-------CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977)----------------------------------------------------------------------Release Year -1977 Director - Steven Spielberg Starring - Richard Dreyfuss, Franois

Truffaut, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, and Cary Guffey. Subgenre Alien Contact /First Contact Plot Planes reported missing in 1945 suddenly appear in the Mojave desert. A commercial flight is buzzed by a 'bright' object that the pilot 'wouldn't know how to describe'. The planes are intact and operational, but there is no sign of the pilots. An old man who witnessed the event claimed "the sun came out at night, and sang to him." They also find a lost ship in the Gobi Desert named SS Cotopaxi. At an Air Traffic Control center in Indianapolis, Indiana, a controller listens as two airline flights almost have a mid-air collision with an apparent unidentified flying object (UFO). In Muncie, Indiana, 3-year-old Barry Guiler is awakened in the night when his toys start operating on their own. Fascinated, he gets out of bed and discovers something or someone (off-screen) in the kitchen. He runs outside, forcing his mother Jillian to chase after him. Cableman Roy Neary is one of several people who experience a close encounter of the first kind, witnessing UFOs flying through the night sky. He is subsequently haunted by a mountainlike image in his head and becomes obsessed with discovering what it represents, putting severe strain on his marriage. Meanwhile, government agents around the world have a close encounter of the second kind, discovering physical evidence of otherworldly visitors in the form of military vehicles that went missing decades ago suddenly appearing in the middle of nowhere. Roy and the agents both follow the clues they have been given to reach a site where they will have a close encounter of the third kind. Setting The movie is set in the then-contemporary times.The movie deals with the concept of first contact between extra-terrestrials and the human world. This phenomenon occurs all over the world and gradually increases in frequency. Hence , there wasnt any particular location or place around which the movie revolved but involved scenes from various parts of the world . ilming took place in Burbank, California,Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming, two abandoned World War II airship hangars at the former Brookley Air Force Base in Mobile, Alabama and the Louisville and Nashville Railroad depot in Bay Minette. . Filiming was also done in India and Mongolia . The Devils Tower in Wyoming , however, is central to the plot as the protagonist ( and all the other people experiencing hallucinations) has visions of this place throughout the movie . It is also this place that the protagonists sculpts while dealing with the experiences of an alien encounter. Novel Themes and Concepts The movie deals with the concept of First Contact and UFO sightings . Film critic Charlene Engel observed Close Encounters "suggests that humankind has reached the point where it is ready to enter the community of the cosmos. The extra-terrestrials in this movie were shown to be benevolent and the famous final sequence portraying the interactions between humans and aliens suggests

that the aliens were non-threatening and eager to learn about the human race as much as the human race was eager to learn about them. The movie also suggests that advancements in science and technology have resulted in creation of machines and methods that could establish some sort of communication with the extra-terrestrial. It introduced the idea of communication with the extra-terrestrials using music. Analysis- Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a highly personal project of Spielberg and the large number of concepts of this movie is derived from personal experiences. The movie does not have a linear plot , however every sequence of the movie is important as it adds to the concept of the movie stages of first contact. The movie has some spectacular scenes such as a "stranded" ship in the middle of the Mongolian desert, Hindus in India are singing the melody sent from the sky, the final arrival of dozens of giant UFO ships that show up as stars in the sky at night and hover around a mountain, wonderful role of the UFO researcher by the French director Franois Truffaut with a charmingly bad English accent, expressionistic toying with lights and visionary messages about the cover up of the government that directs a fake chemical accident at a mountain in Wyoming in order to evacuate the inhabitants in order to keep the landing of the UFOs in that area a secret. The look of the ship was inspired by an oil refinery Spielberg saw at night in India. Instead of the metallic hardware look used in Star Wars, the emphasis was on a more luminescent look of the UFOs. Many of the model makers attempted comical objects in the UFOs. A test reel using computer-generated imagery was used for the UFOs, but Spielberg found it would be too expensive since CGI was new technology in the mid1970s. The small aliens in the final scenes were played by local girls in Mobile, Alabama. That decision was requested by Spielberg because he felt "girls move more gracefully than boys." Puppetry was attempted for the aliens, but the idea failed. However, the film-makers successfully used puppetry to depict the larger alien that communicates with the scientists near the end of the film , a sequence which was much appreciated. Significance- Appearing in the late 1970s, it was a soulful, beguiling, magical, and benevolent look at close encounters. The movie deals with how two people deal with close encounters without being able to fully understand them . Roy becomes fascinated by UFOs, much to the dismay of his wife, Ronnie. He also becomes increasingly obsessed with subliminal, mental images of a mountain-like shape and begins to make models of it. Jillian also becomes obsessed with sketching a unique-looking mountain. Such a portrayal appeals to the scientific curiosity of man and at the same time gives Spielbergs view of what affects a close encounter with an alien species can have on human . Beginning in a world that doesnt officially believe in alien life, The Close Encounter of the Third Kind demonstrate that its authentic, and let their main characters travel a mind-bending journey of discovery. As opposed to a large number of films released before it , the Close Encounters of the Third Kind portrays aliens to be benevolent and friendly . The movie suggests that the humans are prepared to final unravel the

mysteries of the cosmos. A musical exchange as a form of communication might strike some as reasonable under the circumstances. An alien race probably would not share many concepts with human beings .Curiously, the true nature of the visit of the Aliens is never explained, as well as the moral contradiction between their forced abductions and their innocence, leaving a lot of things open for interpretation, while the story doesn't have a clear linear plot - actually, the story is more experimental than straight forward, in a way being closer to an art-film. However , does incorporates some of the clichd concepts of alien contact such as the governments conspiracy to hide it from the general public , abduction to learn about the human race , paranoia and bewilderment associated with people who experience the encounter and the idea of aliens being derivatives of humanoids Reception- Close Encounters became a box office success, grossing $116.39 million in North America and $171.7 million in foreign countries, totaling $288 million. It became Columbia Pictures' most successful film at that time. Jonathan Rosenbaum refers to the film as "the best expression of Spielberg's benign, dreamyeyed vision." The film received numerous awards and nominations at the 50th Academy Awards, 32nd British Academy Film Awards, the 35th Golden Globe Awards, the Saturn Awards and has been widely acclaimed by the American Film Institute. In December 2007, it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.