The last 30 minutes are really good and interesting. But getting there is slow and tedious, i almost fell asleep.
plus they never explain why the aliens abducted all those people and why they suddenly decided to let them come back
I don't consider "good for its time" argument valid, but even with that in mind, this movie is a bad one.
Whoever wrote the script does not understand how math, science and universe in general fundamentally work which results in cringy moments. There are always assumptions in SciFi, but you have to make them consistent with reality or you should have explicitly made it clear that movie universe is purely fictional. I don't recommend watching this film if you graduated equivalent of European high school some time after Enlightenment.
And of course it is super long and boring, with constant multiple shots of the same thing, which are overly long by themselves and often are not needed for the plot.
One to remember.
[8.2/10] A brilliant flash of light. A terrifying rumble that grows louder and louder. The tumult of a family in crisis and a military and scientific detachment scrambling to catch up. The catharsis of the lost lambs across decades returned home no worse for wear. The terror of a family member losing their grip on their sanity. An image that cannot be erased from the mind. A compulsion that cannot be resisted. The rush of wind and the zoom of the camera to deliver the emotional impact. The wide-eyed stares at marvels off in the distance. A towering vessel lit up with luminous splendor. A wondrous, transcendent experience, without account or description, washes over everyone touched in it.
There is little in the way of plot in Close Encounters of the Third King, Steven Spielberg’s early sci-fi classic. Man sees UFO. Woman loses child to unknown entities. Government springs into action in the face of the paranormal. All of them converge at the same Wyoming mountain and experience the arrival of something from beyond the stars. That’s pretty much it. The characters don’t really grow and change. The progression doesn’t feature much in the way of narrative turns. And there’s little in the way of cause and effect to fuel the film’s story.
And yet, whatever the rare script from Spielberg himself lacks in narrative ambition, it makes up for in spectacle, in mood, in awe. Close Encounters is less of a tale and more of, well, an encounter, something powered as much by the emotions and energy at play as it is any sense of storytelling. This combination of sight and sound and splendor is nothing short of an experience, an extended vignette, there to capture the feeling of an extraterrestrial encounter -- the wonder, terror, compulsion, and catharsis -- rather than any sundry plot details.
Instead, Spielberg leans into his specialty -- stacking sequence on escalating sequence until the audience is the same ball of nerves and expectations his characters are, and then granting us, and them, an emotional release in the final reel.
Take your pick of virtuosic setpieces here. Some unknowable force raises Roy’s truck as electrical outages sweep the countryside, in a moment that chills the blood with the uncertain powers at play. Jillian strains desperately to hold her son back from the pull of those same forces bursting through every nook and cranny in her home, in an interlude that presages Spieberg’s work on Poltergeist. A scientific superteam whisk themselves across breathtaking foreign terrain in search of the sound that could change their lives. An entire installation of military brass and scientific luminaries make a tonal connection with alien life, as a gargantuan,city-like UFO descends from the heavens and vindicates the cryptic hints and madman obsessions that led the collection here. Close Encounters is a triumph of these extraordinary images.
Nonetheless, what Spielberg and company may do best in this early outing is capture a sense of total chaos. People are constantly talking over one another in this film. Every conversation is interrupted with the cacophonous sounds of modern life interrupting. Televisions, helicopters, children screaming, neighbors' hairdryers, shouting superiors, record players, whirring machines, all run at full bore and add to the sense of inherent tension and panic that suffuses the quest to find what presence is communicating to us in these strange ways.
It lends to the grit of an otherwise polished piece. For a movie steeped in such spectacle, it is surprisingly raw, carrying that sweaty, workaday, spirit that was the style du jour in 1970s cinema. Despite all the supernatural events that challenge the movie’s players in unpredictable ways, the scariest moment in the whole film is a domestic one. Roy losing his marbles, deciding to crash his shrubbery through his kitchen window, rambling about seeing the bigger picture, and scaring his traumatized wife into taking the kids away while the neighbors look on in befuddled judgment, rings true for a family dealing with one of its members suffering a mental break. Nothing sells the unease, the ominousness of Roy and those like him being drawn to the alien presence like a moth to the flame than that stretch in the story.
On the other side of that terrifying sense of panic, Spielberg and his collaborators use every tool in the cinematic toolbox to evoke the sense of something greater, something momentous, something awe-inspiring as the aliens make their presence known. Despite some more languid pacing in the final act, there’s a stillness, a steadied focus, once contact is fully and finally made, that has more power given the bedlam it follows.
Light is the filmmaker’s greatest tool, with blinding flashes and colored beams conveying the sense of the otherworldly. The sound design is masterful, with low rumbles that quake the gut and clear tones and patterns that create a melodic sense of connection between peoples. And frequent Spielberg collaborator John Williams turns in an incredible score, with motifs and a swelling orchestra that communicate the momentousness of these experiences, giving them a flavor and feeling to accent the images.
What images! Close Encounters is nearly fifty years old, and the effects still stun. The alien ship itself is rightfully iconic, a tangle of erector set pieces slung with christmas lights that coalesces into a towering whole. The visions of lights racing through the sky, electric baubles blinking in and out or otherwise misbehaving, light and particles finding their way into each crevice, stand the test of time. Even the aliens themselves, tastefully obscured and given to silhouettes and brief shots of an animatronic, are plausible and tactile in a way all our modern CGI has trouble matching.
