posted 09-04-2001 08:35 AM               

In the era of digital cameras, CGI effects, and space backdrops direct from the Hubble Space Telescope, the aesthetics of late-70s/early-80s science fiction movies might seem terribly primitive. As I watched the Collector's Edition DVD of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, however, I was struck less by how dated the effects were than by their simple grace and real beauty. The spaceships' bright lights and dazzling colors contrast sharply with the black of the Earth's night sky - Roy Neary (Dreyfus) calls them more dazzling than the aurora borealis, and I can appreciate the sentiment. The slow, steady, silent motion of the ships conveys a sense of solemnity and awe that's often lacking in modern quick-cut frenetic-action sequences. It's not a matter of the effects calling attention to themselves as much as it is an opportunity for the audience to really take in the kind of sensory experience the filmmakers have in mind. While the approach can certainly be overdone (as I think Stanley Kubrick often did in 2001), there's a lot that the Michael Bays of the world could learn from it. It certainly makes Close Encounters worth watching, even more than 20 years later.

I had never seen Close Encounters before I rented this Collector's Edition package. I enjoyed the film, although perhaps not as much as I had expected to, and the 2-disc set is top notch. Disc One contains an anamorphic widescreen "director's cut" version of the movie that is different from both the original 1977 release and the 1980 Special Edition re-release. The second disc contains 11 deleted scenes, a 1977 featurette that hyped the project before its release, a 1997 full-length documentary, and information on the principal cast and crew. The 1997 documentary has extensive interviews with all the surviving principal cast (Francois Truffaut passed away in 1984), writer/director Steven Spielberg, and many members of the production team. The on-the-set stories are quite interesting, especially those that explore how Spielberg worked so effectively with three-year-old actor Cary Guffey. Spielberg also explains why he wanted to release a Special Edition (Columbia forced him to have the movie ready before he was really finished) and why he re-edited the Special Edition once again in the late 90s (Columbia only agreed to finance the Special Edition if Spielberg added footage of the inside of the alien mothership, a decision Spielberg regrets).

What really struck me, though, was an observation Spielberg makes at the very end, when he says that Close Encounters is really the only one of his movies that personally feels dated to him - Roy Neary's obsession with the UFOs, which leads him first to alienate and frighten his family and then to leave them behind, no longer rings true. The comment struck me because it captured perfectly what I had felt the movie lacked; in keeping the aliens wondrous and mysterious, Spielberg leaves some crucial elements of motivation out of his story. We never really understand why the aliens are so wonderful, or why Roy, specifically, is so eager to go with them. The visions in his head compel him to seek out the aliens' mothership, but the movie makes a point of showing that Roy's actions from there are his own, and there's nothing in what we know of Roy before he first encounters the UFOs to set up those actions. To a degree, this is a nitpick - I still really liked the movie. But it was interesting to see a director look back at a movie that's been listed as one of the hundred best American films of all time in such a critical fashion.