Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Special Edition
Another day, another movie from the 1970s on my list. I suppose this is due to many movies in my household as a child being from that era. My parents were in their teens/very early twenties in the 1970s, and that's statistically when most people go to the movies the most. Also, the 1970s produced some of the best movies out there, so there's that as well. This is a film I had seen first probably when I was about 10. It didn't do much of anything for me besides the last ten minutes of the film. It wasn't until I decided to watch it again in my mid-teens that I came to really enjoy and appreciate the film, as that's when I became a fan of film, not just a casual movie-goer.
That's an odd trailer. So informative, and more of a press booklet. Weird.
The film was the other big science fiction film of 1977. It was a big success, but let's face it, most people remember the big movie that year being Star Wars. Close Encounters was the second biggest moneymaker of that year, earning a little more than half of what Star Wars, and Saturday Night Fever came in third. (Oddly, all 3 of these movies have been on my list!) The movie basically chronicles a man's growing draw towards alien life after he has a close encounter. While this happens, his marriage and family life suffers, and his wife eventually leaves him and takes the kids. He continues to apparently go crazy until he finds out the government is doing weird things at Devil's Tower, Wyoming. It's there that the aliens make their real encounter with humans.
Now I need to explain that there's three versions of this film. There's the original version release from 1977 which was a version that was incomplete in Spielberg's eyes. The special effects weren't totally done and there wasn't time to edit the film the way he wanted. Columbia Pictures needed the big hit as soon as possible to save the company, as they were about to go under. It worked. In 1980, the film was about to be re-released to theaters (this was done often in those days, as home video wasn't around), and Spielberg asked if he could retool it. Columbia said he could, if he would show the inside of the spaceship at the end. He didn't really want to, but went with it to get the rest of the film right. This became known as the Special Edition, which was the version my family owned and the only version I saw until 2007. In 1998, Close Encounters was again released to theaters and was again recut by Spielberg. He always hated that he showed the inside of the ship in the Special Edition, so he cut that out, picked and chose between scenes from the 1977 and 1980 versions, added some special effects (not to the extent Lucas did to Star Wars, as you have to know what you're looking for here), and released the definitive version of the film in his view, the Collector's Edition. I must agree with him that it's the best of the three versions. It gets things perfect. I can't watch the theatrical version. I saw it in my Spielberg class in college, and I hated it. It got rid of a lot of my favorite scenes from the Special Edition. (Or rather the Special Edition had added them...) The Special Edition I can still watch, but I prefer the definitive Collector's Edition that came out in the late 90s. Unlike Lucas, Spielberg made all three versions available on the latest DVD and blu-ray edtions, which is really great for those of us that study film, or if you're just in the mood to see the differences. It really does feel like three different films.
Spielberg made this film right after he got through with Jaws, and it apparently was a much easier film to shoot. This one went smoothly. It even stars Richard Dreyfuss who was one of the stars of Jaws! The film was nominated for 8 oscars, only winning 1 for cinematography. It has also been selected for film preservation (as have many on this list, actually) by the National Film Registry, which is a selection of up 25 films every year starting from 1989 to be preserved by the government. (Even 7th Voyage of Sinbad is on the list!)
Now about the film itself and what makes it great. The visuals for one thing. Spielberg says that if there's one shot that summarizes his whole career it's the one of the little boy Barry opening the door and that bright orange light shining in on him from the spaceship that's come to abduct him. I have to agree, it's a stunning shot from one of the best scenes in the film. That scene is really fun and really terrifying as his mother does everything she can to stop them from taking her son. All the electronics in the house start to go haywire, the aliens (which you don't see in this scene) try to come in through every conceivable entryway to the house including the air conditioning vents which slowly unscrew and the chimney.
This scene is just one of quite a few breathtaking ones in the film. It may seem quaint by today's eyes, but I love it. There's of course the last fifteen or so minutes of the movie, which are some of the most famous minutes in cinema history where the alien spaceship and the humans communicate by musical tones. You can tell I'm really loving a movie when I lean forward in my seat to watch most of it, and I always do that at that part of the movie. Let's not forget the great acting talent of Richard Dreyfuss here, who just plays a man obsessed so well. The movie really is about obsession and it's pros and cons. He gets to make contact with the aliens, yet he loses his family in the process. That's the one issue Spielberg says he has with the movie now. That he'd never allow Roy Neary to go into space with the aliens at the end of the film now, because he sees that as a betrayal of family. In fact, after Neary's family leaves him, he doesn't seem at all concerned about it. That's always bothered me a bit too, moreso as I've gotten older. But it is just a movie after all, and I don't think it's trying to make any statements about abandonment or anything like a recent Spielberg film would. The film also has Francois Truffaut, the famous french director famous for jump-starting New Wave Cinema. Some may see that as a bad thing, but really Truffaut's films are nothing like, or as experimental as the polarizing Jean-Luc Goddard is. Truffaut has the innocence of a child, both in this film, and in the movies he directs. Truffaut is the best guy in the movie. There's nothing bad about him at all. Even Neary's got bad qualities, but Truffaut's happiness of the chance to meet an alien race shines through so well it's blinding. Also Teri Garr plays Richard Dreyfuss' annoying nagging wife way too well. You really dislike her by time she leaves the picture, but you feel for the kids. Now they have to live with miss Naggy McNagNag.
The music is done by John Williams, and it's one of his best scores. The 5 tone theme to the film is so well known, and he came up with the sequence for it. He tried thousands of them and decided on the one that's now famous. How he did the score for this and Star Wars in the same year, and then went right to doing Superman and Jaws 2 is really a credit to his genius. From 1975 to 1984 I'm not sure if he ever did a non-memorable score!
I think this film shows a childlike innocence and a certain drive and warmth that few films do. It's almost like a Frank Capra film in that way (and that way only). If I ever need a film that will make me feel wonder or good about the world, I watch this movie. Hell, by the end of the film even the government aren't the bad guys! There really is no bad guy in this film, I just realized! That's so rare. There's normally got to be an antagonist in Hollywood films. I guess the wife fills that role for the first third of the film, and the government for the second third... but by the last third of the film there is no antagonist! See, I realize new things about films this good all the time. You can to. I heavily endorse that you watch this film if you haven't seen it... Watch it as a child would. If you have already seen the film, watch it again! Watch it in one of the other two versions!
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