Close Encounters of the Third Kind
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| Close Encounters of the Third Kind | |
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| Directed by | Steven Spielberg |
| Produced by | Julia Phillips Michael Phillips Clark L. Paylow |
| Written by | Steven Spielberg |
| Starring | Richard Dreyfuss François Truffaut |
| Music by | John Williams |
| Cinematography | Vilmos Zsigmond |
| Editing by | Michael Kahn |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 16 November, 1977 |
| Running time | Various, including: Original 70MM Version 135 min Special Edition 132 min Collector's Edition 137 min |
| Country | USA / UK |
| Language | English / French / Spanish / Hindi |
| Budget | $20,000,000 |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
- This article is about the film; for the classification, see Close encounter.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) is a science fiction movie about UFOs, written and directed by Steven Spielberg. It stars Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Bob Balaban, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, and Cary Guffey. The movie has visual effects by Douglas Trumbull and a score composed by John Williams.
Close Encounters was perhaps the most important science fiction movie released up to that point to portray benign or even kind aliens, a sharp departure from the "evil monster" style of most earlier films. It popularized a number of motifs, most of which were drawn from earlier, purportedly genuine UFO encounters: alien abduction, small and thin aliens ("greys"), and UFOs covered in lights rather than the disc shapes more popular in the 1950s and 1960s. The moral contradiction between the aliens' benevolence and the forced abductions they conduct is left unexplored.
The movie has been revised numerous times, notably for a 132-minute "Special Edition" reissue in 1980 and again for a 137-minute "Collector's Edition" in 1988 (see List of films recut by studio for details on these alternate versions). The Special Edition features several new character development scenes, the discovery of a lost ship, the Cotopaxi, in the Gobi Desert, and a view of the inside of the mothership. The interior of the mothership is deleted from the "Collector's Edition" (Spielberg added this scene as a concession to be allowed to make the Special Edition. He decided it was a mistake and removed it in the later edition).
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[edit] Plot Overview
The movie plot has three basic threads:
- A group of scientific researchers including Lacombe (Truffaut) and Laughlin (Balaban) investigate UFO reports worldwide, and discover a lost squadron of World War II aircraft (see Flight 19) in a Mexican desert.
- During a motorized pursuit of several UFOs that was probably modelled on the Portage County UFO Chase, Indiana electrical lineman Roy Neary (Dreyfuss) experiences a close encounter of the second kind (a sighting that leaves physical evidence) and thereafter becomes obsessed with UFOs, to the great dismay of his family. He begins making endless models of a distinctive mountain or hill - a place he has never actually seen, and with which he is unfamiliar. At one point, he and his wife (Garr) attend a meeting featuring both patronizing and skeptical government officials, and an archetypal crackpot ("I saw Bigfoot once!")
- Jillian Guiler (Dillon) witnesses a UFO landing, in which her son Barry (Guffey) is abducted by aliens who appear to invade her home. Soon after, Guiler also becomes obsessed with the mental picture of a unique-looking mountain.
After Neary's increasingly bizarre conduct causes his family to abandon him, he sees the feature he has been modelling on a television news show: the Devil's Tower in Wyoming. Guiler also sees the same news broadcast, and both Neary and Guiler - as well as others with similar experiences - obsessively head toward the site. Elsewhere in the world, the pace of alien activity is increasing; Lacombe (a character based on Jacques Vallee) and Laughlin investigate a host of weird occurrences along with other United Nations experts.
After Laughlin recognizes a signal from space as a simple set of geographical coordinates pointing to Devil's Tower, all parties begin to converge on Wyoming. The United States Army evacuates the area after spreading false reports that a train wreck has spilled highly dangerous nerve gas, all the while preparing a landing zone for the first human contact with an alien civilization. While the other humans drawn to the site through their visions fail, Neary and Guiler persist and make it to the site as dozens of spacecraft appear. The alien mothership lands, and returns people who'd been abducted over the years, including Guiler's son. With an understanding of peace between the two civilizations, the aliens take Neary on board their ship as an ambassador from Earth, and take off for the stars.
[edit] Trivia
- When the original director of Jaws 2 was fired, Spielberg considered taking over. However, his contractual obligations to Close Encounters of the Third Kind meant that production on the sequel would have been delayed by an expensive year.
- The motif woven through the film (the five tones that the space ship plays back and forth with the humans) is re - mi - do - do (octave lower) - so(l). These tones all lie on a major pentatonic scale. The motif has shown up in later movies and TV shows, notably as a code entered on a pushbutton keypad in Moonraker of the James Bond series, and the first five notes on Mr. Herriman's keypad security system in the Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends episode: 'The Big Cheese, and in the Power Glove sequence of The Wizard. The five notes were also rearranged for the theme to Jurassic Park, also composed by John Williams. In one episode of the short-lived animated series The Oblongs, the tones are used for the doorbell of an alien masquerading as a teenage girl. John Petrucci plays it before beginning the song Trial of Tears on the Dream Theater album Once in a LIVEtime.
- At the climactic scene, François Truffaut and the alien use Kodály Hand Signs to express this motif. The alien smiles after doing so; Spielberg was slightly surprised and pleased that the prop could muster the facial gesture.
