”)
For my generation, the images and dialogue from Spielberg’s films of the ‘70s and ‘80s are as instantly recognizable as those from Star Wars, Monty Python, and The Big Lebowski. In case there’s any doubt, see how quickly you can answer these three questions:
•Why does Chief Brody say, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat”?
•How does Indiana Jones dispatch the swordsman in Raiders of the Lost Ark?
•Who needs to phone home?
So, in honor of its 40th anniversary, it was a treat to revisit his sci-fi classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind on the big screen. For me, it was a nostalgic ride, stirring up childhood memories of seeing this at the movies with my family. Though it didn’t leave as deep an imprint as a certain George Lucas movie that had blasted into the multiplex earlier that same year, it certainly played a part in my childhood and adolescent obsession with science fiction.
For those who’ve forgotten its plot, Close Encounters interweaves three pairs of characters and their responses to signs of imminent alien visitation. Two scientists, Claude Lacombe (Francois Truffaut) and his interpreter David Laughlin (Bob Balaban), hop from Mexico to Indian to Mongolia, before ending up at Wyoming’s iconic Devil’s Tower.
Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss), an Indiana lineman, witnesses alien ships on a nocturnal repair job and cannot shake a recurring mental image of a looming tower. His wife Ronnie (Teri Garr), who didn’t see the spaceships, is terrified by Roy’s increasingly bizarre behavior, as are his distressed children.
Down the road from Roy, a single mother Jillian (Melinda Dillon) and her son Barry (Cary Guffey) spot the ships on the same night. When the aliens return and abduct Barry, his mom is naturally drawn to Wyoming as well.
Though not a perfect film (more on that later), Spielberg had already mastered the technique of foreshadowing in Close Encounters. Its opening sequence of scientists groping their way through a Sonoran sandstorm, struggling to be understood in their babel of French, Spanish, and English, prefigures their efforts to communicate with the aliens.
As he had done so splendidly in Jaws two years earlier, Close Encounters also builds a steady momentum across its duration, only dragging in its final build to the climactic meeting at Devil’s Tower. And just as in Jaws, E.T., and Jurassic Park, Spielberg knows how to tantalize with hints of a grand reveal, as lights in the sky eventually give way to a full meeting with humanoid extraterrestrials.
Likewise, Spielberg’s longtime professional partnership with composer John Williams is delightfully fruitful here, especially in the five note alien theme that culminates so joyfully in an organ/tuba duet when the mothership lands. In addition, the special effects of Close Encounters have stood the test of time, in contrast to the manifestly synthetic shark of Jaws.
The performances in Close Encounters are more of a mixed bag, however. Casting the legendary French New Wave director Francois Truffaut as Claude Lacombe was an inspired choice. Spielberg famously wanted an actor “with the soul of a child” to play the wonder-filled, open-hearted scientist, and I don’t think he could’ve selected better. As is so clear in his own classic The 400 Blows, Truffaut drew from his own deep well of empathy to elicit convincing performances from child actors. Spielberg had also been impressed with Truffaut’s work as director and lead actor in The Wild Child (not coincidentally, another film about the challenges of bridging massive communication gaps, in this case concerning a feral boy brought back to civilization in 18th Century France).
Unfortunately, the work of Richard Dreyfuss and Teri Garr in Close Encounters is inconsistent at best. Though both highly capable actors - heck, just look at Dreyfuss in Jaws - their performances are over-emoted and sporadically unconvincing. Overall, the characters in Close Encounters lack the richness found in later Spielberg treasures like Schindler’s List and Catch Me If You Can, or comparatively lesser works like Munich and Bridge of Spies.
Re-watching Close Encounters, it’s fun to discern echoes of subsequent Spielberg films. In many ways, it feels like a dry run for E.T., with its ominously masked scientists who aren’t so bad after all, chaotically ordinary suburban domesticity, and even aliens with similar appearances.
The contrasting reactions of wonder versus fear also presage the varied responses to E.T. (Like the doomed lawyer in Jurassic Park, one freaked-out scientist flees and hides in a Porta Potty.)
Alas, the young Spielberg - easy to forget he was 29 while shooting Close Encounters - hadn’t yet learned to dole out his technical flourishes sparingly. His trademark zoom-in for a facial close-up is done to death, diluting my feelings of wonderment at the onscreen events.
