Last night I decided to watch something, but out of multitude choices of new titles that all look suspiciously bloated with special effects or (even worse) created for teenage audiences conditioned to laugh at simple jokes, I went for something that has been 100% proof, written-in-stone classic and hopefully will still appeal to me. To my delight and surprise, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" is still a catch-your-breath experience, even though it was filmed almost four decades ago.
Of course, it is a little dated today, but not spiritually, since the story and the idea is timeless - potential contact with aliens and our reaction to it - what is perhaps just slightly dated nowadays is occasional slowness of the story and naturally, special effects had improved immensely in the meantime, but in my opinion this actually gives it special quality because watching it today, it feels very much like any of old Science Fiction classic from our childhoods. Steven Spielberg is of course, a genius and you can feel his warmth, heart and total commitment in every scene - he actually not just directed but also directed the script, so its totally his child. At that point he was still at the very beginning of absolutely mind-boggling career and since his first hit "Jaws" gave him absolute creative freedom to do whatever he wants to do, he turned to his old idea about contact with aliens. Everything we know and love about Spielberg is here, in kind of embryo form - confused adults and knowing, loving children (there is a particularly awesome scene with a little toddler opening the door to huge light coming from alien spaceship and we cannot be sure is this a good or bad light), the idea that others (in this case, aliens, but it can be anybody) might not necessarily be bad but perhaps can be good, police/government spreading lies and rumours just to keep information for themselves, etc. I need to watch "Jaws" again just to make sure, but this might be quintessentially first true, real Spielberg movie. I almost purred with pleasure last night as I was watching this.
Some little impressions: adorable Richard Dreyfuss and Teri Garr live in a such chaotic home that I can't help but think this must be exaggeration - at that point Spielberg still didn't have children and my guess is, this is what he imagined typical family home must look like, but it is a nightmare of clutter everywhere and Virgo in me shudder with repulsion when I just remember absolute avalanche of things randomly falling out of everywhere (another character, single mom Melinda Dillon also lives in a tiny home that is basically exhibition of clutter, her house is apparently built from paper and cardboard because when spaceship arrives, it seems any stronger breeze could just blow everything off). I wonder did Spielberg really think this is how adults live with their families or was it his unconscious, imaginative fear of parenthood? Some tiny roles were very effective, specially nosey next-door neighbour lady who can't help but stare at Dreyfuss and Garr while they obviously have family argument in the front of the house (she is using hairdryer even though standing at the window and gleefully enjoying the spectacle of someones fighting) or elderly people in helicopter, who are told this is poisoned zone and won't take off gas masks even though Dreyfuss breathes clean air and shows them it was just a trick used by army so they would evacuate civilians from the area. Oh, I just love everything, this was such fun and no wonder it became huge international success, even though at the time of its making lots of people were suspicious about the idea of UFO but the movie become phenomenon and deservedly so. Just wonderful escapism.
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