Director: Steven Spielberg | Writer: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, Francois Truffaut
Spielberg’s first sizeable movies were Duel and Sugarland Express in the early 70s. His next two, in the later 70s, would define his career and both become icons: Jaws and Close Encounters. With those two films as a base, the rest would become history, legend, cinema class, what have you, but the stage was set. And all the wonderful films that came after have been a blessing; Spielberg is certainly a director who is more icon than man. Close Encounters showed what he could do and do well, but also where his heart was and what his vision would become.
A simple family man in Indiana accidentally encounters multiple UFOs, and gets swept onto a path he never expected or asked for. Meanwhile, a single mother of a small boy has a similar experience, as the US government tries to hush the news and deny the sightings. Roy and Jillian are simultaneously haunted by visions of a mountain that might hold all the answers to their new obsessions with what they saw, as the entire world races to understand if we’re being communicated with by an intelligent species and what exactly comes next.
Close Encounters is special, not only because it’s early Spielberg but because it creates a pervasive mood that no other film in history had been able to match. For so little happening, there is so much pressure, intensity, and angst, and we as audiences member feel that without even knowing why. Spielberg created that thick atmosphere, others would copy it later (thinking M. Night Shyamalan with Signs, only sinister), but Close Encounters remains untouched and unique. Dreyfuss is frantic and excellent, both Dillon and Garr are so relatable, and the government/scientist community rushing around the world creates such a sense of urgency and fear of the the unknown that we find ourselves right there with them in the panic. Ultimately, the sci-fi comes second; this is a movie about people, about experience, and that’s just so fun to watch.
My rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