Steven Spielberg

 

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

For Spielberg, Close Encounters had been a long-awaited project. He had an agreement with Columbia Pictures for a science-fiction feature in late 1973. Though Spielberg gained sole credit for the screenplay, it was co-written by Paul Schrader, John Hill, David Giler, Hal Barwood, Matthew Robbins, and Jerry Belson, who all contributed in different ways. The title comes from Ufologist J. Allen Hynek's taxonomy of close encounters with extraterrestrials, in which the third type refers to human sightings of extraterrestrials or "animate entities." The visual effects supervisor was Douglas Trumbull, while the extraterrestrials were conceived by Carlo Rambaldi.

The film's roots can be traced back to director Steven Spielberg's boyhood in New Jersey, where he and his father witnessed a meteor shower. Spielberg completed the full-length science fiction film Firelight when he was 18 years old. On a shot-for-shot basis, many moments from Firelight were included into Close Encounters. In 1970, he published "Experiences," a short story about a lovers' lane in a Midwestern rural village and the "light display" seen in the night sky by a group of teens. After finishing The Sugarland Express in late 1973, Spielberg negotiated a deal with Columbia Pictures for a science-fiction feature. The offer had previously been rejected down by 20th Century Fox. Julia Phillips and Michael Phillips have agreed to serve as producers.