Volume 5 - Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Having Faith in Your Double Feature

Fun fact about this week's double feature: When I started planning this, neither of these films were part of the double feature. I started with a movie I wanted to talk about, then I thought of a movie that matched it, then I thought of a movie that also matched it and was more popular, then I started watching that movie....and completely changed my mind about the movie that should pair with it. So, I'd like to apologize in advance to the double feature that was supposed to be this double feature. Perhaps your day will come soon.

In the meantime, I found myself sitting in front of my TV this week taking in one of my favorite films that I've seen dozens of times. And, as I watched it, I started to realize that it shares a lot of spooky similarities with another of my favorite films. And, when that happens, there's only one thing left to do. You know what that is.

What? No. I meant make a double feature. Gosh, have you even been reading these posts?

HOW THIS WORKS
Step 1) I pick a movie.
Step 2) I tell you about the movie.
Step 3) I tell you what we're looking for in a double feature movie.
Step 4) Another movie!
Step 5) Victory!

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

1977, Directed by Steven Spielberg

Last week I talked about Night of the Living Dead, and mentioned how growing up in a rural area of the Midwest added to the dread I felt when watching that film. There's one other film from my childhood that inspired a very similar dread, the difference being that Night of the Living Dead featured a threat coming from below and the other film featured a threat coming from above.

You might have guessed by now that the film I'm talking about is Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which is probably still my favorite of that great director's films. I get why it probably shouldn't be - watching it again reminds me that it's a little bloated, a minor offense but something that shouldn't happen when the same guy directed a film that's as svelte as Jaws - but there's a sense of wonder that comes from this film that just hits me personally. Maybe it's because I watched so much Unsolved Mysteries as a kid, maybe it's because I was so obsessed with aliens that when I was in fourth grade I swore up and down that some lights I saw in the sky (which I'm now pretty darn sure were a radio tower) were a UFO and then I caused a ruckus because I believed it was a UFO and I ended up having to talk to the school counselor because I wouldn't stop claiming it was a UFO and oh my God, Mike, why are you still typing this. They get it. You want to believe. Also, you probably belong in an institution. Get back to talking about the movie.

The dread that crazy preteen Mike felt during Close Encounters of the Third Kind obviously comes from the scene, set in a rural area outside Muncie, Indiana, where Melinda Dillon and her character's toddler son have their own close encounter. It's a scene that absolutely terrified me when I first saw it and even as an adult, when I can tell it's Spielberg at his most playful, it works as a fantastic scene that shakes the whole film at its core. Up until this point in the movie we've mostly been dealing with flashing lights and toys and Richard Dreyfuss being Richard Doofus, but as soon as that orange light shines there's just a fantastic energy that starts dripping off the screen. I've seen it z bunch of times, I'm still a little exhausted by the end of the scene.

Even better, the film really seems to take off once we've seen what happens to that little boy. Dreyfuss' family situation escalates, and his doofusness becomes desperation. The exploits of Francois Truffaut's character, Lacombe, start to seem a little more relevant. Then the film introduces Devil's Tower, and it instantly became the one random out of the way place in America that I now have to go see before I die. The grandiose finale is maybe a little bit overdone, but it's so beautiful and John Williams' score is one of the best of all-time, so I'm willing to forgive any of its wrongs. 

I took a swipe at Dreyfuss' character, Roy Neary, earlier, which was a tad uncalled for. Despite the fact that it's tearing his life apart, he is so caught up in wanting to know what's going on that he sells out for it. Roy gets a taste that something big is happening, something he never imagined could happen, and he wants to help figure it out no matter what. Is Roy a bad person because of that? Maybe. He makes decisions that most people wouldn't and ends up hurting his family (poor Teri Garr, that girl always deserves better!) in the process. But he's committed to what he wants to believe, like a bumbling Fox Mulder, and there's a part of me that just respects that kind of faith.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is one of those movies where I just get so swept up in what it's offering that it's impossible for me to think anything is wrong with it. Like I said - I know why most people prefer Jaws or Raiders of the Lost Ark or some other Oscar winning flick Spielberg has made - but this is exactly what I want from a film. It's a sci-fi film about believing the world is bigger than you and your problems and how small we really all are in the grand scheme of things while we also each have a place in that grand scheme. And those are some themes I just can't get enough of. In fact, those are gonna play in to the double feature we're about to make.

