#closeencountersofthethirdkind

An Indiana electric lineman (Richard Dreyfuss) finds his quiet and ordinary daily life turned upside down after a close encounter with a UFO, spurring him to an obsessed cross-country quest for answers as a momentous event approaches.

Director: Stephen Spielberg.

Screenplay by Stephen Spielberg.

Producers: Julia Phillips and Michael Philips.

Composer: John Williams.

Gill and I chose Close Encounters of the Third Kind (currently on iPlayer) for our Sunday afternoon movie, I am so glad we did, I guess I have not watched the entire movie for more than 20 years or so. What a magnificent movie, off the scale on every level, really magnificent, this is one hell of a movie, not least is Richard Dreyfuss‘s performance and then there is the John Williams score, truly…

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a 1977 American science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Richard Dreyfuss, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, Cary Guffey, and François Truffaut. It tells the story of Roy Neary, an everyday blue-collar worker in Indiana, whose life changes after an encounter with an unidentified flying object (UFO).

Douglas Trumbull was one of the greatest visual effects artists to ever touch a frame of film.

He was the genius behind the wild visuals in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), the alien ships in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), and the sci-fi elements of Blade Runner (1982). No computers. True practical effects. Light, lenses, models, and complex machines he often built himself.

His work paved the way for science fiction films for generations, and have never been outmatched. Amazingly, he also invented the motion control ride with Back to the Future at Universal. And he was instrumental in turning IMAX from a museum side show into a major film exhibitor.