1977

DIRECTOR: STEVEN SPIELBERG PRODUCERS: JULIA PHILLIPS AND MICHAEL PHILLIPS SCREENPLAY: STEVEN SPIELBERG STARRING: RICHARD DREYFUSS (ROY NEARY), FRANÇOIS TRUFFAUT (CLAUDE LACOMBE), TERI GARR (RONNIE NEARY), MELINDA DILLON (JILLIAN GUILER), CARY GUFFEY (BARRY GUILER), BOB BALABAN (DAVID LAUGHLIN), ROBERTS BLOSSOM (FARMER), MERRILL CONNALLY (TEAM LEADER), GEORGE DICENZO (MAJOR BENCHLEY), LANCE HENRIKSEN (ROBERT)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

COLUMBIA/EMI • COLOR, 137 MINUTES

A blue-collar worker is inexplicably drawn to a top-secret government rendezvous after a close encounter with a UFO.

Cary Guffey opens a door to the unknown.

On the heels of Star Wars (1977) came Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a very different kind of science-fiction epic, and one that broke more new ground. Incredibly, after a quarter-century of flying-saucer movies, this was the first to present a wholly positive view of extraterrestrial life. Even gentlemanly alien Klaatu in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) was far from harmless, threatening to destroy the Earth if its inhabitants refused to cooperate with his plan. In Close Encounters, the aliens seek nothing more than friendship.

Abounding with spectacular visuals that redefined science-fiction cinema, Close Encounters favors boundless human curiosity over battles with aliens, focusing on the wonder of the unknown instead of laser beams and robots. In one iconic scene, a three-year-old boy opens his front door. The camera captures him from behind, a tiny, vulnerable silhouette against an orange sky aglow with the otherworldly forces of alien visitors. Perhaps no image better encapsulates the film’s theme.

This was a deeply personal project for Steven Spielberg, who had been fascinated by the idea of extraterrestrial life since childhood. When he was seventeen, Spielberg wrote and directed Firelight (1964), a low-budget feature about mysterious lights in the sky that turn out to be spaceships. This early film was the basis for Close Encounters. Though Spielberg has since become more skeptical of the UFO phenomenon, in his younger days, he was a believer. “I had a real deep-rooted belief that we had been visited,” he later said. Only a true believer could have put so much heart into a story about aliens.

With an astronomical final budget of nearly $20 million, the film relied on a team of the best technicians, cinematographers, composers, special-effects artists, and an ensemble cast of actors to create a seamless blend of action, thrills, and touching human drama. After Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, and Gene Hackman all turned down the lead role, Spielberg cast his friend (and Jaws [1975] star) Richard Dreyfuss, who ideally embodies working-class underdog Roy Neary. The supporting cast was personally selected by the director: sensitive Melinda Dillon; natural, untrained preschooler Cary Guffey; and, in an inspired casting coup, French filmmaker François Truffaut as the leader of a crew of scientists and military officers in secret communication with interplanetary intelligence. All the major characters have a childlike openness that contrasts effectively with the closed-minded disbelievers like Roy’s wife, Ronnie, played by Teri Garr.

Richard Dreyfuss as Roy Neary

Melinda Dillonand Richard Dreyfuss at Devil’s Tower

Steven Spielberg and François Truffaut on set

From the suburbs of Indiana to the deserts of India, the various characters are obsessively driven to the prearranged UFO landing site at Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. Spielberg painstakingly builds anticipation by not showing the audience too much until the finale. The rattling of mailboxes and kitchen appliances, strange flashes in the clouds, and a few orbs whooshing across the night sky are the only evidence of space visitors in the first 100 minutes of the film. Then comes the payoff. Spielberg envisioned the climactic meeting between earthlings and extraterrestrials as a glorious symphony of lights and sounds, a communiqué that would transcend all boundaries through the universal language of music. Composer John Williams tried hundreds of different five-note combinations before settling on the right greeting: G, A, F, F (an octave lower), C, or Re, Mi, Do, Do, So in the solfège scale.

Carlo Rambaldi constructs the mechanical alien.

Inside a sweltering airplane hangar in Mobile, Alabama—the largest indoor movie set in history—the ultimate close encounter was staged. Douglas Trumbull, who supervised the effects, encountered the same problem he had faced with 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968): achieving a realistic-looking alien was practically impossible before advancements in CGI technology. Spielberg’s first attempt consisted of dressing an orangutan in a spandex body suit and putting him on roller skates. Unsurprisingly, in the words of the director, “It all went wrong.” After several more concepts failed, he settled on a marionette designed by Bob Baker, a group of costumed little girls lit in silhouette, and a complex mechanical puppet created by Carlo Rambaldi. The puppet (nicknamed “Puck” by the director) was a marvel of its time, and would serve as the prototype and inspiration for E.T. in Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982).

In 2007, Spielberg recalled of Close Encounters, “We made this picture in the spirit of childhood and believing in things that don’t make sense.” If humans are ever to make contact with a more advanced species, the director tells us here, they must regain their sense of childhood wonder and curiosity.

FAR-OUT FACTS

The title was taken from the writings of astronomer Dr. J. Allen Hynek, who theorized a three-degree hierarchy of alien encounters: the first kind is seeing a UFO, the second is physical evidence of a visitation, and the third is actual contact with an alien.

Columbia executives risked their entire studio to bankroll the film. The company was in dire financial straits and counting on a sci-fi blockbuster to put it back in the black.

The film originally ended with Roy singing “When You Wish upon a Star” until it was laughed off the screen by a preview audience in Dallas. Spielberg reluctantly cut the scene, though it represented the earliest seed of his Close Encounters inspiration. “I made this movie because of the Disney song,” he said. “That came first, that and the idea of a UFO movie.”

MIND-BLOWING MOMENT

When the giant mother ship ascends over Devil’s Tower, the world saw a new breed of Hollywood flying saucer. Complex, intimidating, and oddly beautiful, this ship was conceived by Spielberg as a hybrid of an oil refinery in India and the lights of the San Fernando Valley as seen from the Hollywood Hills.

KEEP WATCHING

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CONTACT (1997)