Steven Spielberg’s follow-up to the blockbuster Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind confirmed not only the director’s prodigious talent but also his apparently unerring box-office instinct. An alternately joyous and terrifying exploration of an alien visitation, the film follows a trio of figures who initially have no apparent connection. After a brush with a UFO, Indiana power-company lineman Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) becomes obsessed with a mountainous shape that he vainly attempts to replicate (most memorably with mashed potatoes), to the increasing exasperation of his fretful wife (Teri Garr) and family. Nearby, single mom Jillian (Melinda Dillon) is haunted by the same image, and when her toddler son disappears in an apparent alien abduction, she sets off to rescue him by finding the source of the vision. And in the third storyline, French scientist Claude Lacombe (New Wave director François Truffaut) and his colleagues trot the globe in pursuit of inexplicable phenomena that appear to point to UFO close encounters. The paths of this trio finally intersect in the film’s gloriously transcendent climax. The version screened is Spielberg’s director’s cut, which was released in 1988.

To attend both the film screening and post-screening discussion, please purchase a ticket for the 1:00 PM showing.

The 7:00 PM screening will include a brief introduction by Cliff Froehlich., but does not include the full discussion.

This presentation is part of the film & lectures series HOLLYWOOD FILMS OF THE 1970s in partnership with St. Louis Oasis. Every film will be followed by a discussion of 45-60 minutes led by Cliff Froehlich, retired executive director of Cinema St. Louis and former film critic for The Riverfront Times. 

During the period from 1967-80, a remarkable body of work was created in Hollywood. The chaotic state of the studios in the late 1960s opened up room for the film-school generation — young and unabashed movie enthusiasts equally in love with and influenced by the cinemas of classic Hollywood and Europe — and expanded the freedoms of older directors and an underappreciated middle group of filmmakers who began in theater, comedy, television, and criticism. This class will include key works of the period, with screenings held at the Hi-Pointe Theatre at 2 pm on a Wednesday each month.