Such visions are not meant to be analyzed on the level of narrative cohesion.Think too hard about the story for a moment, and the warm majesty of Roy joining the aliens gives way to the realization that these extraterrestrials seem to have tampered with his free will and are tearing him away from his wife and children. Government operatives misleading the public to make contact with life from other worlds, asserting the right to represent humanity with little apparent coordination with others in the global community, rests uneasy despite the aspirational tone and competence that the top brass, and the gravitas that none other than François Truffaut himself brings to the table.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind is not built as a story, though. It is built as something to be felt, to be awed by in a wash of images and sounds and moods that envelop the audience as its figures are bathed in eerie but inviting light. The film works on an emotional level, presenting an array of spectacle not just for spectacle sake, but to evoke that human response to the extraordinary and unknowable, in the characters on screen and the viewers watching it, The movie is hardly the most realistic depiction of what first contact might be like, but it captures like no other the chaos such an arrival would provoke, and the humbling, nigh-spiritual place a visit from the worlds beyond would hold in our hearts and minds.
I'm sure this was a great movie back in the day, but today? Not so much.
I can't recall the last time I actually watched this movie, so I gave it a go again today and I'm glad I did.
Yes, it's very clearly a 70's movie that hasn't aged well which just means it's a product of it's time.
There was some criminal over-acting from Teri Garr but everyone else was just solid, even the kids.
I don't recall the movie as being as dark as it was but that only made it better for me as it was unexpected.
The French scientist is actually modeled after Jacques Vallee, a known UFO researcher.
UFOs of all shapes and sizes nonchalantly buzz the dirt roads and rusty mailboxes of a rural midwest town, leaving both physical and emotional marks upon its residents. Those who encounter the flying saucers are fundamentally changed, an overnight mind swap which leads to all manner of frustration among friends, coworkers and family members. For story reasons, these mental milkshakes function as a sort of inefficient cross-species ham radio, rewiring brain waves to bridge a communication gap, but they also serve as a (perhaps unintentional) indictment of how society viewed psychological health in the late 70s. In fact, it could be argued that the whole climax - spacecraft, aliens and all - is a particularly loud, ambitious hallucination, but we won't go too far down that rabbit hole.
Even on a superficial level, Close Encounters works just fine. We chase the thread of an ambiguous mystery, encounter official organized responses, see spectacular sights, soak in an expertly-matched symphonic score (hats off to John Williams, once again) and share a sense of awe-struck wonder at the sheer magnitude of it all. That last bit, in particular, is worth emphasizing. Writer/director Steven Spielberg, fresh off the monster success of Jaws, leans heavily on anticipation and a looming sense of the unknown to add oodles of atmosphere to the picture. Especially in that pivotal final thirty minutes, when the whole plot comes together under the shadow of a funny-looking Wyoming rock formation, it's an eerie, unpredictable blend that reaps great rewards.
When people say this movie is boring is because when they hear alien encounter, they expect something like Independence Day.
I remember seeing this when it first came out at a drive-in theater, was great then and still great now.
I saw this classic for the first time on the big screen in the rerelease. Looked a little bit dated but I'm sure it was mind blowing back in 1977. A lot of suspense near the end that kept me on the edge of my seat. A little too long. Not Spielberg's best but still a very good movie.
Definitely a classic! This is a very long movie, but you can tell that this was definitely way ahead of it’s time.
Undoubtedly a treasure in its time, and though still a curiosity, it is little more than an outdated snooze fest now.
Been over 20 years since I first saw it! Still one of my fav UFO movies! Hard to believe this was from 1977…
If you are looking for an action movie, better look somewhere else
THE CAWPINE OF 'CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND'
WRITING: 8
ATMOSPHERE: 9
CHARACTERS: 7
PRODUCTION: 10
INTRIGUE: 7
NOVELTY: 9
ENJOYMENT: 9
The Good:
Jaws might have been the ultimate summer blockbuster that made Spielberg into a household name, but it's his fourth feature-length Close Encounters that I see as the beginning of his golden era as a director. Filled with tension and horror inspired by Jaws, grounded science fiction as later seen in E.T. and a sense of adventure as will again be seen in the Indiana Jones films, this film is an undisputed classic and a must-see for everyone calling themselves a science fiction fan.
Close Encounters mixes Spielberg's use of carefully chosen angles, close-ups and wide shots with a mix of colour, lighting and breathtaking practical effects, creating one of the most beautiful science fiction films I've ever seen (the film received an Oscar for Best Cinematography). Star Wars was released the same years and it's grey and gritty realism pales in comparison with the fantastical colour palette of Spielberg's film.
Just as convincing is the sound design, mixing and music in this film. Sound is used to create a creepy atmosphere and a world of its own and the majestic John Williams score is one of the best he's created, with the legendary five-note jingle as its centrepiece.
This film is Richard Dreyfuss' show to steal. He was great in Jaws, but his obsessive and slowly intensifying performance here is what one could call career-defining. Towards the end of the film, his character has become just as creepy and unnerving as the film itself.
