"Close Encounters of the Third Kind" was legendary director Steven Spielberg's second big successful Hollywood blockbuster after he broke through with the monster thriller Jaws in 1975. Released in the same year as Star Wars, this film is a somewhat more cerebral sci-fi experience than the George Lucas space opera that manages to combine the elements of wonder and fascination about the cosmos and our role within it. Through its rather elegant and beautiful execution, Spielberg takes us on a journey that poses the idea that not only are we not alone in the universe but we have relatively little to fear. At the time, this was one of the very few big sci-fi films that even breached the possibility of extra-terrestrials being friendly, especially after the waves of movies from the fifties and sixties that created nasty aliens who were out to do the human race harm.
The film starts off in a desert landscape where a group of scientists and government men have discovered a squadron of World War 2 fighter planes that went missing in 1945. Perplexed by the discovery, LaCombe (Francois Truffaut) moves to get to the heart of the mystery, which sees stranger events occur like missing ships also showing up in the desert, peasants in India who are able to recite a five note chord they heard from the heavens, and numerous other UFO sitings which delve in to the broad area of UFO phenomena. At the same time, every man Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) has a close encounter while driving on an empty road at night when a bright beam of light encompasses his car. He chases after the unknown object, only to see a whole flurry of objects in the night sky along with several other people. Neary becomes obsessed with solving the mystery behind these UFOs, an obsession which leads him to Devil's Tower in Wyoming USA where the first historic, and secret meeting between the human race and the benign aliens take place.
Richard Dreyfuss is perfectly cast as the every-day Joe turned obsessed man in Roy Neary. He portrays a certain ineptness as the leading male figure of his house-hold but manages to find a will of his own when he starts becoming obsessed with the UFOs. At times his performance can be quite intense, particularly when he is confronted by the government men and he starts demanding who they are and why they are lying to them. But perhaps the most famous moment featuring his character is the shaping of his mash potatoes at dinner as Devil's Tower, a place he has never been too or seen in photographs yet is able to draw or create from memory.
The addition of French filmmaker Francois Truffaut to the cast was an interesting choice by Spielberg; conveying a sense of child-like wonder at every turn, Truffaut lends a certain credence to the government side he is working for, and is the only character who is able to reach out to Neary.
Spielberg got a chance to show his visual flair in this film; aside from his masterful use of the widescreen canvas, he enlisted the talents of visual effects guru Douglas Trumbull. Together, they created some of cinema's most memorable images with their creation of so many beautiful and unusual UFOs, particularly with the massive mother-ship which descends upon Devil's Tower in the climax.
John Williams musical score is also one of his best, and is in direct contrast to his bombastic Star Wars score he created in the same year. The music is very mysterious and enigmatic, and not surprisingly, Spielberg chose to re-edit the climax of the film to fit the music, something which very rarely occurs in the production of a film (although Spielberg would do the same thing with E.T.). The film really comes in to its own in these final twenty minutes when the aliens emerge from the mother-ship and begin to interact with the humans. At first there is humour; when the humans try to communicate through the five-note music chord they keep hearing, the aliens try different chords but eventually blast out the original chord at full volume, almost saying, "All Right! I heard the first time!". Then a sense of wonder and mystery follows, as Neary enters the mother-ship with everyone else looking on. There is virtually no dialogue in these sequences, only a combination of atmospheric sound and John Williams' perfect musical score which really give you a sense that you've been taken to a magical place.
"Close Encounters Of The Third Kind" is a majestic, beautiful film and one of Spielberg's best.
