A group of scientists try to contact alien life forms from space. Meanwhile two ordinary people, Roy Neary and Jillian Guiler, encounter unusual things. After that they keep seeing this mountain in their heads.
Blaine: When Steven Spielberg was a child he watched a meteor shower with his dad in New Jersey and ever since then he has been interested in knowing what is beyond the Earth. Steven was influenced by J. Allen Hynek, an astronomer professor and ufologist. Hynek would look at UFOs as science speculation instead of science fiction. Steven wanted the main character to be someone who is almost like an average person, but likes to have fun. Then he encounters something that changes his life and makes him throw away his personal life because he is obsessed with this experience he has had. Steven had told Richard Dreyfuss about the next project he had in mind, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, while they were shooting “JAWS". Of course it didn’t have a title at the time and the main character was an army guy. Richard Dreyfuss had suggested to Steven that the character should be fun instead because an army guy would be too serious. Steven had gone with Richard’s advice and made the main character, Roy Neary, a electrical lineman who likes to play with his children.
Richard Dreyfuss was interested in the part after that, but Steven couldn’t see him as Roy. Steven had Steve McQueen in mind for the part and Steve McQueen loved the script. Steven had met with Steve McQueen at a bar and Steve told him he couldn’t do the part because it would require him to cry. Steve McQueen always had trouble crying in a film. Steven wanted Steve McQueen so bad that he was willing to take out the crying in the script, but Steve didn’t want that because he got all emotional from the crying scene. Steven was disappointed that Steve McQueen couldn’t be in his movie, but they became good friends after that. Steven went to other actors like Al Pacino, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman and Jack Nicholson and they all turned it down. Richard Dreyfuss returned to Steven telling him why he should play Roy Neary. Richard really thought this was a role meant for him and told Steven he needed someone who had a child like figure to him. Steven then realized that he did need something like that so he finally went with Richard Dreyfuss.
Steven had spent a lot of time looking for the perfect woman to play Jillian Guiler. It was difficult for Steven because a lot of the actresses he had in mind turned it down, but those troubles were over when he met Melinda Dillion. Melinda didn’t read the whole script just the parts with her character. She wasn’t interested in reading a story about spaceships, but at the end of the script it said that Jillian was taking photos of the aliens and that’s what attracted her to the project.
The casting director went to pick up her kid from pre-school and she had her eye on one of his classmates, Cary Duffey, who later played Jillian Guiler’s son, Barry Guiler. She knew he was right for Barry. Cary Duffey was three years old at the time and had no acting experience. There was another boy who was in competition with Cary, but he wouldn’t listen to Steven while he was testing him, so Cary got the job and he listened to Steven perfectly while they were shooting “Close Encounters". Cary was the first child Steven had worked with on a film. Steven was really good with Cary and knew exactly how to direct him. Steven would bring toys to the set all wrapped up and he would tell Cary that there was something in there for him. While they were shooting a scene where Cary looks out the window and sees the alien ships, Steven would unwrap the gifts behind the camera and Cary would get all excited when he saw the toy Steven was holding. Steven needed Cary to get excited for when he sees the ships and the toys were his trick. Cary’s reward was that he got to keep the toys. Steven would explain everything to Cary of what was going to happen before they shot a scene. The only scene Steven didn’t explain to Cary was when he goes into the kitchen, the food is on the floor and he sees something else in the room with him that gets him excited. In the film he’s looking at two of the aliens. What Cary was really looking at when they were shooting that scene was one of the crew members wearing a gorilla suit and then the makeup artist showed himself to Cary dressed up as a clown.
At the end as the aliens are about to leave, Cary says “goodbye”. Steven told Cary that he was never going to see his friends again and he didn’t understand that Steven wanted him to pretend that he was saying goodbye to the aliens. For three months Cary hadn’t seen his friends and the thought of never seeing them again was very depressing for him. He started to cry when they shot that scene and seeing him cry made everyone else on set cry. It was a very pure moment. They would only do one take of it. A lot of sequences with Cary they only did one take because he did a tremendous job of what he did and they weren’t sure if he was going to be able to do another take.
The casting director had called Bob Balaban on the phone and told him that they wanted him to play the interpreter. They asked Bob if he could speak French and so he said a sentence in French perfectly. Thing was Bob hadn’t done French since he was in high school, so he studied it again in order to regain it.
Steven Spielberg had seen a French movie called “The Wild Child”, written, directed and starring Francois Truffaut. To Steven, Francois had a strong presence in that movie and that made Steven want to work with him. Francois Truffaut was a French actor, director, screenwriter, producer and moviegoer. He was a veteran of a lot of French films. Steven had Francois in mind while he was working on the script and so he made the lead scientist who wants to communicate with aliens, a French man. Steven had called Francois and then sent him the script. A week or two later, Steven got a letter from Francois asking for someone who he can meet with about his wardrobe and that was his way of saying yes to the project. A lot of people who worked on “Close Encounters” were very familiar with Francois and his work. They were nervous about working with him, but he was very kind to everyone on set. Movies were Francois’ life and passion.
