Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (Steven Spielberg, USA, 1977) August 15, 2006
Posted by Daniel Stephens in : 1970s, Film reviews, Action/Adventure, Sci-fi/Fantasy , trackbackDir. Steven Spielberg; screenplay by Steven Spielberg; starring Richard Dreyfuss, Francois Truffaut, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon
If this isn’t Spielberg’s best film, then it most certainly is his second greatest achievement behind Jaws. It could be looked at as a level of cinematic accomplishment that Spielberg could never re-imagine, an easy comparable for his critics to endlessly debate with their most hated of his movies like Schindler’s List.
If what tainted his film about the holocaust was his Manichean view of the world, at least in part, then this certainly doesn’t hinder CE3K. For me, it’s an example of a kid’s movie made entirely for adults. It recreates that sense of wonder, that fearful, guarded interest into the unknown, that only really works if one still believes that the unknown (the bogeyman, the werewolf, extraterrestrials, Father Christmas) still exists. Spielberg places the audience within the world of the few remaining dreamers – those that still cling to the idea: we’re not alone.
You can see that Spielberg is embodied in Richard Dreyfuss’ character, much like he was Elliot in E.T. There is the disenchantment with the American Dream – a feeling that his children just want to rebel and his wife is only interested in a tidy kitchen – a sort of apprehensive precursor to eighties yuppies and materialism. It’s as if the ‘important’ things in life don’t matter (much like the thought-process of a child), the only thing that needs worrying about is the monster that hides under your bed. The dreamers dare question that not everything is set in stone and their reality has not been made for them.
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