Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a
1977 science fiction film written and
directed by
Steven Spielberg. The
film stars
Richard Dreyfuss,
François Truffaut,
Melinda Dillon,
Teri
Garr,
Bob Balaban and
Cary Guffey.
It tells the story of Roy Neary, an Indiana
electrical lineman, whose life changes
after he has an encounter with an unidentified flying
object. However, the United States government is also
aware of the UFOs as is a team of international scientific
researchers.
Close Encounters was a long-cherished project for
Spielberg. In late 1973, he developed a deal with
Columbia Pictures for a science fiction
film. Though Spielberg receives sole credit for the script, he was
assisted by
Paul Schrader,
John Hill,
David Giler,
Hal
Barwood,
Matthew
Robbins and
Jerry Belson, all of
whom contributed to the screenplay in varying degrees.
The title is derived from
astronomer/
ufologist
J. Allen
Hynek's classification of close encounters with aliens, in
which the third kind denotes human observations of actual aliens or
"animate beings".
Filming began in May 1976.
Douglas
Trumbull served as the
visual effects supervisor, while
Carlo Rambaldi designed the aliens.
Close Encounters was released in November 1977 and was a
critical and financial success. The film was
reissued in 1980 as
Close Encounters of the
Third Kind: The Special Edition, which featured additional
scenes. A third cut of the film was released to home video (and
later DVD) in 1998. The film received numerous awards and
nominations at the
50th Academy
Awards,
32nd
British Academy Film Awards, the
Saturn
Awards and has been widely acclaimed by the
American Film Institute. In December
2007 it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically
significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected
for preservation in
National Film
Registry.
Plot
In the
Sonoran
Desert
, French scientist Claude Lacombe (François Truffaut) and his American
translator David Laughlin (Bob Balaban),
along with other government scientific researchers discover a
lost squadron of World War II aircraft. The planes are
intact and operational, but there is no sign of the pilots.
Later, at
Air Traffic Control in Indianapolis,
Indiana
, an air traffic
controller listens as two airline flights almost have a
mid-air collision with an apparent
UFO. In nighttime Muncie, Indiana
, three-year-old Barry Guiler (Cary Guffey) is awakened when his toys start
operating automatically. Fascinated, he gets out of bed and
runs outside, forcing his mother Gillian (
Melinda Dillon) to chase after him.
Meanwhile,
during a nearby large-scale power
outage, Indiana
electrical lineman Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) experiences a close encounter with a UFO on a dark country road and is soon caught up in a
police chase of four UFOs. Roy becomes fascinated by UFOs,
much to the dismay of his wife, Ronnie (
Teri
Garr). He also becomes increasingly obsessed with mental images
of a mountain-like shape and begins to make models of it. Gillian
also becomes obsessed with sketching a unique-looking mountain.
Soon after, she is terrorized in her home by a UFO encounter in
which Barry is abducted by unseen beings, despite her attempts at
securing her house. Meanwhile, Roy's increasingly erratic behavior
causes Ronnie to leave him, taking their three children with her.
When a
despairing Roy inadvertently sees a TV news program about a train
wreck near Devils Tower National Monument
in Wyoming
, he realizes
the mental image plaguing him is real. Gillian sees the same
broadcast, and she and Roy, as well as others with similar
experiences, head toward the site.
Elsewhere in the world, the pace of UFO activity is increasing.
Lacombe and Laughlin investigate a host of occurrences along with
other
United Nations experts.
Witnesses report the UFOs make distinctive sounds: a five-
tone musical
phrase in a
major scale.
Scientists
broadcast the phrase to outer space but
are mystified by the response—a seemingly arbitrary series of
numbers repeated over and over—until Laughlin recognizes it as a
set of geographical coordinates pointing to Devils
Tower
. All parties begin to converge on Wyoming.
The
United States Army evacuates
the area, planting false reports in the media that a train wreck
has spilled a toxic nerve gas, all the while preparing a secret
landing zone for the UFOs and their occupants.
While most of the civilians who are drawn to the site are
apprehended by the Army, Roy and Gillian persist and make it to the
site just as dozens of UFOs appear in the night sky. The government
specialists at the site begin to communicate with the UFOs by use
of light and sound. Following this, an enormous
mother ship lands at the site, returning people
who had been
abducted over the
years, including Barry. As the communication between the humans and
UFOs continue using light and sound signals, the government
officials determine to include Roy in a group of people whom they
have selected to be potential visitors to the mothership, and
hastily prepare him. As the aliens finally emerge from the
mothership, they select Roy to join them on their travels. As Roy
enters the mothership, one of the aliens lingers for a few moments
with the humans. Lacombe uses
Kodály
Method hand signs that correspond to the five-note alien tonal
phrase. The alien replies with the same gestures, smiles, and
returns to its ship, which lifts off into the night sky.