- Astronomer J. Allen Hynek, a UFO researcher who coined the term "close encounter," was a consultant for the film, and makes a cameo appearance as a scientist smoking a pipe near the end of the picture. UFO researcher Dr. Jacques Vallée served as a model for the character of the French scientist Lacombe played by François Truffaut. Vallée met Hynek while studying for his Ph.D. at Northwestern University.
- Spielberg initially wanted the mothership to be very dark, but later on decided to make it extremely bright. A model of the mothership used during filming is on display at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Northern Virginia; the model includes a number of hidden objects integrated in and around the ship's antennas, domes and other structures. Examples include a 1930s automobile, a cemetery, a VW Bus and a small model of R2-D2.
- During an interview years later, Richard Dreyfuss was asked whether there would ever be a sequel to Close Encounters. He responded that, "The sequel to Close Encounters was E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial."
- To those familiar with (Muncie, Indiana), there is some geographic license taken in the famous scene in which Richard Dreyfuss' character Roy Neary is on his way to investigate the blackout. He is on Cornbread Road near Muncie, Indiana and he stops on a railroad crossing, and becomes enveloped in light from the UFO. Cornbread Road exists, however the railroad crossing does not. Cornbread Road runs mostly parallel to the CSX Transportation line that comes close, but never crosses.
- Roy Neary lives in Muncie, Indiana and there were plans to actually film in Muncie, Indiana, those plans were changed and no filming took place in Muncie, Indiana]] but there were multiple references mostly noticeable to Muncie, Indiana natives, such as the reference to an actual road in the Muncie, Indiana area (Cornbread road) as well as a scene at the breakfast table where Neary wears a local college shirt (Ball State University) while other props on the breakfast table such as a newspaper from the now defunct Muncie Evening Press, as well as a milk carton from a now defunct Muncie based drive up convenience store (Miller's Milkhouse).
- The synthesizer used to communicate with the aliens at the end of the film is an ARP 2500 modular system. Phil Dodds, a tech from ARP Instruments Inc., is the man playing the keyboard.
- Melinda Dillon takes some photos of Dreyfuss's departure with the aliens using a Rollei 35 B compact camera.
- Steve McQueen, Gene Hackman, Jack Nicholson and James Caan were all considered for the main role (McQueen was a recluse at the time, Hackman passed for unknown reasons, Nicholson was deemed too old and Caan's price tag was too high).
- French house band Daft Punk opened their 2006 U.S. performance, their first in 8 years, at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival with the theme music from the movie - comparing their performance as something "out of this world"
- The coordinates for the Devils's Tower in Wyoming as given in the movie are incorrect. While the longitude is correct (104 deg, 44 min, 30 sec), the latitude is 04 degrees south of where the Devils' Tower National Monument is located (44 deg 36 min 10 sec).
The movie is spoofed many times on Television shows and in film:
- The film was parodied on That '70s Show. On the episode "Who Wants It More?", Kelso (Ashton Kutcher) tells of seeing a UFO. Hyde (Danny Masterson) later mocks Kelso by sculpting the Devil's Tower out of mashed potatoes and saying "This means something", just as Richard Dreyfuss's character did in CE3K.
- The movie is also spoofed in two episodes of The Simpsons. In the episode "The Springfield Files", Homer sculpts his mashed potatoes into a shape similar to the Devils Tower after he encounters what he believes to be an alien. Also in "The Springfield Files", while the citizens of Springfield are gathered in the field awaiting the 'alien's' appearance, the school music instructor, Mr. Largo and 5 of his students play the famous 5 note tune on marching band instruments. In another episode called "Homie the Clown", Homer forms a large mashed potato circus tent after becoming obsessed with a billboard advertising a local clown college.
- In the film UHF, George Newman ("Weird Al" Yankovic) sculpts his mashed potatoes into the Devil's Tower and says, "This means something, this is important."
- The mashed potato sculpture is once more spoofed in the film Muppets From Space, where a fan of Gonzo presents Kermit the frog with a mashed potato sculpture of Gonzo's head.
- Close Encounters was parodied in an eighth-season episode of the British comedy The Goodies entitled "U-Friend or UFO?". Steven Spielberg was a fan of The Goodies and in 1979 he considered making a film with the British trio.
[edit] See also
- The Day the Earth Stood Still, an early classic science fiction movie with benevolent aliens.
- Serpo.org, The Zeta Reticuli Exchange Program is a conspiracy theory website that purports that the US Government has been secretly involved with an extraterrestrial civilization since 1965 and has been covering it up. Among other "activities", it claims that personnel exchanges like the one seen in the film have been occurring on a regular basis. See Serpo for more.
- List of films recut by studio
[edit] External links
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind at the Internet Movie Database
- A full descriptive review at Filmsite
- Roger Ebert's review of Close Encounters of the Third Kind
- James Berardinelli's review of Close Encounters of the Third Kind
- SciFlicks.com site
| Films directed by Steven Spielberg |
|---|
| Duel • The Sugarland Express • Jaws • Close Encounters of the Third Kind • 1941 • Raiders of the Lost Ark • E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial • Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom • The Color Purple • Empire of the Sun • Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade • Always • Hook • Jurassic Park • Schindler's List • The Lost World: Jurassic Park • Amistad • Saving Private Ryan • Artificial Intelligence: AI • Minority Report • Catch Me If You Can • The Terminal • War of the Worlds • Munich • Indiana Jones 4 • Lincoln • Interstellar |
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