Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Rating

Director

Steven Spielberg

Screenplay

Steven Spielberg

Length

2h 18m

Starring

Richard Dreyfuss, Francois Truffaut, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon, Bob Balaban, J. Patrick McNamara, Warren Kemmerling

MPAA Rating

PG

Review

When speaking of seminal science fiction films, Close Encounters of the Third Kind ranks among the upper echelons of such creations.

Hot off the success of Jaws, Steven Spielberg wasn’t keen to sit on his laurels. Having reworked the classic creature feature, he decided to do the same with sci-fi centered around alien encounters. In this film, he slowly builds tension through a series of events that seemingly defy explanation even though the suggestion of an alien presence isn’t obscured but it becomes a driving force to the narrative at a pace that many more exuberant filmmakers might have accelerated to weaker effect.

Richard Dreyfuss stars as Roy Neary, an electrician who’s called in to investigate mysterious electrical malfunctions only to come face to face with an alien encounter of his own. Obsessed with the event and having flashes of a strange columnar mountain, he and several others make their way to a location in Wyoming where they hope to glimpse the aliens that they are certain are on their way. Teri Garr plays his wife, Melinda Dillon plays a fellow alien searcher, and Bob Balaban and François Truffaut play government scientists.

Tying various mysterious vessel disappearances into an alien abduction plot, Spielberg’s first screenplay for a studio film is also his best, exploring obsession and human curiosity through the lens of alien conspiracies and government secrecy. While many science fiction films deal with the future and human perseverance in the vastness of space, this film sticks to the present giving audiences a feeling of involvedness in the situations facing our time, playing into the distrust of government officials wanting to prevent the existence of aliens from getting out and manipulating the naïve so that they will be unable reveal the truth.

There’s something extremely special about Spielberg’s early career. His ability to blend popular entertainment with pensive, engaging drama characterized much of that work. While some of his later films haven’t quite lived up to the creative wonderment of this era, he’s consistently shown his character as one of cinema’s preeminent directors. His films have rarely been acting showcases but he coaxes just enough credibility out of his actors to have them blend into the effort and not detract from the amazing cinematic work going on around them.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is the kind of film that you can perhaps read more into than is there. That speaks to why the film’s legacy has endured for so many years. It pushed no radical ideas. It elevated no esoteric concepts. It just existed within its own framework for audiences to admire and engage with without the need to box itself in. That Spielberg’s excellent eye for composition and drama combined with his cinematic literacy and ability to find and utilize the best artisans in the business were blended into the perfect amalgamation with this film is an added bonus.

Review Written

May 15, 2024