My latest post is up at Anorak, and it explores Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) as both a religious allegory and a secular exploration of 1970s self-fulfillment.
Here's a snippet:
"THE second-highest grossing film of 1977 (right behind George Lucas’s Star Wars) was Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of The Third Kind, a science fiction film concerning mankind’s first official contact with alien life-forms.
Close Encounter’s narrative also involves the mystery behind alien abductions and the truth regarding a government conspiracy to keep the existence of UFOs a secret.
Throughout the film Spielberg cross-cuts between two major plot-lines: a scientist’s (Francois Truffaut’s) efforts to develop a language so as to communicate with the visiting aliens, and one blue-collar worker’s (Richard Dreyfuss) personal journey to better understand their uncomfortable — but growing — presence in his daily life…and inside his very head.
Importantly, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) was described by Science Digest as a film that is “tantamount to faith.”
The same publication noted too that Close Encounters’ sense of faith, so “wondrous and thoroughly spiritual – is registered in nearly every frame, reaching a climax in its messianic ending.”(Joy Boyom, Feb 1978, p.17).
Similarly, Gregory Richards’ monograph, Science Fiction Movies (Gallery Books, 1984, p.61) contextualizes Spielberg’s disco-decade UFO epic “as more of a religious film than a science fiction one.”
So the primary question that viewers must reckon with regarding this cult classic is: why have so many reviewers contextualized the Spielberg film as one of an overtly religious nature? Does an understanding of the religious allegory open up new avenues for understanding this work of art?
Or contrarily, does the religious explanation of Close Encounters only serve to cloud the secular, humanist message beating at the movie’s heart?"
Check the piece out at Anorak, and if you feel inclined, please leave comment.
John I loved your posting at Anorak. Here is what I commented:
ReplyDeleteJohn very thoughtful analysis of CE3K. This film truly reflects that it was made in '77 as regarding the feel of the country dealing with both the loss of Johnson's decade long Vietnam war ending and Nixon's Watergate resignation to avoid impeachment. It reminds me that the adults of the '70s did not enjoy the magic of being a child in the '70s as I did. I never regret having been a boy in the '70s. Spielberg stated that if he had children in '77, then he would not have had Roy Neary leave them. I often wonder if CE3K could be remade today. Probably only if it was still set back in the '70s as a period film.
SGB
SGB,
DeleteYour support and commentary are so much appreciated, my friend. Thank you for commenting both here and there...doing double the work!
I agree with what you write about being a kid in the 1970s. I wouldn't change it for a thing in the world. It was the greatest time to be a kid with Space:1999, Star Wars, The Black Hole, ST--TMP, Buck Rogers and the like. We got to live in those great imaginary worlds, whereas the adults weren't so lucky, I guess. I have always loved Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but as I became a Dad, the end came to bother me a bit, on a literal level. I do understand it as religious apotheosis or self-fulfillment zenith, but what about Neary's kids? They will feel left behind, or forgotten. Wouldn't it be amazing to a see a sequel where Neary comes back, and his kids are grown...and they hate him, and he has to explain his choice to them?
John, I think you are correct and Spielberg should do a sequel that has Neary's return. Great idea!
DeleteSGB
I think that Spielberg's CE3K-Special Edition(1980) showing the inside of the spaceship was a let down and the (1977) leaving the interior to the imagination was better. As Spielberg's Jaws use of the shark showed us all sometimes less it more.
ReplyDeleteSGB
:) that should be "less is more"
DeleteSGB
I also appreciate the original theatrical edition more than The Special Edition. We didn't really need to see the interior of the Mother ship, in my opinion. Just special effects, really. The film's sense of wonder and majesty had already been well-established.
DeleteJohn, very interesting analysis of Close Encounters. I'm sure you're aware Paul Schrader wrote the original script and based the story on the apostle Paul. I agree the film nicely captures the zeitgeist of the post-Watergate era, and there is a real tension in the movie between faith, family obligations, the changing idea of freedom in modern America, and also the transition to a more secular type of spirituality.
ReplyDelete