Thematically, Close Encounters is an allegory of the religious quest, a Pilgrim’s Progress with aliens. Spielberg tips his hand here in multiple ways. In an early scene in the Neary household, The Ten Commandments is playing on the TV. Later, when the clouds part over Devil’s Tower for the mothership’s arrival, the imagery is clearly borrowed from DeMille’s bombastic extravaganza.
In another sequence, when the U.S. military is denying the impending alien arrival, an Air Force officer even says, “There are all kinds of things it’d be fun to believe in,” before rattling off a list that includes the immortality of the soul. Then, at film’s end, a cultish group of pilgrims prepares to board the mothership by participating in a Christian worship service.
The quest symbolism is most evident in Roy Neary’s character arc. The increasing estrangement of Dreyfuss’ character from his family will be recognizable to many with a history of religious conversion. The biblical axiom that “many are called, but few are chosen” is illustrated by the fact that, of all the unnamed extras who witness the spaceships, only Roy and Jillian persevere and make it to the top of Devil’s Tower.
Even Roy’s earlier desire to take his family to see Disney’s Pinocchio alludes to his faith in the face of resistance, his “wishing upon a star.” When Roy is selected by the aliens to board their ship, he is reborn as a “real boy” like Pinocchio.
In a fascinating way, this prefigures Spielberg’s later film, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. In this far more sophisticated work, Haley Joel Osment’s robot child David becomes single-minded in his search for Pinocchio’s Blue Fairy, convinced that she will make him real and therefore worthy of his mother’s love.
Roy and David offer an intriguing comparison. The way that Roy’s quasi-religious quest is posited by Spielberg as something positive, despite wrecking his family in the service of faith, makes this movie a morally dubious enterprise. On the other hand, I’m convinced that David’s longings in A.I. tap into something profoundly authentic, perhaps immutable, in the human psyche. As such, it was a pleasure to revisit and reflect upon Close Encounters, but A.I. is the Spielberg film that is most rewarding to watch and contemplate again and again.
I bet Marilyn and Edgar still haven't seen it all the way through though.
For my generation, the images and dialogue from Spielberg’s films of the ‘70s and ‘80s are as instantly recognizable as those from Star Wars, Monty Python, and The Big Lebowski. In case there’s any doubt, see how quickly you can answer these three questions:
•Why does Chief Brody say, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat”?
•How does Indiana Jones dispatch the swordsman in Raiders of the Lost Ark?
•Who needs to phone home?
So, in honor of its 40th anniversary, it was a treat to revisit his sci-fi classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind on the big screen. For me, it was a nostalgic ride, stirring up childhood memories of seeing this at the movies with my family. Though it didn’t leave as deep an imprint as a certain George Lucas movie that had blasted into the multiplex earlier that same year, it certainly played a part in my childhood and adolescent obsession with science fiction.
For those who’ve forgotten its plot, Close Encounters interweaves three pairs of characters and their responses to signs of imminent alien visitation. Two scientists, Claude Lacombe (Francois Truffaut) and his interpreter David Laughlin (Bob Balaban), hop from Mexico to Indian to Mongolia, before ending up at Wyoming’s iconic Devil’s Tower.
Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss), an Indiana lineman, witnesses alien ships on a nocturnal repair job and cannot shake a recurring mental image of a looming tower. His wife Ronnie (Teri Garr), who didn’t see the spaceships, is terrified by Roy’s increasingly bizarre behavior, as are his distressed children.
Down the road from Roy, a single mother Jillian (Melinda Dillon) and her son Barry (Cary Guffey) spot the ships on the same night. When the aliens return and abduct Barry, his mom is naturally drawn to Wyoming as well.
Though not a perfect film (more on that later), Spielberg had already mastered the technique of foreshadowing in Close Encounters. Its opening sequence of scientists groping their way through a Sonoran sandstorm, struggling to be understood in their babel of French, Spanish, and English, prefigures their efforts to communicate with the aliens.
As he had done so splendidly in Jaws two years earlier, Close Encounters also builds a steady momentum across its duration, only dragging in its final build to the climactic meeting at Devil’s Tower. And just as in Jaws, E.T., and Jurassic Park, Spielberg knows how to tantalize with hints of a grand reveal, as lights in the sky eventually give way to a full meeting with humanoid extraterrestrials.
