Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The Director's Cut (1977/1998)

Rewatched 1/19/24 (Blu-Ray)

Perhaps one the most captivating slow burns in film history, and truly a story that would only work in a movie format, Close Encounters is often more emotionally distant than close but earns its buildup and payoff through the Spielberg x-factor (always finding ways to reinvent himself) and wonderful mystery pacing. Yet it’s more complicated as there’s not much of the Spielberg sentimentality. The family breaks up; the dad leaves and most likely isn’t coming back. There’s no happy ending or next adventure to speak of. No heartwarming, triumphant finale. Instead, it’s an absorbing tale of science and mystery bolstered by an evolution into pure, expertly-designed spectacle.

That spectacle at the end is just one of the best science-fiction sequences ever committed to film. The bright contrasting colors, the design of the mothership being modeled off of some kind of floating, futuristic city, the payoff of the American WW2 pilots coming back and the fear that strikes when you see that awesome spider-like extra-terrestrial for the first time. It’s such a satisfying, copacetic, and somehow energetic ending to what’s a pretty sobering movie. You’re so satisfied by witnessing what feels like a real phenomenon that you’re willing to forgive the main character’s selfishness and unwell nature. He has finally found his purpose; wouldn’t you too get in a spaceship if it looked that appealing? I might.

Dreyfuss is always good but is asked to do more subtle work in this one as Roy Neary. He has flashes of Hooper but it’s a much more internal, neurotic role opposed to the obvious, ever-flamboyantly frustrated Jaws character. He turns in great work in a role where you really could have hated him. Instead, you believe his plight and feel his excitement at the end of the film when he gets what he has wanted so badly. And Spielberg so smartly juxtaposes his leaving of his family on Earth to go with the aliens against Melinda Dillon’s character’s reuniting with her son, all three characters cured in some way. It’s a brutal but earned comparison and ultimately revelation that Roy’s new family are the visitors from outer space, curiosity having corrupted his mind. It’s a real credit to Spielberg that it’s left ambiguous as to what will happen with Roy. Will he ever be free of this curiosity? Free to return to the children left behind? Well that may never be answered if this had happened in real life, and Spielberg handily manages to state that point that science can never tell us everything (there are things beyond our knowledge) while giving us a beautiful space vessel’s takeoff to give equal thought to as the film ends, Williams’ incredible score finally reaching its crescendo as Roy sails away and we look on in awe.

Would you not go with them if you had been obsessed for months of your life? Even if you were seeing clearly at the time of the decision, wouldn’t you need to know what’s out there if it had cost you your sanity and family just to glimpse it. A glimpse may not be enough if you’re like Roy. And I don’t blame him; it’s some interesting shit.

9.5/10