Cast
- Richard
Dreyfuss as Roy Neary: An Indiana
electrical lineman who encounters and
forms an obsession with unidentified flying
objects. Steve McQueen was
Spielberg's first choice. Although McQueen was impressed with the
script, he felt was not specifically right for the role as he was
unable to cry on film. Dustin
Hoffman, Al Pacino and Gene Hackman turned down the part as well.
Jack Nicholson turned it down because
of scheduling conflicts. Spielberg explained when filming
Jaws "Dreyfuss talked me into
casting him. He listened to about 155-days worth of Close
Encounters. He even contributed ideas." Dreyfuss reflected, "I
launched myself into a campaign to get the part. I would walk by
Steve's office and say stuff like 'Al Pacino has no sense of humor'
or 'Jack Nicholson is too crazy'. I eventually convinced him to
cast me."
- François
Truffaut as Claude Lacombe: A French
government scientist in charge of UFO-related activities in the
United States. Gérard
Depardieu, Philippe Noiret,
Jean-Louis Trintignant and
Lino Ventura were considered for the
role. During filming, Truffaut used his leisure to write the script
for The Man Who
Loved Women. He also worked on a novel titled The
Actor, a project he abandoned.
- Melinda Dillon
as Gillian Guiler: Barry's single mother. She also forms a similar
obsession to Roy's, and the two become friends. Teri Garr wanted to
portray Gillian, but ended being cast as Ronnie. Hal Ashby, who worked with Dillon on Bound for Glory, suggested her
for the part to Spielberg. Dillon was cast three days before
filming began.
- Cary Guffey as
Barry Guiler: Gillian's young child abducted in
the middle of the film. Spielberg conducted a series of method acting techniques to help Guffey, who
was cast when he was just three years old.
- Teri Garr as
Veronica "Ronnie" Neary: Roy's wife. She attempts
to hide the radiation burn caused by Roy's exposure to the UFOs and
wants him to forget his encounter with them. Amy Irving auditioned for the role.
- Bob Balaban as
David Laughlin: Lacombe's assistant and
English-French translator. They meet for the first time in the Sonoran Desert
at the beginning of the film.
J. Allen
Hynek makes a
cameo appearance
at the closing scene. Spielberg's friends
Hal Barwood and
Matthew Robbins cameo as two
World War II pilots returning from the
mother ship.
Jerry Garcia of
The Grateful Dead also makes a
brief cameo appearance among the masses in the Indian
crowd
scene.
Soundtrack
Track listing
All compositions by John Williams.
- "Opening: Let There Be Light" (0:49)
- "Navy Planes" (2:06)
- "Lost Squadron" (2:23)
- "Roy's First Encounter" (2:41)
- "Encounter at Crescendo Summit" (1:21)
- "Chasing UFOs" (1:18)
- "False Alarm" (1:42)
- "Barry's Kidnapping" (6:19)
- "The Cover-Up" (2:25)
- "Stars and Trucks" (0:44)
- "Forming the Mountain" (1:49)
- "TV Reveals" (1:49)
- "Roy And Gillian on the Road" (1:10)
- "The Mountain" (3:31)
- "Who Are You People?"(1:35)
- "The Escape" (2:18)
- "The Escape (Alternate Cue)" (2:40)
- "Trucking" (2:01)
- "Climbing The Mountain" (2:32)
- "Outstretch Hands" (2:47)
- "Lightshow" (3:43)
- "Barnstorming" (4:25)
- "The Mothership" (4:33)
- "Wild Signals" (4:12)
- "The Returnees" (3:45)
- "The Visitors/Bye/End Titles" (12:32)
Production
Development
The
genesis of Close Encounters of the Third Kind started when
Steven Spielberg and his father saw
a meteor shower in New Jersey
when the director was a young boy. As a
teenager, Spielberg completed the full-length science fiction film
Firelight. Many
scenes from
Firelight would be incorporated in
Close
Encounters on a
shot-for-shot
basis. In 1970 he wrote a
short story
called
Experiences about a lovers' lane in a Midwestern
United States farming community and the "light show" a group of
teenagers see in the night sky. In late 1973, during
post-production on
The Sugarland Express, Spielberg
developed a deal with
Columbia
Pictures for a science fiction film.
