When an interviewer pressed Steven Spielberg on how Close Encounters of the Third Kind unites the respective passions of his parents—his mother’s love of music and his father’s zeal for computer science—the director professed surprise. He hadn’t considered that formulation when writing the story, but recognized the truth of the insight: the film’s climax depicts the interplay of music and computers as the key to communicating with alien intelligence. A film ostensibly about the deepest mysteries of the cosmos was, in part, the director’s attempt to grapple with his family’s complicated history.
For the first couple decades of Spielberg’s stellar career, his reputation was that of a popular entertainer and blockbuster engineer, but he was given little credit for emotional or psychological depth. Spielberg himself has claimed that, unlike Kubrick or Scorsese or Coppola, he lacks an identifiable style, considering himself more of a skilled journeyman who can adapt to any genre. The second part of that statement is undeniably true, but a film like Close Encounters demonstrates enough personal style to fill a mothership, including many ticks and tricks that would resurface in subsequent films, each as clear as a thumbprint.
Start with the famous “Spielberg Face.” While his previous film, Jaws, featured the iconic dolly-zoom of Chief Brody on the beach, Close Encounters unleashes a barrage of the stylistic device that would carry the director’s name. Here’s little Barry (Cary Guffey) gazing in wonder as unseen aliens sneak into his home and raid the fridge. And here’s Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) and Jillian Guiler (Melinda Dillon) looking up in astonishment as the beams of light from as-yet unseen UFOs leave them half-sunburnt. There are many more, including whole groups of nameless spectators scanning the skies for alien spaceships as the camera pushes in on their open expressions of wonder. In most cases, the effectiveness of this technique depends on the withholding of the object of the actors’ gazes. The viewer is made to feel what the character feels before seeing what the character sees. It’s a form of emotional manipulation, teeing up the audience’s reaction, and it’s incredibly effective when deployed skillfully.
Just as notable in Close Encounters is the frequent use of humor to attenuate suspenseful moments. The viewer’s first glimpse of a UFO arrives in a sight gag as a cluster of headlights rising upwards in Roy’s rear window as he cluelessly stares at a road map. It’s the same comic beat from Jaws, when Chief Brody tosses chum overboard while failing to notice the shark lunging out of the water. Such moments are designed for squealing delight—”Look behind you!”—and ride on a knife edge of tension where the humor is just a slice away from terror. During the climactic sequence when the UFOs are communicating in burbling musical tones with the human scientists, the mood turns ominous when the mothership’s tune simplifies to two notes: baah-DUM. It’s the famous minor interval from Jaws, with its implication of the monster’s approach. At first it’s funny, and then, as it repeats a couple more times, we see the unease creep across the faces of the assembled scientists. (Surely, they all saw Jaws just like the rest of us.) The moment is primed for suspense, just as the UFO’s hatch opens. The whiplash from humor to horror makes for full-spectrum thrills, and accounts for much of the film’s phenomenal box office success in 1977.
There’s a sense in Close Encounters of Spielberg having a blast throwing everything at the screen. Having already established his bona fides as a director of blockbuster entertainment, he penned a script (with a number of uncredited co-writers) which braids a story of domestic dysfunction with a parallel story of scientific exploration. The film’s opening act toggles between these storylines, establishing confounding mysteries—the appearance of missing WWII planes in the Sonoran desert, a nail-biting scene of air traffic controllers listening in on reports of flying saucers—while also documenting the gentle chaos of the Neary household and the long-suffering exasperation of Roy’s wife, Ronnie (Teri Garr).
In an astounding coup, Spielberg managed to cast legendary French director François Truffaut himself as the lead scientist, Claude Lacombe. Truffaut, exuding his natural curiosity and intelligence, is perfectly suited to the role of a guy who wants nothing more than to forge meaningful connections with intelligent beings—human and otherwise. One can’t help but sense aspirations on Spielberg’s part about his own potential to transcend the screen and commune directly with his vast and diverse audience.
Much more than in his previous feature films, the hallmarks of Spielberg’s evolving style make themselves known throughout Close Encounters: sweeping cinematography (thanks to Vilmos Zsigmond) studded with flaring highlights, deep focus and dramatic lighting; epic symphonic score (thanks to John Williams); and flawed heroes grappling with the tension between domestic obligations and an irrepressible yearning for knowledge and action. These elements and themes would surface again and again across vastly different films during the next five decades of Spielberg’s career. Like Roy Neary freaking out with a plateful of mashed potatoes, Spielberg in Close Encounters recognized and built upon the core truth of his own psyche: his early family life forged his passions, and nothing could stop him from spinning magic out of it. As Roy insists, staring at the shape of the mountain that haunts his dreams, “This means something!”
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