CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND at 40 – an Appreciation

By Movie Geeks | August 31, 2017

Article by Dane Eric Marti

Sometimes a film will speak directly to a person in an audience:  A preternatural, unearthly tendril of luminous light tapping you on the shoulder, a benevolent yet mysterious voice reminding you of an obligation, or a musical, colorful Dream Message entering your eyes and speaking to your soul with wonder, awe and truth. Like other Art forms, film can do amazing things.

For me, there are definitely a few choice films of overwhelming, pristine power. Yet one cinematic work is not just great, deeply special to me: ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind.’ Directed by the Wonderkind, Steven Spielberg, directly after his landmark suspense-adventure film, ‘Jaws’.

Now, his new flick, released in 1977, also dealt with the fantastic, with riveting moments of terror… but its endgame was something quite dissimilar.

I think it would take either a first-rate Psychologist or an Exorcist with a lot of saves under his belt to figure out why a particular film had an impact on someone. Obviously, age plays a crucial part. I was 13 years old and had, due to a pretty comfortable childhood, only recently begun to realize that the world had many extremely disagreeable and downright ugly components in it.

Now, I was also a young movie nut, having experienced wonderful, timeworn Universal monster movies on crappy televisions with vertical hold issues. I’d been obsessed with the 1960’s Planet of the Apes series. And I had survived, with a reasonably intense love for special effects, the 1970’s genre in Disaster Movies. I wonder how many other young kids knew the name, Irwin Allen? I also thought I was an expert in science fiction.

Why? Because my parents had taken me to the theater to see ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ back in the late sixties.  It had blown my little kid mind. Of course, I didn’t understand it, but I remember, even at that immature age, how it was something extremely unusual and special. I think the true meaning of Surrealism, if I had known what Surrealism actually meant back then, would fit my viewing of that film. I was but a wee lad!

Jumping ahead:  1977 was a key year at the Box Office for Science Fiction!  (And Disco…but that’s another ball of wax. Thank God!)   The first S.F. film, ‘Star Wars’, which I happily saw on opening day, unwrapped my overly imaginative mind to the exquisite possibilities inherent in the genre.

Directed by Steven’s friend, George Lucas, and with astonishing special effects reminiscent of 2001’s power, but with more insane grit and silly gusto, Star Wars, a revolutionary 70mm/Dolby stereo flick, the massively entertaining movie once again blew the mind of a slight dude just starting to get acne: Me.  Like almost everyone with a heartbeat, I loved it. Yes, I was amazed and delighted by many films when I was a kid. My parents might regret having taken me to see so many iconic, legendary films.

Just ten years before, in the mystical year of 1967, the Summer of Love, another intrepid young tribe of individuals had also been ‘blown away’ by a few things decidedly not cinematic, but with its own visionary element: The Beatles had released the audio fireworks of Sgt. Pepper, The Doors had cracked open their first seminal album, Hendrix ripped forth guitar solos that sounded like audio Jackson Pollock and, perhaps most importantly, an entire generation of people smoked pot and dropped Acid. Rightly or wrongly, illegal or moral, it changed their lives. The visual effects experienced after imbibing hallucinogenic drugs (Just say NO, kids!), might even look a little similar to the space contraptions in CE3K. Not inferring that Spielberg took drugs, of course, but the colors and shapes, as the ships spinning and firing around hillsides, have a spectral shimmer and glow that seemed far out to many that had tripped. In the 60’s, 2001 had been called, “The Ultimate Trip.”

In its own, perhaps less controversial, but still sociologically significant way, Star Wars rehabilitated the way we saw motion pictures. Like Jaws (and perhaps The Exorcist and the Godfather?) movies started evolving or devolving– into a new kind of flickering beast. On one level, it was all about the big bucks and creating the Blockbuster mentality: Wide megaplex openings across the world, long lines of patrons at the Box Office… and one more precious ingredient: ‘Word of mouth’. Money money money. With incredibly high tech special effects for the time, cinema would never be the same. I’m a fan.

The irony is that Lucas and Spielberg were “Movie Brats”, a generation brought up in the 50’s and 60’s on a steady, greasy diet of TV and old movies. It was the same generation that later imbibed illegal substances, gave the finger to ‘the Man,’ resisted the Vietnam draft and heard Psychedelic Rock! Groovy.

Many of these kids of the 60’s went to Film School. It seemed kind of interesting to them. And perhaps more artistic than going into healthcare, banking or something blandly essential and pragmatic. In Film School, they often had their first indoctrination with World Cinema, French New Wave Cinema, Italian Neo Realism and Japanese Cinema, with Directors concerned with social, political and humanitarian issues—counter culture issues. ‘What was happening.’