20th Century Fox previously turned down the
offer.
Julia and
Michael Phillips instantly
signed on as producers.
He first considered doing a documentary about people who believed
in
UFO's, or a low-budget
feature film. Spielberg decided "a film that depended on
state of the art technology couldn't be
made for $2.5 million." Borrowing a phrase from the ending of
The Thing from Another
World, he retitled the film
Watch the Skies,
rewriting the premise concerning
Project Blue Book and
pitch the concept to
Willard Huyck and
Gloria Katz.
Katz remembered "It had flying saucers from
outer space landing on Robertson
Boulevard [in West Hollywood, California
]. I go, 'Steve, that's the worst idea I ever
heard." Spielberg brought
Paul
Schrader to write the script in December 1973 with
principal photography to begin in
late-1974. However, Spielberg started work on
Jaws in 1974, pushing
Watch the
Skies back.
With the financial and critical success of
Jaws, Spielberg
earned a vast amount of creative control from Columbia, including
the right to make the film any way he wanted. Schrader turned in
his script, which Spielberg called, "one of the most embarrassing
screenplays ever professionally turned in to a major film studio or
director. It was a terribly guilt-ridden story not about UFOs at
all." Titled
Kingdom Come, the script's
protagonist was a 45-year-old Air Force Officer
named Paul Van Owen who worked with Project Blue Book. "[His] job
for the government is to ridicule and debunk flying saucers."
Schrader continued. "One day he has an encounter. He goes to the
government, threatening to blow the lid off to the public. Instead,
he and the government spend 15 years trying to make contact."
Spielberg and Schrader experienced creative differences, hiring
John Hill to rewrite. At
one point the main character was a police officer. Spielberg
"[found] it hard to identify with men in uniform. I wanted to have
Mr. Everyday Regular Fella." Spielberg rejected the Schrader/Hill
script during
post-production on
Jaws. He reflected, "they wanted to make it like a
James Bond adventure."
David Giler performed a rewrite.
Hal Barwood and
Matthew Robbins, friends of
Spielberg, suggested the plot device of a kidnapped child.
Spielberg then began to write the script. The song "
When You Wish upon a Star" from
Pinocchio influenced
Spielberg's writing style. "I hung my story on the mood the song
created, the way it affected me personally."
Jerry Belson and Spielberg wrote the
shooting script together. In the end,
Spielberg was given solo writing credit. During
pre-production, the title was changed from
Kingdom Come to
Close Encounters of the Third
Kind.
J. Allen Hynek, who worked with the
United States Air Force on Project
Blue Book, was hired as a scientific consultant. Hynek felt "even
though the film is fiction, it's based for the most part on the
known facts of the UFO mystery, and it certainly catches the flavor
of the phenomenon. Spielberg was under enormous pressure to make
another
blockbuster
after
Jaws, but he decided to make a UFO movie. He put his
career on the line."
USAF and NASA
declined to
cooperate on the film.
Filming
Principal photography began on
May 16, 1976. Spielberg did not want to do any
location shooting because of his negative
experience on
Jaws and wanted to shoot
Close
Encounters entirely on
sound
stages, but eventually dropped the idea.
Filming took place in
Burbank,
California
, Devils Tower National Monument
in Wyoming
, two
abandoned World War II [airship] hangars in Mobile,
Alabama
and the railroad depot in Bay
Minette
. The homestead where Barry was abducted is
located outside the town of Fairhope, Alabama
. Roy Neary's home is 1613 Carlisle Drive
East, Mobile, Alabama. The hangars in Alabama were six times larger
than the biggest sound stage in the world. Various technical and
budgetary problems occurred during filming. Spielberg called
Close Encounters "twice as bad and twice as expensive [as
Jaws]". Matters worsened when Columbia Pictures
experienced financial difficulties. Spielberg estimated the film
would cost $2.7 million to make in his original 1973 pitch to
Columbia, but the final budget came to $19.4 million.
