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Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Starring Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Teri Garr, and Melinda Dillon. Cinematography by William A. Fraker, Douglas Slocombe, and Vilmos Zsigmond. Edited by Michael Kahn. Produced by Julia Phillips and Michael Phillips. Written and Directed by Steven Spielberg.
Roy Neary is an electrician living in Muncie, Indiana. One night, while investigating a power outage, he is suddenly flooded with a brilliant white light. He discovers a UFO hovering over him, but as quickly as it appears it takes off, leaving him panicky and confused. The alien sighting becomes his every though and his obsession begins to tear apart his marriage. Meanwhile strange occurrences begin happening all over the world. A squadron of World War II airplanes lost in the Bermuda Triangle mysteriously reappears over the Mojave Desert. Airline pilots are being buzzed by strange flying objects. Soon the United States government becomes involved. The authorities, along with Neary and a handful of other “touched” people, make their way to the Devil’s Tower in Wyoming to take part in the most incredible event mankind has ever seen.
As early as the age of twelve, Steven Spielberg had displayed a keen interest in filmmaking and would often stage and shoot his own short western and war films with his father’s 8mm camera. He shot his first full length feature, titled Firelight, when he was only sixteen. During the summer vacation prior to his senior year in high school Spielberg worked an internship with Universal Studios. The experience he gained as an assistant in the editorial department was not nearly as significant as the contacts he would make in the filmmaking community, using Firelight as his calling card. A few years later, after the unprecedented success of Jaws, Spielberg found himself in a carte blanche situation. He would choose his next movie to be an updated version of Firelight with the financial resources to match his imagination. His project, now titled Watch the Skies, was given a budget of twenty two million dollars. Spielberg hired screenwriter Paul Schrader to assemble a script, but found his draft to be unusable so he rewrote it himself (six times actually). With a little help from Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins, co-writers of The Sugarland Express, a finished script was ready for production.
A close encounter of the first kind is the sighting of an unidentified flying object. A close encounter of the second kind is actual evidence of an alien landing. A close encounter of the third kind is physical contact with an alien life form. Spielberg’s film runs through each of these levels as the tension builds in his Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Through a combination of great storytelling and cutting edge special effects, he was able to follow the success of Jaws with another blockbuster picture. The critics were impressed and audiences followed suit; turning it into another one of the highest grossing films off all time. Two years after Close Encounters of the Third Kind’s release, Spielberg did something almost completely unheard of at the time. He shot new scenes and re-edited the film, creating one of the very first “special edition” movies. Despite the added footage, the new version of the film was actually shorter than the original and benefited from the extra care taken with the timing and pace.
Budget: $20,000,000
Total US Gross: $166,000,000
Genre: Science Fiction
Runtime: 132 Minutes
US Release Date: 11/16/77
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Awards: Academy Awards: Won for best cinematography. Nominated for best art direction/set decoration, best original score, best sound, best visual effects, best editing, best supporting actress, and best director. Golden Globes: Nominated for best original score, best screenplay, best director, and best dramatic picture. Directors Guild of America: Nominated for the Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures. Writers Guild of America: Nominated for Best Drama Written Directly for the Screen. Winner of the American Film Institute's top one hundred films of all time: number sixty four.
Tagline: We Are Not Alone.
Quote: “This means something… This is important.”
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