If you missed my first post where I explain what this is and how I’m scoring things, here you go, and if you missed where I talked about my Monday posts, click here.
I’m finding that the deeper I get into this project, the more aspects of moviemaking there are that I have neglected to mention or really dive into in a way that they really deserve. Sometimes, this is just blatant ignorance, where my senses are not trained in a way to pick up certain things, so I just miss them. Other times, though, I think I just feel under-qualified to praise certain elements of movies in a way that does them any justice. Music is one of these things.
Music, though, is hard to ignore when you start to talk about Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Not only does the film feature an iconic soundtrack written by one of Hollywood’s most famous composers, John Williams, but a major plot device in the film’s story is a five note sequence that Williams worked with director Steven Spielberg to perfect.
In movies, music plays such a vital role. The wrong music choices can completely change the mood or intensity of a scene, whereas the correct music choice can completely flip an audience’s opinion on a particular piece of film. Recently, on one of my evenings of doom scrolling Twitter1, I came across a tweet about Tom Cruise, one of my favorite movie stars, and a decision he helped make about the music in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.
The first cut of Rogue Nation… the audience in the first tests were saying it felt like the movie had five endings. And the response to those notes was, ‘Well, you gotta cut out some of the business at the end.’ And Tom said, ‘No no no, just listen to the music. Every scene with the temp score, it’s, duh-duh! And it feels like the movie’s over.' And he said to Joe Kramer, ‘Just write a 20 minute piece that plays through the entire last two reels, like it’s one sequence.' And the [test] score shot up, and all the notes went away.2
A good filmmaker knows and understands the power that music has on an audience. In Close Encounters, that five note sequence is not only catchy, but it provides mystery, and opens the audience’s curiosity. If Spielberg and Williams don’t nail that one piece of this movie, I’m not sure I’m writing about it as one of American film’s greatest 100 movies.
There’s plenty more to talk about with this one, but we’ll get to it in the categories:
Entertainment Value- 1/2
One of the major challenges with doing this project is that I am not making any money off of it, so I have to actually have a real job. As I’m sure you’re aware, I’m a teacher, and days as a teacher, as I’m sure they are with most jobs, are kind of exhausting. This means that in order to watch a new movie from this list and write about it, I mostly have to do it after work, when I am tired. I bring this up because Close Encounters of the Third Kind was really a slow build for me, so slow that I don’t think I really got into it until the third time I sat down to watch it.
When I did finally get into it, it did hold my interest enough, so I’m choosing to give it one point here.
Correctness- 1/2
This movie is incredibly white, unless there is a short section where they are in Mexico or India. In all the scenes that take place in the US, I can only think of one non-white character who speaks at all, in a very short appearance:
RIP, Carl Weathers…
Influence- 2/2
1977 was an incredible year for the gigantic science fiction film, as both this and Star Wars3 were released. I’m not sure Hollywood has been the same since, and I think this has to be given some credit.
“Rewatchability”- 0.5/2
Thinking about giving this movie a rewatch doesn’t make me have a physical reaction like it has with some of the other films I’ve watched on the AFI 100, so I guess I have to give it higher than zero just for that alone, even if I actually never see it again.
Technical Score- 2/2
It’s honestly hard for me sometimes to think about what they had to do to make certain movie scenes happen without the computer effects that are so prevalent in twenty-first century movie making. All of the scenes in Close Encounters with the UFOs fit into this category. I genuinely have no idea how they made it look so real.
Overall- 6.5/10
This is the first time I’ll write about a Steven Spielberg movie and the other four are all way up there for me, so I’m at least glad that this is the lowest ranked of his films on the list. I’m glad this project introduced me to this one, even though it wasn’t my favorite.
You can watch Close Encounters of the Third Kind on Hulu.
Hasta luego,
Josh
Up Next: #63 Stagecoach (available on Max)
I will never refer to it by its current name.
Which John Williams also did the music for. What a year for that guy.