Godard, Fellini, Kurosawa amazed these ‘Young Americans’. They were experiencing captivating new motion pictures and learning from them outrageous new perspectives for young people enamored with changing the world.

Strangely, in other parts of the world (particularly France) old Studio System Hollywood movies were the big things for movie lovers to see with their compatriots at late night showings, perhaps followed directly by demonstrations in the streets. French and American Critics followed the ‘Auteur Theory’ of Films:  By the early 1960’s, Directors were no longer considered well-meaning hacks working for money, setting up grandiose shots for goofy productions, while desperately trying to get the leading lady to leave her dressing room for a take!

Now film directors, in the late 60’s/early 70’s were finally getting recognition as Artists…they were the ‘Authors’ of their Motion Pictures. Whether they actually believed it or not, it also helped some of the older Studio generation continue to work even as they grew old—and finally get some recognition.

So, although it wasn’t considered as ‘heady’ and cool in the 1960’s as being in a Rock Band, for a young person, getting into film was still intrinsically interesting. They Thought: ‘Maybe we can change the world.’ These filmmakers’ names are Legion. There’s a plethora of books written about them. Perhaps too many. We need more books extolling the virtues of brain surgeons.

After film school, or instead of any college whatsoever, many so-called movie nuts (or Movie Brats) got hands-on work in the literal nuts and bolts of actually making a movie by working for veterans like Roger Corman among others, a filmmaker who knew how to squeeze a buck to its limit! An inventive person in more ways than one.  Most of these movies had either a horror or counter culture element and fell into the low budget world—Exploitation Cinema, in which manipulating an audience was paramount. They learned to become self-starters and hard workers…not just dreamers.  And, whatever their route to a career in movies, they learned the irrepressible language of cinema.

Yes, I know, if you’ve read this site for a few years, or simply love movies and their back stories, you probably already know this crucial info, but it is important and essential backstory for understanding why CE3k was new and revolutionary. Form follows function. You probably also know that many of the 1960’s filmmakers DID want to create Art, or wanted to impart a message about life, about reality to hip cinema goers. And that is how it should have been.  Perhaps.

Still…some of the other young, obsessed filmmakers held funny ideas about what was, to some of them, a filthy pintsized secret: They loved B Movies, Monster Movies, Adventure Movies, Hitchcock films (the Legendary Director had only recently become acceptable to think and discuss as a serious Artist. Again, thank the French) and Science Fiction films.

Back in the 1950’s, that um… genre was only viewed by dudes trying to score with teenage girls at Drive-Ins. BEM stood for Bug Eyed Monster. Of course, there was a handful of quality S.F., mostly produced in that era… It was all part of the hysteria created over the Red Scare… Russia entering the Space Race. Paranoia in the otherwise swell Eisenhower age.

Spielberg and Lucas both dug this genre. It was tailor made for Them.  They purchased the fun and lurid magazines and read the authors, such as the truly original author, Ray Bradbury or a more scientifically oriented writer such as Arthur C. Clarke.  Damn if these wild kids could never get this silly genre out of their heads, like a pimple one is unable to eradicate.  It took the place of Westerns. S.F. was practically downright hormonal and went well with monster movies such as the British Hammer films. The intrepid astronauts landing on the moon solidified the cause for many junkies of the “What If.” When he was a young lad, Steven’s dad took him out to look at the shooting stars at night near their Phoenix home. Among other 8mm films, he made an Alien Invasion film called ‘Firelight. ‘

The rest is Cinematic history: When these young Directors had built up enough clout and cred to make their own visions, Science Fiction was quite often their first choice.

Sadly (Or humorously) many of their filmmaking brethren didn’t see ‘it’ the same way. When George showed them a rough cut of his new film, ‘Star Wars’, the reaction was definitely not positive. George and Spielberg’s filmmaking friends (Brian DePalma, Martin Scorsese, Francis Coppola, John Milius, Walter Hill, among others) thought the film was completely ludicrous —with one exception, Spielberg. He instinctively knew the film would be a massive hit. His only hidden regret being that it would steal his own S.F. film’s thunder clap—it was coming out later in the year, due in large part to setbacks in the effects work.

Of course, he didn’t need to worry. His B Movie writ large was a big hit, just not as large as Star Wars, which continues to be a pop culture phenomenon years later.

From the moment I saw it, I knew Close Encounters was a freaking special film. And It was personal. Actually, I’m NOT surprised that his later Space Alien blockbuster, ‘E.T.’, was an even larger moneymaking success. It connected with even more people. It’s also a more traditionally made film.

