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| Cary Guffey in Close Encounters of the Third Kind |
Claude Lacombe: François Truffaut
Ronnie Neary: Teri Garr
Jillian Guiler: Melinda Dillon
David Laughlin: Bob Balaban
Barry Guiler: Cary Guffey
Project Leader: J. Patrick McNamara
Farmer: Roberts Blossom
Director: Steven Spielberg
Screenplay: Steven Spielberg
Cinematography: Vilmos Zsigmond
Production design: Joe Alves
Film editing: Michael Kahn
Music: John Williams
There are two undeniable facts about Steven Spielberg as a director: He is one of the great visual storytellers, and he often doesn't know how to end his movies. The latter is usually held against him, as with the extended didacticism of the concluding scenes of two of his greatest films, Schindler's List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). We can see both at work in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the film that let everyone know that his big breakthrough movie, Jaws (1975), was more than just beginner's luck. Spielberg resists spelling things out for the viewer through dialogue from the beginning, letting images and situations carry the narrative weight. Even a simple gag can work wonders: Roy Neary, the lineman out to resolve a power outage, is stopped at a railroad crossing to look at his maps when we see headlights behind his truck. A car then pulls around him and the driver calls him an asshole. But then another set of headlights shows up, and instead of pulling around him, the lights go up and over the truck as Roy has his first close encounter. The first sightings of the alien ships are thrillingly enigmatic: Where can Spielberg go with this? But by the time we get to the final payoff, things drag out much too long, as if Spielberg has become so enamored of the special effects that he can't bring himself to lose a minute of them. Nevertheless, Close Encounters is epochal filmmaking, not just in its elevation of sci-fi to a major film genre but also in its revelation of Spielberg's genius for instilling a sense of wonder in an audience.
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