Happy 40th, Close Encounters, and thank you

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is my favorite movie of all-time.

That's not a distinction I make lightly. I love all kinds of films -- Oscar winners and independent movies that don't get nominations, big-budget movies and those made on a shoestring budget, black and white or color. I have a laundry list of favorite actors and directors and make it a point to see all their films. But this one ... this is the one that has always stayed closest to my heart.

I don't remember the first time I saw it, I just recall repeated viewings on HBO and ABC. I've seen it in theaters a couple times over the past year and then again in otherwise complete darkness in front of Devils Tower a couple months ago. And even though I can recite all the lines with it, I never fail to be amazed and knocked out by it.

Like Francois Truffaut's Claude Lacombe asks in the movie, "Why?" Well, as a 10-year-old, it was bright and flashy and had a beautiful message. There is other life in the universe, and although the visitors might be a little frightening when they appear, ultimately they come in peace. They even communicate with us through music.

Some 40 years later, debates continue to rage on about Richard Dreyfuss' Roy Neary leaving his family behind to go on his ultimate adventure. How could he do it? Why would he do it? Even director Steven Spielberg has admitted the movie doesn't hold true to the person he became in the ensuing years. But even though he wrote it and helmed it, this is not Steven's story. It's Roy's. Ultimately, Spielberg is just servicing the tale of the character he created.

It says a lot about the time period Neary existed in. Families were starting to fall apart, children were confused by that. They didn't understand why one day everything could look so great and Dad could be the center of the universe, and the next day, all that could change. It happened to me and my family a few years later. It was happening to many others in that era.

Roy Neary is going on a journey. It's one that almost nobody around him understands. He meets Melinda Dillon's Jillian Guiler, she's on her own odyssey. Her son, Barry (Cary Guffey) forges a connection with these creatures. To him, they're playful and exciting. To her, they're something to be feared. But once they "borrow" her son, Jillian's as determined as Roy to buck the system to get to the place where she thinks she can find answers.

Dreyfuss, Dillon and Truffaut are supported by an array of supporting characters and they may not have garnered as much screen time but they're so essential to the film. Bob Balaban as cartographer-turned-interpreter Laughlin can be considered the audience's view. Arriving in the wind-swept desert and seeing the results of an encounter in the opening minutes, Laughlin is wide-eyed and a bit befuddled. He's been at conferences, but he didn't really comprehend the magnitude until he saw Flight 19 planes in perfect condition in the middle of the desert.

Lance Henriksen says almost nothing in the film, but as Robert, the bodyguard for Truffaut, I find myself seeking him out in the frame. When a cavalcade of UFOs of all shapes and sizes descend upon Devils Tower and the mothership later rises into view, I always think on his behalf, "How the hell am I supposed to protect him from this?"

There aren't any typical bad guys in the film, aside from perhaps the Army (led by Warren Kemmerlings' Major Walsh) trying to keep people from seeing what's going on at Devils Tower. OK, they're baddies, they gassed poor Larry, a bunch of birds and some farm animals. But they're only going to sleep for a few hours and wake up with a helluva headache.

You also can't hold anything against Teri Garr's Ronnie Neary. The protypical '70s housewife doesn't understand what's going on with her spouse. She's just trying to protect her children when her husband loses his job and obsesses about lights in the night skies.

Even though I've seen this film in the triple digits. I still discover new things about it all the time. Just recently, I noticed that possibly the oldest character in the film -- the Spanish-speaking sun-burned onlooker in the desert -- and one of the youngest, Barry, describe the mothership the same way: "The sun came out tonight," the elder says in halting Spanish. "Mom, look, the sun's here," Barry echoes when the aliens pick him up for a sleepover.

But the biggest eye-opener for me came on our own recent foray to Devils Tower. Mark and I set out to recreate as many shots as we could. What we found out is that director of photography Vilmos Zsigmond's work was even more impressive than we originally thought. Just the one shot of Roy driving a rental car in Moorcroft, Wyoming, proved to be a tricky matchup. No wonder he won the Oscar for cinematography. Every shot is so precise and distinctive, nothing is thrown away.

One of the surprises on location was that Roy and Jillian's first sight of the Tower is not as far away as it appears to be in the movie. Actually, the hill they climb up is just right around the corner. And not too far away from that, a couple of other scenes from the film were shot. That makes a lot of sense, since at "magic hour" every night during filming, the cast and crew stopped what they were doing so they could get scenes filmed at the monument.

And 40 years later, you know what else is amazing? How the groundbreaking, painstaking practical effects of UFOs whizzing by hold up better than anything on a big-budget, green-screen film. It doesn't look fake or false at all. So many people to commend on this front -- Douglas Trumbull advancing the industry with motion control photography, mothership designer Ralph McQuarrie, effects wizard Roy Arbogast, editor Michael Kahn (on his first Speilberg project) and all their teams.

Don't want to forget production designer Joe Alves, who found Devils Tower (with Jaws co-writer/actor Carl Gottlieb's assistance) and the other locations as well as building the box canyon on the largest set anyone had ever seen at this point in motion picture industry. Credit Alves for the gorgeous brightly colored board visualizing the sounds shared between the humans and the aliens. But, of course, save some accolades for the legendary John Williams. Not only for the five-tone greeting that we know so well, but also for the score that heightens the action and consequences for over two hours.

Most of all, to Steven Spielberg. He might not have made the same film today, but he made it the way it needed to be told at the time. It's Roy's story, and in some way, it's also my own. Not one of building Devils Tower in my living room and boarding a spaceship, not one of meeting aliens, but just taking a journey that has woven its way through the fabric of my life. One I'm immensely grateful for and still get so much joy out of encountering time and time again.