Let me change the scene for a moment: I come from a family that isn’t massively religious or spiritual. Oh, we’ve gone through the motions, but religion was never the center point of our family life. When I write that CE3K was personal, I mean that it spoke to the childlike, personal dork that I was and still AM.  Of course, like any successful film, it communicated to many people around the world. That is a major ingredient of any old Spielberg film—he’s damn outstanding in his ability to tap into the collective unconscious. Like Jaws and Duel before it, this film most definitely had a bond with an audience: Almost a Psychic Connection. CE3K had the requisite cinematic effect, with its gargantuan movie theater-size ratio, much like the movies of many David Lean motion pictures.

For me, as a young man, its ideas were not hard to fathom and the stunning images seemed to express something more important, and it did it in a subtle, albeit forceful manner.

I remember my dad commenting, after our family had seen the film that Christmas holiday, about how the movie was obviously made by a young man. I’m still not sure if he meant that it was a juvenile subject matter or simply that it was optimistic in tone, if not slightly, naïvely ‘hippie’ by its climax.

While all the kids in my St. Louis county neighborhood loved the story and effects of Star Wars, that winter, while we ran around the neighborhood—dudes acting like characters reminiscent of the later young ones in E.T.– one of our fun, teenage arguments had to do with comparing the two big science fiction films of the year: For me, there really wasn’t any comparison. I believed CE3K was brilliant. And I still do.  I’ve never felt bad about being an outsider.

With this movie, while watching and examining it, I realized how dynamic it was; a film that looked back to films of the past, while also having progressive ideas firmly entrenched for anyone willing to open their eyes. A freaking cool film, a show stopping fireworks display of ingenious camera setups, editing and motion…something seen in his brilliant, Jaws, Sugarland Express (underrated) and even Duel. You could sense it that something different was happening in it!

Okay, you ask (as if you haven’t already seen it and formed your own opinion), what’s so great about this?

Well, I have a list of reasons, but I’m not going to bore you with a dry rendition of my facts. Oh, maybe I am…at least a little.

We now live in a massively cynical era in which movies are not as seriously discussed… or considered to be as cutting edge as they once were—such as in the 1960’s or 70’s. The Good Old Days. Ha.

Yes, there are still wonderful Independent and Foreign films out there…a few interesting films that might make the Oscars, might be remembered, might be WORTH remembering. I definitely see a handful of cool films every year. Don’t you?

However, so many bleeping’ movies in the last thirty years have devolved into entertainment of the Virtual Reality type. Perfectly acceptable entertainment, if you don’t mind your blood pressure escalating to stratospheric heights. Ordinarily, I don’t. Strap Yourself in! However, these movies, mostly Comic Book Superhero (yes, I was a big Comic Book, Superhero and Cartoon fan and still am) and science fiction adventures, are geared toward the teenager. They have become the bulk of the moviegoing audience.

Back in the day, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. and Poltergeist were the forerunners of these present-day films and I think the old, original films, for the most part, but with a few modern exceptions, were constructed in an enormously better way than their subsequent counterparts. The older films were skillfully directed, crafted with style and substance. The new brigade, still based on comic books, or with the slick plastic sensibility of B Movies, take fast, kinetic editing and Computer-Generated effects to new, unbelievably realistic levels. They’re almost too freaking good; More realistic than actual life lived and experienced. These movies are FUN. But there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of intellectual concept or dialogue. I’m generalizing.  Sadly, screenwriting and story do not seem to be that important anymore. That’s a shame. It’s the important thing and it’s also why I dig CE3K.  Although there’s been many S.F. movies since, it continues to stand out.

‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ starts with credits in coal black, along with a weird, rising musical chorus of voices, ending in a climactic blast that explodes in visual LIGHT! Light is, after all, the visual theme of the movie… Childlike sense of the magic in light and color. As in, ‘Let there be light.’

In this first scene, set in the present day (76/77), something mysterious is happening in the Sonora desert during an unearthly, howling sandstorm. A jeep, headlights the only thing visible in the sand at first…then people… appear out of the swirling, pulverizing dirt and dust, like phantoms, like apparitions…like aliens. There’s an interpreter and what appears to be an international group of scientists. They’ve discovered something in the desert: A group of WWII Airplanes. (Now, for me, there is nothing cooler that WWII airplanes.). We, the audience, finds out, in this very unique and visual scene, that the planes have been missing since WWII!  “Flight 19”.  How did they get deposited in the modern world, in a freaking desert? This dramatic first scene dynamically sets forth the underlying tension in the plot, the exhilarating unfolding of scenes going forward from that moment.

