My Favorite Movies: #20—Close Encounters of the Third Kind

20. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Genre: Sci-Fi Drama

Director: Steven Spielberg

Writer: Steven Spielberg

Stars: Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon

Awards: 2 Oscars—Cinematography, Sound Effects

Metacritic score: 90

IMDB Ranking: n/a

Are there any other movies in which the entirety of the emotional impact of the film can be communicated with five simple musical notes? Steven Spielberg's sci-fi masterpiece is a great movie for a variety of reasons, but for me, it was my first experience with a film that transformed my way of looking at both film and the world around me.

Richard Dreyfuss plays Roy Neary, an Indiana electrical worker whose encounters with what appears to be alien spacecraft causes an obsession that drives away his wife and children as he gives up his whole life to discover the secret behind his experiences. We see the evidence of worldwide conspiracy as well as the joy of discovery through his eyes.

Melinda Dillon play Jillian Guiler, whose young son Barry is abducted by the aliens in one of the more terrifying scenes in the movie. She is the foil to Roy's obsessive need to know what is happening; although she follows Roy in his journey, she doesn't care about the why or the what—she just wants to get her son back.

Legendary French director Francois Truffaut is Claude Lacombe, the mysterious international leader of an organization that has apparently prepared for this level of alien contact for decades. In a way, he is like Neary in his desire for knowledge, but he is already privy to the secrets that keep Roy awake at night.

All these paths converge in a tense race up the narrow slope of Devil's Tower national monument in Wyoming, where the international team, along with the U.S. military, has prepared for the alien's arrival. The special effects for the climactic series of contacts were jaw-dropping in 1977, and for the most part, still hold up well today. Spielberg builds layer upon layer of revelation at the end of the movie, the awe and wonder of the audience reflected on screen by the film's characters.

I was too young to see Jaws in theaters (my parents wouldn't let me see "PG" rated movies at age 7!), so CE3K was my first experience with a Steven Spielberg movie. I knew, even at nine years old, that I was seeing the work of a genius. The characteristic Spielberg style—seeing the story unfold through the eyes of an "everyman" persona—was present, with the escalating levels of tension as the stakes grow higher, the risks potentially fatal, and the final revelation astounding.

I became as obsessed with this movie, as well as the idea of legitimate alien contact, as Roy Neary himself. I had posters from the movie all over my wall, as well as hand-drawn art of the alien mother ship. Unable to play piano, I nonetheless plunked out the familiar five-note anthem that has become so iconic (thank you, God, for the genius that is John Williams). Forty years later, this movie still has the power to make me feel like that amazed nine-year-old who knew he was watching something truly extraordinary.