Francois Truffaut didn’t speak English that well, but Bob Balaban would be translating what he was saying. Francois didn’t like it when people were laughing at him while trying to speak English in a scene where he gives a speech to other scientists. He did his best to speak it perfectly. He asked Bob Balaban to teach him a few sentences in English. Francois had seen Steven Spielberg’s first feature, “JAWS”, and when he was working with him on “Close Encounters” he loved Steven’s style in filmmaking. Francois really understood what filmmaking was all about. He thought of “Close Encounters” as an energetic movie because of what it took to make it.
Steven Spielberg was really impressed with the special effects done on “2001: A Space Odyssey”. He managed to get a list of everyone who had worked on those effects. Steven didn’t know how the mothership was going to look at first, but he knew he would want it to start off as this big shadow when it arrives at Devil’s Tower and then the lights would go on. Steven saw this refinery while they were shooting the movie and he liked it so much that he took some photos of it. He also liked how the thing lit up at night and he then thought of that as being the superstructure to the mothership. Steven had seen the art work Ralph McQuarrie had done for George Lucas’ “Star Wars” and he put him in charge of designing the mothership. Ralph had done a drawing that would live up to Steven’s vision of the mothership. The special effects department had looked at the drawings that Ralph had done and they made this little 3D model of the mothership out of wire and wood. Steven liked it and went with that look. The top of the mothership would look like New York Skyscrapers while the bottom looked like a disc.
The production designer traveled through the Badlands and while he was there he was amazed by how you can see Devil’s Tower from 25 miles. He took pictures of Devil’s Tower and showed them to Steven. Steven liked the look of Devil’s Tower and decided that it should be the spot where the aliens land. Steven also felt that there should be a stadium built on the other side of Devil’s Tower for when the aliens show up. They found an Air Force Base in Mobile, Alabama that looked perfect to build the stadium set.
John Williams doesn’t like to read the script for a movie Steven Spielberg is going to make. He would rather just see the footage and then the music will come to him. The music was very important to Steven because it’s a communication in “Close Encounters”. Steven thought that would be a cool way for the humans to communicate with the aliens while he was writing the script. It had to be five notes because to him that was saying hello. That was a challenge for John Williams to figure out how he could write music in five notes. Steven described it to John as if someone was ringing the doorbell for an Avon calling. John Williams did several tests in order to find that five note sound. John had written one called “Circle”…..which is the one that is in the film.
The production designer had read articles on how people saw aliens. He made a few sketches of two little aliens. Steven didn’t want the aliens to look like people in costumes, he wanted them to look as real as possible. Steven’s first idea was to dress up an Orangutan in an alien suit. They did a test of the Orangutan all dressed to look like an alien with an alien mask. The test didn’t work out because the Orangutan was hard to cooperate with, so they didn’t use the Orangutan. Steven however liked the look of that alien and later used it for “E.T.”. Plan B was to use this gigantic puppet for the first alien that comes out of the space ship and shows itself to the humans. The puppet was controlled by wires.
The other aliens that show up shortly after would have to be controlled by wires too. The thing was Steven didn’t like seeing the wires in those shots. It was easy for the wires not to show in the shot of the first alien, but not for the other aliens. Computer technology didn’t exist back then so you couldn’t remove anything out of the shot. Steven then decided to go with little girls for the other aliens and also decided to not show the aliens clearly. They had to over expose the aliens so they would be silhouettes. Originally the aliens were supposed to move at a very fast pace, but that looked weird and they already shot the sequence so they came back months later and reshot it. Steven also added in a new alien for the very end. This alien you could see clearly and it would be saying goodbye in sigh language. Steven said we live on a planet with all different types of races and that’s what he wanted for the aliens.
While “Close Encounters” was being cut together, Steven Spielberg realized that he didn’t shoot enough scenes to make him curious to know the mystery of these strange encounters. So he wrote six more scenes and they went out to shoot them. Originally Steven had written that Francois’ character goes to the Amazon and finds something like a crop circle. Problem was they couldn’t afford to shoot in the Amazon so Steven decided to go with the California desert instead where scientists find these missing planes from over a decade ago in a dust storm.
At the end of “Close Encounters" as Roy is about enter the mothership he looks back at everyone behind him and the look on his face is saying goodbye. John Williams music score for that scene had a little bit of “When You Wish Upon a Star” from “Pinocchio” in his music score at the end.
Steven tried to convince Colombia pictures to let him finish “Close Encounters” the way he wanted it to be with all those extra scenes he shot. Colombia had scheduled “Close Encounters” to be released during Christmas of ’77. Steven felt he couldn’t finish the movie by Christmas. Then the schedule changed to November and Steven had no choice, but to cut it down a bit. A year and a half later after “Close Encounters” became a hit, Steven went back to Colombia saying he would like to finish “Close Encounters" the way he always wanted it to be by adding those scenes that never got put into the movie. The executives of Colombia made a deal with Steven that they’ll give him the money to reissue the film as long as he shoots an alternate ending where Roy goes into the mothership. They wanted it to show the inside of the mothership as Roy enters it. So Steven shot a scene with Richard walking into the ship which he felt he shouldn’t have done because he liked it better as a mystery of what’s inside the mothership. The special effects department created this model of a wall that had these tiny alien figures standing on that wall.
Steven Spielberg added tones of scenes for the special edition and one would show the SS Cotopaxi, a cargo ship that went missing in December of 1925. They built this giant model of the Cotopaxi and took it out to Death Valley. They shot the actors from a distance to make them look tiny compared to the ship.
My rating on “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” is five out of five stars.