Columbia studio executive John Veich remembered, "If we knew it was
going to cost that much, we wouldn't have
greenlighted it because we didn't have the
money." Truffaut said it was producer Julia Phillips' fault that
the budget escalated. Spielberg hired
Joe
Alves, his collaborator on
Jaws, as
production designer. In addition the
1976 Atlantic hurricane season brought tropical storms to Alabama.
A large portion of the sound stage in Alabama was damaged because
of a lightning strike. During filming,
cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond remembered, "Every night
Steve watched movies and got more ideas. He added more shots to the
shooting schedule, pushing it back. One crew member said, 'Steven,
if you would stop watching those fucking movies every night we
would be on schedule.'" Zsigmond previously turned down the chance
to work on
Jaws. In her book
You'll Never Eat Lunch
in This Town Again, producer Julia Phillips wrote highly
profane remarks about Spielberg, Zsigmond, and Truffaut. She was
fired during post-production because of cocaine dependency.
Phillips blamed it on Spielberg being a perfectionist.
Visual effects
Douglas Trumbull was the
visual effects supervisor, while
Carlo Rambaldi designed the aliens.
Trumbull joked that the visual effects budget, at $3.3 million,
could have been made to produce another film. His work helped lead
to advances in
motion control
photography. The mother ship was designed by
Ralph McQuarrie and built by
Greg Jein. Many of the model makers attempted
comical objects in the UFOs. One was an oxygen mask with lights,
while
Dennis Muren put an in-joke from
his work on
Star
Wars, using an
R2-D2 toy. Since
Close Encounters was filmed
anamorphically, the visual effects
sequences were shot in
70 mm film to
better conform with the
35 mm film. A
test reel using
computer-generated imagery was
used for the UFOs, but Spielberg found it would be too expensive
since CGI was new technology in the 1970s.
The small aliens in
the final scenes were played by local girls in Mobile,
Alabama
. That decision was requested by Spielberg
because he felt "girls move more gracefully than boys." Puppetry
was attempted for the aliens, but the idea failed. However,
Rambaldi successfully used puppetry to depict the larger alien that
communicates with Lacombe near the end of the film.
Post-production
Close Encounters is the first collaboration between film
editor
Michael Kahn and
Spielberg. Their relationship continued for the rest of Spielberg's
films. When Kahn and Spielberg delivered the first cut of the film,
Spielberg was dissatisfied, feeling "there wasn't enough wow-ness".
Pick-up were commissioned but
cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond could not participate.
John A. Alonzo,
László
Kovács,
William A. Fraker and
Douglas Slocombe worked on the pick-ups.
Lacombe
was originally to find Flight 19 hidden in
the Amazon Rainforest, but the
idea was changed to the Sonoran Desert
. This was an important scene added in the
re-shoots. Composer
John Williams
wrote over 300 examples of the iconic five-tone
motif before Spielberg chose the right one.
Spielberg called Williams' work as "
When You Wish upon a Star meets
science fiction". Spielberg wanted to have "When You Wish upon a
Star" in the
closing credits, but
was denied permission. He also took 7.5 minutes out from the
preview.
Musical Score
The score for this film emphasizes and highlights the dramatic
theme of the movie by reflecting the spirituality of Richard
Dreyfuss’ experience with the UFOs as well as the mystical
attraction that he and Melinda Dillion have towards the spaceship.
Furthermore, the score of the film is evocative of the peacefulness
that the space travelers represent. The spaceship can be thought of
as the central character and the film expresses the qualities of
the central character. The “spaceship communication” motif in this
1977 movie is a very well-known theme that is derived from a motif.
Five notes are used to create this motif and are used by scientists
to communicate with the visiting spaceship. It became the primary
focus of the scene in which the mothership communicates tonally
with earth. Although rhythmically and melodically simple, it became
a dramatic device and important musical statement throughout the
entire film. This score is also modernist because Williams uses a
bit of an aleatoric (improvised) rhythm in “Close Encounters” when
the musicians improvise freely, but rhythmically, using only
certain pitches. He uses this when the young boy is drawn away from
the house to the spaceship. In this scene the strings are free. The
particular orchestral setting that Williams used when composing
this score adds to the theme of the “mothership” in this
film.
Themes and antecedents
Film critic Charlene Engel observed
Close Encounters
"suggests that humankind has reached the point where it is ready to
enter the community of the cosmos. While it is a computer interface
which makes the final musical conversation with the alien guests
possible, the characteristics bringing Neary to make his way to
Devil's Tower have little to do with technical expertise or
computer literacy. These are virtues taught in schools that will be
evolved in the 21st century." The film also evokes typical
science fiction archetypes and motifs. The film portrays new
technologies as a natural and expected outcome of human development
and indication of health and growth.
Other critics found a variety of Judeo-Christian analogies.
Devil's
Tower parallels Mount
Sinai
, the aliens as Gods and Roy Neary as Moses. Cecil B.
