The other day I was surprised to read an article claiming Close Encounters of the Third Kind was a “largely forgotten film.” It was the third highest grossing film of 1977 and the sixth highest grossing film of the 1970s. It ranks in the top 100 films of all time in inflation-adjusted grosses, earning over $612,000,000 in 2023 dollars. It’s also a film I’ve seen probably 100 times in my life. Largely forgotten? By who, I have to ask.
Talking to the millennials
I asked a millennial coworker if they considered the film to be largely forgotten. He hadn’t seen the film and figured most people hadn’t. So, I decided to give it a rewatch, as it had been a few years for me as well. Here’s what I decided.
The first thing I will tell you is that this is still an incredibly beautiful film to watch. Some of the effects don’t hold up, but a surprising number of them do. Yes, the miniature effects look like miniature effects and some of the matte paintings are a little too obvious. But the spaceship shots are easily as good as anything done today. If the camerawork were a little more complex, it would be easy to imagine this film had been reworked with modern effects in the same way Star Wars has. It hasn’t.
This is a tribute to the model makers and special effects team. They pushed the boundaries of what was possible but did it in such a way that the result was beautiful. It helps, of course, that a lot of the shots are at night. That hides a lot of sins. But today’s films still have dark spots and many of them, like The Flash, look horrible.
The movie itself
Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a film very much of its day. It speaks to that moment when boomers were in their 30s and beginning to realize that their childhoods were slipping away. It is full of existential angst and distrust of authority, two things that were very much a part of 1970s culture. The film also glorifies the common person. In fact with very few exceptions, the people who talk the least are thought to be the smartest while the people who run everything are seen as evil.
Speaking of angst, this is an incredibly angsty movie. There are maybe five minutes of fun in the entire film and a lot of really painful things. At least the way I see it. I was young myself when this film came out and the scariest thing for me was watching adults just totally lose it in front of their kids. That was traumatizing by itself. But no one in this film has more than one or two happy moments, which makes the final scene so transcendent. When things look like they are finally going to go right, and you feel like you can finally breathe, it’s well-earned.
Near-peak Spielberg
This was Spielberg’s second major blockbuster after Jaws and while it’s not his best, you can see a lot of the themes he built into later films. You see a lot of people staring in wonder like Jurassic Park. There’s the conflict between childlike innocence and the oppressive government like ET. There’s a sweeping John Williams score like Indiana Jones. Spielberg both wrote and directed this film and you’re essentially mainlining his point of view as a result. Trademark Spielberg touches are present throughout, especially his use of popular brands and television as a form of shared culture. In the 1970s the use of real brands was rare. Today, partially thanks to this film, it’s everywhere.
There have been other Spielberg films that are truly largely forgotten, like 1941. But at its time this was a cultural phenomenon, and if you spend some time with it, you’ll see the filmmaker that Spielberg was becoming. I truly believe he was the most influential filmmaker of his day, and this film shows him nearing the peak of his craft.
Here’s why people might not like it today
I think we have to acknowledge that this film is SLOOOOW. It was slow even then, giving people the chance to truly understand what was going on. But today it’s almost glacial. It’s really much more watchable if you can watch at about 140% speed. You don’t lose much, especially since there is so little dialogue.
And that’s something else that sets this film apart. There are huge chunks of time when no one speaks. That’s something you don’t see today. It’s a challenge here in 2023 not to look at your phone during these moments because there’s nothing to hold your attention. Of course in 1977 you saw this film in a theater and it was huge in front of you so you had no choice.
I could also imagine that today’s 30-year-olds would have a hard time getting into the heads of these characters. Roy Neary is a common blue-collar worker, and Ronnie Neary, his wife, is a stay-at-home mom. Although they are in their early-to-mid 30s they have multiple children and a house. Roy loses his job and yet they don’t lose that house or their car. They’re secure in the American dream, at least as it existed in 1977.
Richard Dreyfuss plays Roy Neary as a man-child who plays with trains and really doesn’t take responsibility for his part in the adult world. He travels into a world filled with really strange, mostly silent characters, some of which we would have called “hill people.” (Folks, that’s not a compliment.) It’s a little hard to get into his mindset, I’ll admit.
Warning: skip the “extended edition.”
There are three common versions of this film. The theatrical cut is the shortest and probably the best. The director’s edition cleans up the pacing a little bit but adds some potentially unnecessary scenes. Then, there’s the “extended edition.” Packing on a ton more bloat, it was released into theaters as a way to get people to see the film again. New scenes were shot with Richard Dreyfuss that were then grafted onto the end of the film. It seemed cool at the time but the truth is that these new scenes ruin the entire ending. I don’t want to spoil it too much but…
In the other two versions, you see Neary get into the ship and the ship flies away. This is just perfect. In the extended edition, you get like 8 minutes of the ship’s interior that adds absolutely nothing to the experience.
As I said too, if you watch this film, see if you can get it from a provider that lets you speed it up a bit. It really is a lot more palatable if it’s going by about 40% faster than it was originally shown. I don’t know what that says about life today but it’s the truth.
What do you think?
I’d love to hear from others as to their opinion of this almost 50-year-old film. Leave a comment below!