Likewise, Spielberg’s longtime professional partnership with composer John Williams is delightfully fruitful here, especially in the five note alien theme that culminates so joyfully in an organ/tuba duet when the mothership lands. In addition, the special effects of Close Encounters have stood the test of time, in contrast to the manifestly synthetic shark of Jaws.
The performances in Close Encounters are more of a mixed bag, however. Casting the legendary French New Wave director Francois Truffaut as Claude Lacombe was an inspired choice. Spielberg famously wanted an actor “with the soul of a child” to play the wonder-filled, open-hearted scientist, and I don’t think he could’ve selected better. As is so clear in his own classic The 400 Blows, Truffaut drew from his own deep well of empathy to elicit convincing performances from child actors. Spielberg had also been impressed with Truffaut’s work as director and lead actor in The Wild Child (not coincidentally, another film about the challenges of bridging massive communication gaps, in this case concerning a feral boy brought back to civilization in 18th Century France).
Unfortunately, the work of Richard Dreyfuss and Teri Garr in Close Encounters is inconsistent at best. Though both highly capable actors - heck, just look at Dreyfuss in Jaws - their performances are over-emoted and sporadically unconvincing. Overall, the characters in Close Encounters lack the richness found in later Spielberg treasures like Schindler’s List and Catch Me If You Can, or comparatively lesser works like Munich and Bridge of Spies.
Re-watching Close Encounters, it’s fun to discern echoes of subsequent Spielberg films. In many ways, it feels like a dry run for E.T., with its ominously masked scientists who aren’t so bad after all, chaotically ordinary suburban domesticity, and even aliens with similar appearances.
The contrasting reactions of wonder versus fear also presage the varied responses to E.T. (Like the doomed lawyer in Jurassic Park, one freaked-out scientist flees and hides in a Porta Potty.)
Alas, the young Spielberg - easy to forget he was 29 while shooting Close Encounters - hadn’t yet learned to dole out his technical flourishes sparingly. His trademark zoom-in for a facial close-up is done to death, diluting my feelings of wonderment at the onscreen events.
Thematically, Close Encounters is an allegory of the religious quest, a Pilgrim’s Progress with aliens. Spielberg tips his hand here in multiple ways. In an early scene in the Neary household, The Ten Commandments is playing on the TV. Later, when the clouds part over Devil’s Tower for the mothership’s arrival, the imagery is clearly borrowed from DeMille’s bombastic extravaganza.
In another sequence, when the U.S. military is denying the impending alien arrival, an Air Force officer even says, “There are all kinds of things it’d be fun to believe in,” before rattling off a list that includes the immortality of the soul. Then, at film’s end, a cultish group of pilgrims prepares to board the mothership by participating in a Christian worship service.
The quest symbolism is most evident in Roy Neary’s character arc. The increasing estrangement of Dreyfuss’ character from his family will be recognizable to many with a history of religious conversion. The biblical axiom that “many are called, but few are chosen” is illustrated by the fact that, of all the unnamed extras who witness the spaceships, only Roy and Jillian persevere and make it to the top of Devil’s Tower.
Even Roy’s earlier desire to take his family to see Disney’s Pinocchio alludes to his faith in the face of resistance, his “wishing upon a star.” When Roy is selected by the aliens to board their ship, he is reborn as a “real boy” like Pinocchio.
In a fascinating way, this prefigures Spielberg’s later film, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. In this far more sophisticated work, Haley Joel Osment’s robot child David becomes single-minded in his search for Pinocchio’s Blue Fairy, convinced that she will make him real and therefore worthy of his mother’s love.
Roy and David offer an intriguing comparison. The way that Roy’s quasi-religious quest is posited by Spielberg as something positive, despite wrecking his family in the service of faith, makes this movie a morally dubious enterprise. On the other hand, I’m convinced that David’s longings in A.I. tap into something profoundly authentic, perhaps immutable, in the human psyche. As such, it was a pleasure to revisit and reflect upon Close Encounters, but A.I. is the Spielberg film that is most rewarding to watch and contemplate again and again.
I bet Marilyn and Edgar still haven't seen it all the way through though.