![\"\"](\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_MwnH1kpbPRM\/SC_WQCdLp1I\/AAAAAAAABkc\/bNHyH2RJDM8\/s1600-h\/closeencounters-alien.jpg\")
<\/a>To get ready for the rumoured alien visitation in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull<\/a><\/i>, I recently spent a few nights watching all three versions of Steven Spielberg\u2019s Close Encounters of the Third Kind<\/a><\/i> (1977) \u2014 a film that I had not seen since high school \u2014 and I found it interesting on multiple levels.<\/span><\/p>\n
For one thing, there are only two feature films where Spielberg has had sole credit for the final screenplay \u2014 this film and A.I. Artificial Intelligence<\/a><\/i> (2001) \u2014 and both<\/i> of these films make significant use of characters, themes or music from Pinocchio<\/i>, either the original book written by Carlo Collodi in 1883 or the animated film<\/a> released by Walt Disney in 1940. The two Spielberg films emphasize different aspects of that story, though; Close Encounters<\/i> is all about \u201cwishing upon a star\u201d, whereas A.I.<\/i> is all about trying to become a \u201creal boy\u201d. And, interestingly, Close Encounters<\/i> is all about a child-like man who abandons his family to commune with the aliens, whereas A.I.<\/i> is all about a child-like robot who yearns to be with his human family, or at least his mother, rather than to commune with his fellow robots.<\/p>\n For another, there is the film\u2019s attitude towards family \u2014 which varies depending on which version of the film you\u2019re watching. As Glenn Kenny<\/a> has observed, the original theatrical version of the film \u2014 which had never been released on home video prior to the 30th-anniversary edition<\/a> that came out several months ago \u2014 introduces Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) as a sort of lovable loser who has never properly grown up, and who drives his family away with his obsessive behaviour. But the \u201cspecial edition\u201d released in 1980 cuts out some of Roy\u2019s most pathetic behaviour, both before and after he first encounters the aliens, and it adds new scenes which depict his wife and kids nagging at him before<\/i> he encounters the aliens and yelling their hatred of him after<\/i> he encounters the aliens. As Kenny writes, \u201cthis new introduction posits a family so awful one would be a fool not to leave it. Here, Neary isn\u2019t the schmuck, and the family IS the monster. Ruthless, like I said. But effective.\u201d For what it\u2019s worth, the \u201cdirector\u2019s cut\u201d released in 1998 balances things out a little more; it stays true to the \u201cspecial edition\u201d for the most part, but it reinstates some \u2014 not all, but some \u2014 of the footage that was unique to the original version.<\/p>\n Also, speaking as one who first saw this movie in his teens and is now re-visiting it in his late 30s, it is striking to me that Spielberg and Dreyfuss were both in their late 20s when they made this film \u2014 though Roy, the Dreyfuss character, gives his date of birth as December 4, 1944, which would make him not quite 33 when the film came out in November 1977. (Spielberg actually turned 30 late in the production.) Already, at that age, Dreyfuss was playing a family man with a house and a wife and three kids \u2026 and he drops it all to follow the aliens. Spielberg says he wouldn\u2019t tell the story this way nowadays; he says the character\u2019s readiness to abandon his family for a ride into space reflects the \u201cyouth\u201d that he, Spielberg, was feeling at that time. (Spielberg\u2019s first child would not be born for another eight years; he now has several<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Interestingly, though, Roy is accompanied to Devil\u2019s Tower by a woman who is desperate to get her son back from the aliens. Roy\u2019s wife puts family first, and ends up looking kinda bad; but Roy\u2019s friend puts family first, and ends up looking pretty good. The main difference between the two seems to be that one (the married wife) is holding Roy back, while the other (the single mom) is not.<\/p>\n While watching this film, I actually found myself beginning to imagine E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial<\/a><\/i> (1982) \u2014 which came out five years later \u2014 as a sort of sequel in which Roy\u2019s wife and their three kids move to a new home and find themselves deep in denial, persuading themselves that Roy has gone to Mexico with \u201cSally\u201d instead of into space with the aliens. Spielberg has always said that E.T.<\/i> was inspired by his parents\u2019 divorce, and I wonder if the slightly-younger Spielberg ever tried to see the marital split in Close Encounters<\/i> from the children\u2019s point of view, rather than Roy\u2019s. (In that regard, one of the commenters at Kenny\u2019s blog has an interesting theory: \u201cI\u2019ve always seen Roy\u2019s story as an abandoned child\u2019s idealized version of \u2018where daddy went,\u2019 but one that still carries a strong undertone of \u2018it was your fault\u2019 guilt.