DeMille's
The Ten Commandments
is seen on television at the Neary household. Some found close
relations between
Elijah and Roy; Elijah was
taken into a "chariot of fire", akin to Roy going in the UFO.
Climbing Devil's Tower behind Jillian and faltering, Neary exhorts
Jillian to keep moving and not to look back, similar to
Lot's wife who looked back at
Sodom and turned into a pillar of salt.
Spielberg explained, "I wanted to make
Close Encounters a
very accessible story about the everyday individual who has a
sighting that overturns his life, and throws it in to complete
upheaval as he starts to become more and more obsessed with this
experience."
Roy's wife Ronnie attempts to hide the sunburn caused by Roy's
exposure to the UFOs and wants him to forget his encounter with
them. She is embarrassed and bewildered by what has happened to him
and desperately wants her ordinary life back. The expression of his
lost life is seen when he is sculpting a huge model of Devil's
Tower in his living room, with his family deserting him. Roy's
obsession with an idea implanted by an alien intelligence, his
construction of the model, and his gradual loss of contact with his
wife, mimic the events in the short story "
Dulcie and Decorum" (1955) by
Damon Knight.
Close Encounters also studies the form of "youth spiritual
yearning". Barry Guiler, the unfearing child who refers to the UFOs
and their paraphernalia as "Toys", serves as a motif for childlike
innocence and openness in the face of the unknown. Spielberg also
compared the theme of communication as highlighting that of
tolerance. "If we can talk to aliens in
Close Encounters of the
Third Kind," he said, "why not with the
Reds in the
Cold War?"
Sleeping is the final obstacle to overcome in the ascent of Devil's
Tower. Roy, Jillian Guiler and a third invitee climb the mountain
pursued by government helicopters spraying sleeping gas. The third
person stops to rest, is gassed, and falls into a deep sleep.
In his interview with Spielberg on
Inside the Actors Studio,
James Lipton suggested
Close
Encounters had another, more personal theme for Spielberg:
"Your father was a computer engineer; your mother was a concert
pianist, and when the spaceship lands, they make music together on
the computer", suggesting that Roy Neary's boarding the spaceship
is Spielberg's wish to be reunited with his parents.
Reaction
Release
The film was originally to be released in summer 1977, but was
pushed back to November because of the various problems during
production. Upon its release,
Close Encounters became a
box office success, grossing $116.39
million in North America and $171.7 million in foreign countries,
totaling $288 million. and it became
Columbia Pictures' most successful film at
that time.
Jonathan Rosenbaum
refers to the film as "the best expression of Spielberg's benign,
dreamy-eyed vision." A.D. Murphy of
Variety gave a positive review but
felt "
Close Encounters lacks the warmth and humanity of
George Lucas's
Star Wars". Murphy found most of the film
slow-paced, but was highly impressed with the climax.
Pauline Kael called it "a kid's film in the
best sense."
Jean Renoir compared
Spielberg's storytelling to
Jules Verne
and
Georges Méliès.
Ray Bradbury declared it the greatest
science fiction film ever made.
Reissue and home video
On the
final cut privilege,
Spielberg was dissatisfied with
Close Encounters.
"Columbia Pictures was experiencing financial problems, and they
were depending on this film to save their company. I wanted to have
another six months to finish off this film, and release it in
summer 1978. They told me they needed this film out immediately,"
Spielberg explained. "Anyway,
Close Encounters was a huge
financial success and I told them I wanted to make my own
director's cut. They agreed on the condition
that I show the inside of the
mother
ship so they could have something to hang a campaign on. I
never should have shown the inside of the mother ship." In 1979,
Columbia Pictures gave Spielberg $2.5 million to produce what would
become the "Special Edition" of the film. Spielberg added seven
minutes of new footage, but also deleted or shortened various
scenes so that the Special Edition was still three minutes shorter
than the original 1977 release.
The Special Edition featured several new character development
scenes, the discovery of the
SS
Cotopaxi in the
Gobi
Desert, and a view of the inside of the mothership.
Close
Encounters of the Third Kind: The Special Edition was released
in August 1980, making a further $15.7 million, accumulating a
final $303.79 million box office gross.
Roger Ebert "thought the original film was an
astonishing achievement, capturing the feeling of awe and wonder we
have when considering the likelihood of life beyond the Earth. This
new version is quite simply a better film. Why didn't Spielberg
make it this good the first time?"
