Review #3: Close Encounters of the Third Kind
If aliens spoke with music.
“He says the sun came out last night. He says it sang to him.” -Project Leader
Synopsis
In a time looong past (1977), strange events begin to erupt all across the globe. A missing squadron of World War II aircraft turns up unscathed in the Sonoran Desert, a lost 30’s cargo vessel appears in the center of Mongolia, and a UFO nearly collides with two separate airline flights outside Indianapolis, tracked both visually and on radar. Masses in India gather together to sing a five note melody they claim came from the sky, and UFO sightings and abduction claims abound. A group of scientists are convinced that the melody is a form of alien communication, so they broadcast it into space. To their surprise, they receive a response; a set of Earth-based coordinates which denote the location where the aliens wish to engage first contact.
Meanwhile in Muncie, Indiana, electrician Roy Neary experiences his own close encounter with a flying ice cream cone, which imparts upon him images of a mountain-shaped landmark that he cannot identify. The image drives him mad, causing his wife and children to leave him. In his solitude, he creates a living-room scale model of the mountain, and discovers what it is when news stations report that the government has ordered an evacuation of the area around Devil’s Tower due to a “toxic spill”. Against the evacuation movement, Roy is guided to Devil’s Tower by a force he can’t identify. He meets a woman who was also guided there, they kiss for some reason, and then they watch a conglomeration of scientists and engineers communicate with a Christmas tree ornament via music under Devil’s Tower for a while. The aliens release abductees from all eras (except apparently from before 1900), and then the aliens choose Roy as their ambassador to continue their explorations of the cosmos.
Mood/Setting
This movie marks director Steven Spielberg’s breakout into popular science fiction, and he executes it wonderfully. This is one of the very first sci-fi movies depicting aliens as benign; a novel idea for the time. I love the uneasy anticipation Spielberg delivers in this film, feeding us a good ratio of alien encounters and false alarms. I was also a huge fan of the fact that we don’t get a good look at the multitude of alien spacecraft until the very end of the movie; another well-played trick of suspense on the part of Spielberg.
Roy’s descent into insanity is very realistic. The image of Devil’s Tower planted in his head by the aliens is treated like an addiction in the movie, in a sense that he is willing to forgo the needs and pleas of his family to pursue the icon. He battles himself back and forth about his devotion to the image, at one point nearly throwing away his entire collection of UFO newspaper articles, and the next moment building an eight-foot replica of Devil’s Tower in his living room.
Plot Review
Why can’t every pensive sci-fi movie use a silent title sequence at the beginning? That five second scene is worth it’s own weight in gold. The movie then thrusts the audience into two confusing and strangely related situations; the appearing WWII planes and the incident in Indianapolis. Between these cutaways, and eventually others, we learn that UFOs are indeed here and wish to make first contact. The movie probably could have been made without these cutaways, but it would have been far less suspenseful and thought provoking.
Next we get to see a little boy, Barry, who experiences a close encounter of his own. One night before falling asleep, all of his battery-operated toys turn on by themselves and start moving around. If I were this kid, I would pee my bed right through to the floor. But Barry is a braver kid than I, and decides that it is prudent to follow sounds he hears downstairs. There, he sees an alien eating from his fridge (which is not shown on screen, how clever is that?!), and he follows it outside when it leaves. Because Barry’s single mom sleeps like a brick, she only wakes up when a toy car literally drives into her room and honks it’s horn at her. She runs downstairs and tries to stop Barry from chasing after a UFO as it leaves, but it’s too late. Barry gone.
After all of this, we finally get to meet the main character, Roy Neary, who is called on duty one night to investigate the source of rolling blackouts. He can’t find his way, so he pulls over to examine a map because he didn’t buy the latest iPhone. This is hands-down my favorite scene in the whole movie. Crickets stop chirping. Metal objects start rattling. Power goes out. We see a pair of lights approaching from behind which looks like an encroaching car… BUT IT’S NOT. The lights hover above his truck and shoot a beam of light on him, causing a sort of anti-gravity effect. There is a split-second scene showing Roy’s fuel gauge rising to “full”, which is such a Spielberg move to showcase the effects of zero-G.