\u201d)<\/p>\n Like I say, I hadn\u2019t seen the film in over 20 years, but I have always vaguely remembered the scene where Roy\u2019s wife complains that the kids shouldn\u2019t stay up late to watch the rest of The Ten Commandments<\/a><\/i> (1956) because the movie is way too long. (Hey, I remember<\/i> staying up late to watch that film on TV when I was a kid back then! With commercials and everything, it really did<\/i> take up the whole evening!) Spielberg would go on to reference the story of Moses elsewhere in his career \u2014 he featured the Ark of the Covenant<\/a> in Raiders of the Lost Ark<\/a><\/i> (1981), and it was his idea to make the first DreamWorks cartoon The Prince of Egypt<\/a><\/i> (1998) \u2014 and it\u2019s not too hard to draw parallels between the alien encounter at Devil\u2019s Tower and the divine encounters at Mount Sinai.<\/p>\n In fact, the more I think about it, the more I am reminded of how the barriers placed by the U.S. government around Devil\u2019s Tower \u2014 and the way the local livestock are knocked out with nerve gas \u2014 are vaguely reminiscent of the instructions God gave Moses specifying that no animals and no other persons should come up the mountain, on pain of death. So it is striking that Spielberg has Roy, an \u201ceveryman\u201d, punch through the barrier and make contact with the aliens against<\/i> the wishes of the official, institutional powers that be. Of course, the \u201ceveryman\u201d does this because the aliens have summoned him; so if one wanted to pursue the Devil\u2019s Tower \u2013 Mount Sinai connection, one could say that one of the themes of this film is that \u201ceverymen\u201d have been called to commune with God directly, and that institutional religions get in the way with all their don\u2019t-cross-this-line rules. (Christianity mixes things up a bit by ripping the veil<\/a> that separates God from man, but improper contact with the divine can still be lethal<\/a>.)<\/p>\n In any case, I had remembered most of that stuff, either from my one viewing of the film way back when or from reading about it in the interim, but I had completely forgotten about the religious service that is held for the government or military agents in the red suits just before they approach the aliens, asking to be taken as \u201cpilgrims\u201d into outer space. And this scene is prefigured, to a certain degree, by an earlier scene in which one of the military bigwigs says he wants to come up with a plan that will allow the army to evacuate every \u201cChristian soul\u201d away from the vicinity of Devil\u2019s Tower. A throwaway line of dialogue, perhaps, but when that religious service came up near the end, I began to wonder. Spielberg himself is not Christian, but his inclusion of these details says something about the way he saw his country, and about the way he thought it saw itself, at that time. And hey, incidentally, the first time we see those people in red suits, they are walking through an air hangar partly filled with crates. Crates<\/a><\/i>.<\/p>\n And speaking of possible Raiders of the Lost Ark<\/i> allusions, I was also struck by how the American government sets up a bank of movie cameras to film the arrival of the UFOs at Devil\u2019s Tower \u2026 late at night, surrounded by craggy rocks \u2026 just as the Nazis set up at least one camera to film the opening of the Ark of the Covenant at the end of Raiders<\/i> \u2026 late at night, surrounded by craggy rocks. (See the screen captures below: Close Encounters<\/i> on the left, Raiders<\/i> on the right.) And of course, Raiders<\/i>, too, plays on the idea that the government \u2014 even the American government<\/a> \u2014 is paranoid and secretive and doesn\u2019t want people to know when it has come into contact with awesome supernatural forces.<\/p>\n In one of the bonus features, the point is made that Close Encounters<\/i> was the first major pop-culture expression of the idea that we had nothing to fear from aliens \u2014 and I found myself wondering about 2001: A Space Odyssey<\/a><\/i> (1968), which came out nine years earlier. Kubrick\u2019s movie is rather ambivalent on the question, I suppose: the aliens do encourage the advancement of the species, but at the expense of individual persons (a similar theme comes up in Arthur C. Clarke<\/a>\u2018s Childhood\u2019s End<\/a><\/i>); the first sign of alien influence on human development is the rise of a new kind of warfare; and if you follow Clarke\u2019s version of the conclusion of that film, you learn that the Star Child is capable of saving the Earth from nuclear self-destruction, which raises interesting questions about the other ways in which he or the aliens guiding him might try to \u201ccontrol\u201d us, so to speak. And, hmmm, what about The Day the Earth Stood Still<\/a><\/i> way, way back in 1951? Yes, there is a threat of doom there, but only because we already pose a threat to each other and to the various worlds beyond our own; apart from that, the aliens are our friends. Sort of. Hmmm.<\/p>\n Anyway. Watching Close Encounters<\/i> again after all this time, and seeing how it connects to some of Spielberg\u2019s other films, has been really interesting and informative in its own right. If the rumours prove false and there really isn\u2019t<\/i> anything all that extra-terrestrial in Crystal Skull<\/i>, I won\u2019t mind; my time has not been wasted.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To get ready for the rumoured alien visitation in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I recently spent a few nights watching all three versions of Steven Spielberg\u2019s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) \u2014 a film that I had not seen since high school \u2014 and I found it interesting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n