Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Directed by: Steven Spielberg | 129 minutes | drama, adventure, science fiction | Actors: Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon, Bob Balaban, J. Patrick McNamara, Warren J. Kemmerling, Roberts Blossom, Philip Dodds, Cary Guffey, Shawn Bishop, Adrienne Campbell, Justin Dreyfuss, Lance Henriksen, Merrill Connally , George DiCenzo, Amy Douglass

Five years before Steven Spielberg had a box office hit with the kid-friendly “ET: The Extra Terrestrial,” he wrote and directed the much more mature and complex “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” His fascination with the universe, he says, stems from an unhappy childhood. In Tony Crawley’s biography, Spielberg said he was always looking for ways to escape. With his first major science fiction classic, Spielberg offers the viewer a way to escape the daily worries for a while. The film slowly but surely gets under your skin and has become an intriguing and fascinating piece of art, where you gradually but irrevocably forget your surroundings.

In ‘CE3K’, as the film’s informal title is, we meet Roy Neary, an electrician, who is sent out one evening by his employer because of a major power outage. It soon becomes apparent what is causing this, mysterious lights appear in the sky and everything goes haywire. Roy is in his car when he realizes what he is witnessing, he sees several UFOs. Thanks to the encounter with the single mother Jillian (Melinda Dillon) and her son Barry (Cary Guffey), he manages to keep his wits about him despite being called crazy by all those around him.

After seeing the UFOs, people are plagued by visions of a strangely shaped mountain. Roy thinks he recognizes this mountain everywhere and in an almost obsessive way he feels compelled to recreate that shape. In a sublime scene in which the Neary family sits at the table, his children and wife Ronnie (Teri Garr) watch him transform the mashed potatoes on his plate into a mountain. Roy’s “insanity” reaches a climax when he starts making a ceiling-high mountain in the living room from the earth from the garden, bricks, chicken wire and everything at hand. His family has not witnessed this anymore, they left that same morning, when Roy started throwing sand through the kitchen window.

Jillian’s son Barry, meanwhile, has been taken away by a spaceship. Although Jillian is anxious for the well-being of her son, there is also a kind of resignation with her. It’s like she knows that Barry is in good hands and that she’ll see him again someday. Still, the scene where Barry is kidnapped is quite terrifying and very exciting. Roy also has, in addition to a certain fanaticism, a kind of resignation. When Ronnie leaves with the kids, he tries to stop her for a while, but he quickly returns to his goal.

The family man is perfectly portrayed by the then 29-year-old Richard Dreyfuss. His Roy Neary is someone the viewer can absolutely identify with and his slow descent into madness is portrayed in a natural and believable way.

Spielberg was very progressive with his criticism of the government and the media, who work together in the film to spread lies among the population. The film has a clear three-way split: exciting in the beginning, then emotional developments take over and in the third part science fiction fans will sit on the edge of their seats again. The music of John Williams turned out to be a bull’s eye, the permanent member of the Spielberg team composed the crucial tones before the scenes were filmed. The special effects are also top notch. Decades after its first showing, where people nearly passed out from the eye-watering images, the film still manages to impress.

Several versions of ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ have appeared. In 1980, Spielberg, dissatisfied with the original theatrical release in 1977, released a Special Edition, which was three minutes shorter than the original. Spielberg removed sixteen minutes and added thirteen. The fact that the perfectionist filmmaker was not pleased with this version after that resulted in a Director’s Cut seventeen years later.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (the first form of a ‘close encounter’ involves seeing a UFO, the second form physical evidence, the third form contact) is a science fiction film that you must see, in which edition whatever and preferably all. If you don’t know the movie yet, be like Roy Neary and embrace the unknown.