Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

 

Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released later in the same year as the original Star Wars (now better known, somewhat ridiculously, as Episode IV: A New Hope), but it presents quite a different vision of outer space. Director Steven Spielberg’s film is more concerned with our fascination with extraterrestrial life, a subject he would revisit five years later in his masterpiece E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. We fear the unknown, Close Encounters of the Third Kind seems to say, but we find it intriguing as well. One of the two key plots involves the efforts of a team of scientists led by Claude Lacombe (played by the renowned French filmmaker Francois Truffaut) to make contact with aliens. This thread involves the famed five musical notes that were so ubiquitous in 1978, a motif that charms viewers the longer they watch and that serves as a means of communication between the humans and the aliens. The set pieces here are quite stunning: a group of World War II airplanes that show up in the middle of the Mexican desert, a massive number of people chanting in northern India, etc. The other plotline, the one that takes up a larger portion of the story until the two lines intersect, involves Richard Dreyfuss as Roy Neary, a rather typical blue-collar man whose encounter with the aliens has left him sculpting the same mountainous figure over and over. Roy uses shaving cream, mashed potatoes, even huge piles of dirt in his living room, all to the consternation and fear of his wife (played by Teri Garr) and his children. As he puts it, “I don’t think I know what’s happening to me.” It turns out he’s not alone in his obsession. He meets Melinda Dillon’s Jillian, who has lost her little boy Barry to the aliens and who has become just as preoccupied with repeatedly drawing the same image that Roy has been trying to sculpt. They begin a personal odyssey to Devils Tower in Wyoming and, after a series of adventures that includes escaping the custody of the government, they witness a spectacular encounter with the alien “mothership.” This final sequence dazzles thanks to the Oscar-winning cinematography, especially the use of lights to convey the size and speed of the alien ships. It’s thirty minutes of the best light show you’ll likely ever experience. The ensuing interaction between humans and aliens is just as astonishing and provides an opportunity for the film to demonstrate how much awe and surprise may still be available in places like the isolated Devils Tower but also in the small town America represented by Roy and Jillian’s home of Muncie, Indiana. Even though it is a science fiction film and involves alien encounters, Close Encounters of the Third Kind resonates with its examination of how people can be profoundly changed by these kinds of events.

Oscar Wins: Best Cinematography and Special Achievement Award for Sound Effects Editing

Other Oscar Nominations: Best Director (Steven Spielberg), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Melinda Dillon), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Sound, Best Film Editing, Best Visual Effects, and Best Original Score