“He said The Sun came out last night…He said it sang to him.”

The entire movie is full of chock full of astonishing scenes, superlative ideas for a film about U.F.O.’s. Here’s a sampling of stuff I thought was interesting:

The way the story moved from the micro and the BIG, from the tale of Roy Neary, an electrical repairman, who has a ‘Close Encounter’ with something from another world on a lonely stretch of road. This leads him—the Everyman– to vividly display acute signs of obsession. His outlandish, passionate, behavior leads his wife to take the children and leave. Although devastated, he builds a massive sculpture of the vision he sees in his head—something ‘implanted’ in his brain, which turns out to be Wyoming’s Devils Tower. He will go there. A woman who had her son kidnapped by the Aliens, Gillian, will also head West. This is the Micro, the personal.

Then there is the Scientific community, working in tandem with at least part of the Government. A French expert in UFO’s, played surprisingly by the famous French filmmaker, Francois Truffaut, will lead a unit of highly trained experts around the world, to diverse and exotic locales, unraveling the mystery. Epic Scenes.  Along with discovering the mathematical coordinates through the magic of music, in particular a cool musical tone, he will realize the importance of the small band of ‘average’ people who have been compelled, often at unpleasant personal cost, to go to Devil’s Tower. All of this is BIG. Life made up of many people.

I really dig how the plot design, if viewed as a timeline or storyboard, goes back and forth, from a pristine, human, simple, personal story to a huge, massive story of experts trying to unravel what is coming. Back and Forth.

Although I don’t believe it was intentional, the film might remind some of the spiritual story of Mormon founder Joseph Smith who supposedly, according to Mormon Scripture, was confronted by Angels above him, floating in the trees when he was young. They were Angels, giving him Spiritual directives. Or it could be viewed as the story of Paul confronting God on his way to Damascus. Whether you actually dig this info or not, I find it thought provoking.

As a dude who is often overly passionate and blessed/cursed with a form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, the Obsessive character of Roy Neary, played by the phenomenal, Richard Dreyfuss, truly spoke to me. Whether in Jaws or The Goodbye Girl, Dreyfuss is one of the best actors I’ve had the pleasure to experience on the Big Screen.

In its use of beautifully surreal spaceships (about as far from the spaceships in Star Wars as could possibly be imagined) adorned in vivid, neon colors, the film should unquestionably be considered Art. Light is also demonstrated throughout the film in myriad ways:  light intrudes into interiors and splashes around almost as if it were a literal character: the overall use of light as a symbol for childlike wonder, magic and discovery was another reason I loved this film. Color and light have always been fascinating to me. This film is all about Discovery through light… what is behind the spectral light. Vilmos Zigmond was the chief Cinematographer, tasked with helping connect the otherworldly, special effects UFO light with the light and style on the actual set. His work is incredible.  The film is a testament to the beauty of light. It’s a beautiful film to just appreciate for its look.

One dramatic and dynamically terrifying scene (for a first-time viewer.) is the abduction of little Barry from his mother. The entire staging of the scene reminds one of the frightening suspenseful moments in Jaws. Some shots are from an extreme close up, some camera shots are from above or below…and then there is probably my favorite and iconic shot: Barry languidly opening the farmhouse door to a deep flow of orange, unearthly light—rendered more human by the small kid who seems to be out of a Norman Rockwell painting, but transported into the world of Surrealism!

Projectors spray light onto a screen.

I guess some of you Rocking folks might find the “Psychic Connection” implanted by the Aliens as kind of silly. However, for people into the supernatural or fantastic, it’s an element favored by many writers such as Stephen King in his work.  I think it goes a bit further. Sometimes utilized in the Bible, but at least of passing interest to us nerds interested in psychology, is communication directly implanted in the brain like a benevolent letter. Is it ‘The Word of God?’  It’s been utilized through the ages, especially in the Religions of the world. Sure, this ‘someone’ might be, in your estimation, a schizophrenic, but, for me, it’s still a compelling and lovely form of transference and change, of interesting narrative power.

Whether or not something like this could actually, seriously happen is open to debate, whether one is Joan of Arc or the kid in ‘The Shining’. Different forms of power are communicating directly, psychically with a person, but the end is still often hard for some people to appreciate without bursting out into laughter. Whether it’s UFO’s, Ghosts…or God. I am willing to take the leap in CE3K…and in life.

Other brilliant films are referenced in subtle ways. Not sure if these elements would be considered as homages or if they are almost entrenched within the story—as a way to give narrative structure, or more symbolic potency, similar to the way Lucas used Myth in Star Wars.  It isn’t simply because Spielberg loved these films, but also for the reason that they fit the overall themes of the film literally and figuratively.