So, it's time to come up with that double feature. Like I said at the beginning, I didn't plan to make this decision. But when I started watching Close Encounters the other day, another movie just kept popping into my head.

The following list sums up some of my favorite things about Close Encounters of the Third Kind. They all have parallels in the film I'm about to discuss..

• First, Close Encounters of the Third Kind starts with a globetrotting, European born expert, who just happens to have found some clues in the Middle Easy that hint at something bigger going on.
• As stated above, the event that starts everything in progress here is a single mother who loses her child to a force most people won't be willing to consider.
• At the center of the film is Roy, a down on his luck character who is having problems at work and home, and who at times seems to be angry at someone. When he shouts at the sky in the middle of the film, it's not a stretch to think that Roy is partially angry at God.
• Roy believes the single mother in peril and seems determined to help her. So does the European globetrotter, once he gets involved. But the bunch of white guys sitting around a table who think they can solve everything with science? Not so much.
• I won't go into spoilers, even though these are two of the most popular movies of all-time, but most of these parallels are tied up in somewhat similar ways in both films. There are some major thematic differences, but if you squint real hard you can see the same ideas.

I look at this list of things, and I think about how Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a film made by an Oscar winning director that was one of the biggest genre hits of the '70s. And then I start to think about another film that was directed by an Oscar winner and was one of the biggest genre hits of the '70s. 

The Exorcist

1973, Directed by William Friedkin

You might think I'm crazy right now. Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Exorcist are wildly different movies, but if you've seen both movies even 1% as often as I have, you'll look at that list of things about Close Encounters above and realize a lot of them apply to The Exorcist.

• Ellen Burstyn, like Melinda Dillon, plays a single mom trying to make ends meet when her child's life is threatened.
• A whole bunch of "smart" dudes - in one film scientists, in the other film doctors - don't have any interest in believing what the mother and others have seen.
• Meanwhile, an outsider with a chip on his shoulder - Jason Miller's Father Karras here or Dreyfuss' Roy Neary - gets involved. The motivations of these two characters are very different - Karras is skeptical, Roy buys in from minute one - but both end up playing a crucial role in helping the mothers.
• Francois Truffaut's Lacombe and Max von Sydow's Father Merrin are two other characters who suffer far different fates, but both start the film seeking the truth in a distant land and end up in America facing what they knew was true.
• Both movies have been edited into enough versions over the years to make it really confusing to remember what happens sometimes. Maybe that's just a personal thing, but it happens to me.

Of course, these are all superficial comparisons. You could pull this kind of trickery to make a lot of movies sound like the same movie. But it's the two male leads - and the faith I talked about with Roy Neary - that makes me really want to double feature these '70s classics.

Father Damien Karras, played by Jason Miller, is one of my favorite characters in any movie. Unlike Roy Neary, I'd never call him a doofus. But like Roy, Damien is losing hold on his life early in the film. He doesn't quite grasp faith the same way Roy does - which makes sense, since he's facing a more sinister unknown force - but when he chooses faith late in the film he chooses it and never looks back. I said earlier that Roy believes there's more to the world and is fighting to find his place in the grand scheme of things, and that's where Father Karras ends up at the end of The Exorcist. 

I've always been a person who believes there's more out there than just us. Aliens, God, the Devil - I just feel like there's got to be more to the world than humanity. Maybe that makes me a sucker, but I love a movie about a potential sucker who's proven right and whose faith is justified. If I did this double feature again I'd start with The Exorcist and end with the film where the lead's faith is rewarded in a more upbeat manner. Any way you attack it, you'll get amazing visuals, great performances, and two of the coolest musical scores in cinema history.

This might be too heavy (or too long) of a double feature for a lot of people, but I think the chance to look at two of the best genre films of the 1970s side by side could provide a lot of good insight for viewers. Youngsters who want to learn about cinema can get a crash course in the works of two of the best directors out there, and people who have seen the films a few times can look at them in a new light. Or, you can just sit back and enjoy two one-of-a-kind films. 

For me, it's all about faith. Thinking about how much the characters in these movies face their own reality and end up being part of something that challenges their reality makes this a double feature that I think I'll come back to again. I've got faith in these movies.