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Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Sep. 25th, 2017 09:24 pm(contains minor spoilers)
It says a lot when we watched a 40 year old movie than any of Hollywood’s current offerings over the Labour Day weekend, but then there were also less than a dozen people in the theatre who also felt the same way! This summer felt really lacklustre for movies for us. I just happened to see that CE3K was playing when I looked up show times for The Sound of Music. It's a puzzler how both of us haven't watched it given that it's as old as I am. My husband had watched the ending and of course here and there we saw the iconic scenes. The theatre edition was the 135 minute Director’s Cut and it had apparently been remastered for 4K screens. It looked very, very good and the sound was top notch. I understand that the ending is slightly different from the original ending - but YouTube was of no help in finding a clip. There are plenty of joke "original" endings though!
I was really surprised by what an optimistic movie it was for a 70s production. Other 70s movies tend to be full of grit and disillusionment like Chinatown and The Godfather. It would actually be hard to call CE3K a movie about aliens, because it's more about the persistence of human struggle. In a way, I think it's a good representation of the artist's journey - this struggle to make an intangible idea real and overcoming the obstacles necessary to achieve that goal. Main character Roy Neary's constant dreams and thoughts about the aliens/Devil's Tower brings him into conflict with his work, his family and himself.
The ending surprised me a little and not just because aliens are not usually greeted with wonder and curiosity in movies. Roy had some affection for his family and to just leave without a second thought made the ending feel unresolved to me. Still, it's a minor quibble in an otherwise almost flawless film.
It says a lot when we watched a 40 year old movie than any of Hollywood’s current offerings over the Labour Day weekend, but then there were also less than a dozen people in the theatre who also felt the same way! This summer felt really lacklustre for movies for us. I just happened to see that CE3K was playing when I looked up show times for The Sound of Music. It's a puzzler how both of us haven't watched it given that it's as old as I am. My husband had watched the ending and of course here and there we saw the iconic scenes. The theatre edition was the 135 minute Director’s Cut and it had apparently been remastered for 4K screens. It looked very, very good and the sound was top notch. I understand that the ending is slightly different from the original ending - but YouTube was of no help in finding a clip. There are plenty of joke "original" endings though!
I was really surprised by what an optimistic movie it was for a 70s production. Other 70s movies tend to be full of grit and disillusionment like Chinatown and The Godfather. It would actually be hard to call CE3K a movie about aliens, because it's more about the persistence of human struggle. In a way, I think it's a good representation of the artist's journey - this struggle to make an intangible idea real and overcoming the obstacles necessary to achieve that goal. Main character Roy Neary's constant dreams and thoughts about the aliens/Devil's Tower brings him into conflict with his work, his family and himself.
The ending surprised me a little and not just because aliens are not usually greeted with wonder and curiosity in movies. Roy had some affection for his family and to just leave without a second thought made the ending feel unresolved to me. Still, it's a minor quibble in an otherwise almost flawless film.