For Steven, I believe, the Obsession with UFOs was intrinsically connected with his love for film: Film and UFOs. The Magic of Movies: Disney’s ‘Fantasia’ and ‘Pinocchio’ (especially in the closing credits music) float throughout the film like a blessing. Devil’s Tower is the Night on Bald Mountain from Fantasia. The skillful dramatic cinematic editing and camerawork, as Roy and Gillian climb the tower (with sleeping gas fogged down on them), is reminiscent of two scenes in North by Northwest: The crop duster scene and the Mount Rushmore climax. However, ‘Encounters;’ has these elements so connected to a totally innovative story that you never think of it as storytelling theft. It is perfect.

Government in the film could be viewed as an unyieldingly mysterious force (and borderline baddy), an idea also used in Jaws— but it is never completely explored or important…at least not to me. It possibly comes out of the early 1970’s Watergate-era of paranoia and distrust. However, in the end, the Government, working in tandem with the Scientists, turns out to be all right. Wow.

Communication with another race of beings from another planet? Why not utilize music and color as a form of mathematic communication with the Aliens? Fantastic.

Of all the spaceships in the movie, the massive Mothership, looming over Devil’s Tower, is easily the most dramatic and stunning, A multi-colored Chandelier. The person in charge of the special visual effects was the great Douglas Trumbull…who had previously worked on 2001 and directed the singular S.F. film, ‘Silent Running.’

When the audience finally encounters the space aliens, (descending a silver ramp from the underbelly of the Mothership, the backlight cinematography is incredible, a completely different and spectral work) they are reproductions of actual reality cases documented by ‘experts’ in the field of UFO Study.   These Beings are realistic, akin to little children playing around, their large heads reminding me of the Star Child—a new level for Mankind—at the end of ‘2001’. They seem to dance and shimmer in the backlight. There’s also another, spindly alien which seems to offer some form of greeting or benediction to the charmed scientists.

Like ‘North by Northwest’, the story is exciting and pushes right along! It’s an adventure in love with being an adventure, taking the audience along for a trip. If Hitchcock’s ‘North by Northwest’, a film in love with the RIDE in the same way as Close Encounters, narrative adventure works well in keeping an audience riveted…an old fashioned, pure cinema stratagem for letting the audience dream big.

With the help of Composer John William’s spectacular music (in this case, it works perfectly), the Climax of the film is as much a religious happening as anything I’ve seen in any film. At the time, I knew very little about religion and wouldn’t have considered CE3K to be a part of that—definitely uncool and old fogey.  But as I’ve gotten older (if not more mature. Ha.), it’s hard not to notice that the meeting between Humans and Aliens is not just scientific or historic as far as Humanity is concerned, but, a form of crazy Cosmic Spirituality, with no religion singled out. Dig it.

Some of the speculations about our first communication with Aliens…and how we possibly respond and transcend together is also similar, in a totally distinctive visual way, to Stanley Kubrick’s landmark ‘2001’. At a certain point in mankind’s forthcoming age, both films posit the idea that the transference of communication will uplift Humanity in an enraptured loving way. Close Encounters is extraordinary in that it is, like a great, early Disney film, like its cousin E.T. (perhaps the greatest Children’s film!), or like me, very optimistic about the future of mankind.

As far as Beings from another planet, I don’t know if Spielberg still believes that they have/can/or will visit earth.  Later Spielberg films –including a new group of Science Fiction films—would get much gloomier, more cynical, more enlightened with the overall recent zeitgeist. As the filmmaker aged and matured as a human being, and had his own family, his earlier childlike films must be now placed in context: At that point in his life, he didn’t take the family as something that should obviously come before Alien interaction. Now, he would never let Neary leave his family, the director has stated this. Back then, divorce and loss (from his own life?) were at the forefront of his views on family and he looked for a New form of family, whether UFO’s or Filmmaking pals.

As outstanding as many of Steven’s later films are, they have the benefit of being collaborations between the best in the business. This is altogether as it should be: his achievements have given him the best people in the business to work with, and consequently, it is now difficult for him to make a completely unwatchable film. Back then it was different. You can see the talent, passion and skill that went into the early films, almost as if he had something to prove to the world, to show the world. And he did.

Spielberg’s childlike sense of wonder continues to sing to me. ‘We Are Not Alone,’ really entered through my soul like an ethereal voice. There is no doubt: It is one of the paramount films ever made, continuing to enchant and inspire, an epic of magic, wonder and spectral, space age awe.