Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) - Episode 137

The Rewind Movie Podcast pays our respects to the Beard, as we embark on a rewatch series of some of the highlights and lesser-travelled avenues of the career of arguably the most successful director in the history of the medium - Steven Spielberg.

Our starting point (having already lavished our praise on Jaws) is his self-penned, emotionally-charged, 1977 alien visitation blockbuster drama Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The freshly-minted star director utilised all of his newfound influence to bring a bombastic, visually resplendent, and grandly-scored vision of the after effects of a blue-collar suburban dad seeing a series of UFOs in the skies over Indiana.

Not yet 30, Spielberg mined his formative years for the film, loosely adapting an amateur 16mm feature he made as a 17-year-old, and investing this tale of a dissolving marriage with the messy verisimilitude of a young man still processing his own parents’ estrangement.

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If you have a film you’d like the gang to tackle, send us an email at [email protected]. For introductions, essays, playlists, and the full back catalogue of episodes and specials, find us at rewindmoviecast.com.

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