Unlike the epic space opera that is George Lucas' Star Wars, Spielberg's sci-fi opus is more of a traditional, mysterious and philosophical science fiction close rot 2001: A Space Odyssey or Arrival. Its script spends more time developing a sense of mystery around the alien arrivals than action or thrills. The philosophical and sociological death this film contains could be widely discussed in all eternity.
The scary sequences use sounds, light, wind and other simple effects to form an almost horror movie type of atmosphere. They are the most impressive sequences of the film and set the sinister mood effectively.
After a long build-up, which mostly seems to lead to nowhere, the film moves onto its final act and finally offers some explanations and clarity as to what has been going on for the past 90 minutes.
Those haunting final scenes are among the most memorable in cinematic history, everything leading up to them during the film’s final hour is tense, and unnerving, thanks to masterful editing and a great John Williams score. The final few moments are strongly embedded in my memory, due to the haunting and well-crafted imagery.
The meeting between humanity and the mother ship works so well because it's a piece of dialogue performed through Williams' score. That’s my favourite sequence in the entire film. The sequence also samples the theme from Jaws, which adds to the sense of danger.
The alien puppets at the end look hauntingly realistic. They send shivers down my spine.
The Bad:
The central characters come across as somewhat one-dimensional. Roy seems obsessive and crazy from the starts, so the way he slowly ruins his marriage doesn't impact us so strongly as we don’t know how he usually is. His wife is even less well developed.
The script thrown in several lengthy scenes with Roy being obsessive or scientists solving mysteries together by talking on top of each other. The point would have come across just as well with fewer such scenes, so they seem like filler material.
In some ways, the overall plot feels more like a depiction of Roy's obsessive madness than an attempt to understand the alien arrivals and their true purpose. While the last act is fascinating, the conclusion leaves the audience wanting answers that are never given.
The Ugly:
Mentioning National Geographic in dialogue two films in a row is lazy scriptwriting, Mr Spielberg!
THE CAWPINE RATING: 8.43 / 10 = 4 stars
Steven Spielberg is a master story maker, and this is a masterful story beautifully made. With elements of horror, humor and suspense, Close Encounters... is science fiction that transcends so many genres it's transcendant.
The matter of which version is which is a real conversation piece. As the original theatrical version is VERY rarely seen, one suspects, based on many reviews, that the 1980 re - release is a much better film. But this should not hinder any viewings of this spectacular film.
This movie is so bad in so many ways. Its meaningless, boring, etc. 2 hours time wasting. It is plain and simple shit.
It's a good film, but with a slow pace and few events. It leaves some things unexplained. In short, it is a film open to different interpretations, depending on each person's perspective. To appreciate it, it will depend on the individual taste of each viewer.
Feels more like Spielberg experimenting and pioneering how to make a movie like this than something definitive. It’s not bad, just unrefined and rudimentary. Almost every good idea this has to offer has been copied by better, more interesting films. There are good scenes, visually it’s aged remarkably well, but it’s easy to see why this doesn’t click with general audiences anymore. It’s not as exciting as Independence Day, nor as thought provoking as Arrival. It’s not bad, I don’t deny that it’s an achievement, but I don’t see myself returning to this one very often.
5.5/10
Musical relationships in the dark with peaceful aliens.
So we sit through 2 hours of mostly boring scenes linked together with bad transitions and don't even find out why the aliens came in the first place? Why they abducted those people and why they suddenly decided to return them? What in the HELL were they even saying to each other when the people and the aliens were "communicating" through those beep-boops and lights? Why didn't anyone question it? What was so special about that mountain? Why did that guy go off with them in the end and how come they nodded and smiled to him instead of being worried or something? Everything was so random and boring. This is possibly Spielberg's worst film.
Why are there so many scenes where people are talking through each other? You got main characters in the foreground having dialogues moving the story along and there are people in the background just talking through it about nonsense. I'm trying to like this movie but it's getting really hard to get through. Over 2 hours is way too long for this. Richard Dreyfus is amazing though and I think he's the only reason I'm still watching it about an hour and a half in. But I don't understand its 'classic' status.
Yeah, sorry I still don't like it. I understand how groundbreaking it was and so it holds a special place in people's hearts, and it's technically proficient, but I feel nothing towards any of these characters and the way the phenomena drags out is just uninteresting to me. Big points for the realism though. The family life and character interactions are soo authentic.
I FILM DI FANTASCIENZA CHE HANNO SEGNATO L'IMMAGINARIO COLLETTIVO
Cinque note per stabilire il Contatto con gli alieni; un sogno cinefilo incarnato dal prof. François Truffaut.
The movie was great until it turned into an EDM concert. The final "encounter" was dragged out for way too long and a lot of it felt unnecessary and a waste of time. Perhaps this was inspiring back in the 70s, but watching it now it just looks cheesy.
Film Paco 1: image 3,75 / 5 and sound 4.25 / 5. After many years without seeing it still seems as good
Shout by DeletedBlockedParent2013-12-16T06:16:42Z
One of the most beautiful alien encounter films I've watched.