In 1998, Spielberg recut
Close Encounters again for what
would become the "Collectors Edition", to be released on home video
and laserdisc. This version of the film is something of a re-edit
of the original 1977 release with some elements of the 1980 special
edition, but omits the mothership interior scenes as Spielberg felt
that it should have remained a mystery. The laserdisc edition also
includes a new 101 minute documentary,
The Making of Close
Encounters, which was produced in 1997 and features interviews
with Spielberg, the main cast, and notable crew members.
There have also been many other alternate versions of the film for
network & syndicated television, as well as a previous
LaserDisc version. Some of these even combined all
released material from the 1977 and 1980 versions, but none of
these versions were edited by Spielberg, who regards the
"Collector's Edition" as his definitive version of
Close
Encounters.
The film was finally released on DVD in June 2001. It was released
as a 2-disc set that contained the "Collector's Edition". The
second disc contained a wealth of extra features including the 101
minute "Making Of" documentary from 1997, a featurette from 1977,
trailers, and a Deleted Scenes section that included, amongst other
things, the mothership interiors from the 1980 Special Edition.
James Berardinelli felt
"
Close Encounters is still unquestionably a great movie.
Its universal appeal gave movie-goers something to be excited about
during 1977–78 as the first in a wave of post-
Star Wars
science fiction films broke. Today, the movie stands up remarkably
well. The story is fresh and compelling, the special effects are as
remarkable as anything that CGI can do, and the music represents
some of
John Williams' best work."
Emanuel Levy also gave a
highly-positive review. "Spielberg's greatest achievement is to
make a warm, likable sci-fi feature, deviating in spirit, tone and
ideology from the dark,
noir sci-fi films that dominated
the 1950s and
Cold War mentality. He
ultimately succeeded."
Close Encounters was given a second DVD release and a
Blu-ray Disc release in November 2007.
Released for the film's 30th anniversary, this set contained all
three major theatrical versions of the film from 1977, 1980, and
1998 and a new interview with Spielberg who talks about the film's
impact thirty years after its release. The set also includes the
1977 featurette, various trailers, and the 1997 "Making Of"
documentary - though this is now split over three discs rather than
as a single feature as with the 2001 DVD release.
Based on 39 reviews collected by
Rotten Tomatoes, 95% of the reviewers
have enjoyed the film.
Legacy
Shortly after the release in late-1977, Spielberg desired to do
either a sequel or
prequel. He explained,
"The Army's knowledge and ensuing
cover-up
is so subterranean that it would take a creative screen story,
perhaps someone else making the picture and giving it the equal
time it deserves."
The film was nominated nine times at the
50th Academy Awards, but only
Vilmos Zsigmond won the award for
Best Cinematography.
Other categories included
Direction,
Supporting Actress
(
Melinda Dillon),
Visual Effects,
Art Direction (
Joe Alves,
Daniel
A. Lomino,
Phil Abramson),
Original Music Score,
Film Editing and
Sound. An
Academy Special Achievement
Award was given though for
sound
effects editing. At the
32nd British Academy Film
Awards,
Close Encounters won
Best Production
Design, and was nominated for
Best Film,
Direction,
Screenplay,
Actor in a
Supporting Role (
François
Truffaut),
Music,
Cinematography,
Editing and
Sound.
Close Encounters lost the
Hugo Award for Best
Dramatic Presentation to
Star Wars, but was successful
at the
Saturn Awards. There, the film
tied with
Star Wars for
Direction and
Music, but won
Best Writing.
Richard Dreyfuss, Melinda Dillon and the
visual effects department received nominations.
Close
Encounters was nominated for
Best Science Fiction
Film. The film received four more nominations at the
35th Golden Globe Awards.
When asked in 1990 to select a single "master image" that summed up
his film career, Spielberg chose the shot of Barry opening his
living room door to see the blazing orange light from the UFO.
"That was beautiful but awful light, just like fire coming through
the doorway." Spielberg continued. "He's very small, and it's a
very large door, and there's a lot of promise or danger outside
that door."
In 2007, Close Encounters was
deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by
the United States Library of
Congress
, and was added to the National Film Registry for
preservation. In
American
Film Institute polls,
Close Encounters has been voted
the 64th
greatest film of
all time, 31st
most
thrilling and 58th
most uplifting.
Alongside
Star Wars and
Superman,
Close Encounters led
to the reemergence of science fiction films. In 1985 Spielberg
donated $100,000 to the
Planetary
Society for
Megachannel ExtraTerrestrial
Assay.
References
Notes
Bibliography
Further reading
External links