Once the alien ship leaves, Roy is compelled to chase it; another example where I would instead wet my trousers. He speeds after it, following it along the highway until he almost hits Barry — remember Barry? — right in the middle of the road chasing the UFO. After crashing to avoid Barry, Roy gets out and meets Barry’s mom, Jillian, who has chased Barry all the way there. Apparently moms from the 70's weren’t as fast as four-year-old kids. They share their experiences, and then Barry runs away again.
They take the time after this experience to teach us more about Roy’s home life. His kids are obnoxious, his wife is anxious and stressed, and his neighbors are unsympathetic. I was impressed with how realistic kids were portrayed in this movie. The 70’s are notorious for ridiculous depictions of children in movies talking like adults and giving advice. These kids act exactly like you would expect them to, and may even spark flashbacks of childhood or parenthood.
Roy has an obsession with UFOs, and keeps newspaper and magazine articles on UFO sightings and abduction claims for his personal research. This occupies a lot of his free time, upsetting his wife. His wife becomes further angered when Roy begins to experience the growing effects of his own close encounter. Was Roy’s wife was too hard on Roy? I suppose we didn’t get to see the preceding years of their marriage, which may have offered a better explanation as to why his wife got so pissed, so fast. From just what I saw in the movie though, I think a typical wife would have erred more on the concerned side.
Roy eventually goes nuts building models of the image in his head. After several smaller models built out of shaving cream and mashed potatoes, he is finally urged to build a large scale model of the mountain using accurate materials. As he is shoveling dirt through his window for his model, his wife takes the kids and leaves in a fury. He spends the next several days perfecting his giant model, which looks exactly like Devil’s Tower, but he still can’t figure out what it is. Seriously, has this guy never seen any pictures of anything? Devil’s Tower is literally one of the most iconic shapes. I’ve only been to like six states and even I know what Devil’s Tower looks like. Roy doesn’t find out what he has spent countless hours modeling until a TV news story interrupts his thoughts, showing an evacuation underway around Devil’s Tower.
Barry’s mom is then revealed to have been drawing pictures of Devil’s Tower for several weeks and ALSO didn’t realize what it was. Who are these people?! Did I mention that Barry — remember Barry? — got abducted by the aliens two scenes earlier? Oh yeah, that’s important too, and it’s also a really beautiful scene. Anyways, both Roy and Jillian are guided to Wyoming where they meet each other again. They break past the barbed-wire blockade with one of those heavy-duty, steel frame 70’s cars that they don’t make anymore. Seriously, if you did that with a 2017 Toyota Camry, that thing would be toast. They are then captured and interrogated at an outpost nearby, where they learn that the true reason for the evacuation was not a toxic spill, but an anticipated UFO encounter. Roy and Jillian escape because the outpost has no security whatsoever, and climb around Devil’s tower until they find ground zero of the UFO encounter.
Here they see a huge outpost set up with a runway, an enormous speaker system, and hundreds of scientists and engineers. Amidst lovely effects, the alien spacecraft descend from the skies to “sing” to the humans, who reply with the same five note melody the aliens first sent them. They do this for a while until the aliens decide that humans are worthy of full contact, and send an enormous alien ship down from the clouds. For a movie made in the mid 70’s, the spacecraft looks utterly gorgeous. The details and lights of the hull are industrial and flashy, reminiscent of ships from Alien or Star Wars decked out in LED's. Then the mothership and the outpost sing together, forming a technical yet beautiful symphony of notes and rhythms.
My interest for this scene PLATEAUS when Roy kisses Jillian for no apparent reason. Then, Roy sneaks down to the outpost in the midst of everyone’s awe, and is found by the same people who interrogated him before. This time however, they realize the aliens have probably called him here for a reason, and so they let him get in line with all the other alien ambassador candidates without question. Next, the aliens release all of the missing crew from the WWII squadron, the beached boat, and of course, Barry — remember Barry? — who runs to his mom. Then, they reveal their true appearances and choose Roy as their ambassador to accompany them on their journey. In the final scene, they wave goodbye to the humans, and shoot into the stars!
Conclusion
Close Encounters is a thought provoking and suspenseful science fiction masterpiece. It is one of the most creative, influential first-contact films ever created, combining the two seemingly unrelated studies of aliens and music into a compelling story line. That being said, though it amazes its audience with attention to the smallest of details and the largest of questions, the middle ground material seems to get a little lost along the way.
