Spielberg's greatest film, I can't believe this is not as celebrated as Star Wars. Even as a kid, I was WAY more dazzled and blown away by "Close Encounters". The one-two punch of Jaws and Close Encounters is the bedrock of Spielberg's reputation. Thank you so much for posting this!!!!!
@Mr Right Star War is for thumbsuckers, Close Encounters is for people with brains, and I knew this at 8 years old. I saw both in the theater when they came out (I saw Star Wars opening day). I liked Star Wars, I was blown away by Close Encounters. The audience for Star Wars had a blast, as did the audiences for Superman (which came out the next year), Raiders, E.T., all of those blockbusters. The audiences at Close Encounters (I saw it three times) went through an experience that left the entire theatre walking out in a daze, but like a kind daze, like Christmas time, I can't even explain it. And the communicating with an alien ship through music is beyond brilliant. Please, don't embarrass yourself. You can keep your Star Wars and your ten million hilariously dopey sequels, I didn't even like Empire that much when it came out, I hated Yoda. Seriously. I just saw both movies recently! Star Wars looked as one-dimensional as ever, Close Encounters was as entrancing and as multi-dimensional as ever. End of discussion, geek.
Those 2 films definitely placed him in the spotlight, but 1941 switched it off. Raiders is what cemented his reputation, and from then on it was pretty much smooth sailing.
@@aliensoup2420 "1941" didn't "switch it off". It was a bomb, but nobody thought Spielberg was "over", any more than people thought Scorsese was "over" after "New York New York". The only person who was "over" during that era was Cimino. When "Raiders" came out, the press wasn't "here's Spielberg, the comeback kid". "Jaws" and "Close Encounters" - which was rereleased in the Special Edition, remember? - were still very much in the forefront of people's minds. And no, it wasn't "smooth sailing" after that. He had more big hits, but never any hip ones, lol.
I don't agree. I love spielberg but I never grew up with Close Encounters unlike ET and Jurassic and finally saw it in my late teenage years. It didn't have any impact on me and the ending was a little wrong (Spielberg even agrees now). It's nowhere near as influential or as much fun as Star Wars
@@TTM9691 Inside hollywood a bomb means you're in dangerous ground. He was not cemented until Raiders. Until then he was the golden boy who made Jaws, but it may have been a fluke hit coz of Verna Fields.
I've seen just about all his films at the drive-in with my Mother and Father. Starting with Jaws to E.T. to the Indiana Jones films. It was a very special time in my life as a kid growing into a young teenager. I am 55 years old now and still love these films like it's the first time watching them.
i guess im asking randomly but does anyone know a method to log back into an Instagram account..? I was dumb lost the password. I love any help you can offer me
This is gold. Spielberg is, for me, "the cinema" of an era. And Close encounters was the first film i watched in a theatre, i was seven. I love it and i love Spielberg´s cinema. Thank you very much for this.
I'm a fan of Spielberg and especially Close Encounters and I had never seen this until now !!!! So I really want to thank you for this gem (and for the quality of the image of the video, for a 1978 TV interview !) because it was simply perfect for my rainy friday evening !!!!! :)
I saw Jaws in the theater as a kid in 1975. To this day, it's my favorite movie of all time. I also saw Close Encounters in the theater in 1977. I remember wanting to see it, not just because it was science fiction and was about UFO's, but also because the "guy who made Jaws made it". Both blew me away. Such a great streak of movies that came out in the mid-late 70's. I was lucky enough to see some of the "classic" and not so "classic" (but still fun) movies in the theater in the late 70s including: Rocky King Kong Star Wars Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger Superman The Movie Magic (first Rated R movie I ever saw) Jaws 2 Grease Apocalypse Now Amityville Horror (filmed in my hometown where I watched some of the filming)
Tom: You said that you would not do a sequel to Jaws. Would you do a sequel to this?" Spielberg: Yea, this movie was designed for sequels, as opposed to Jaws witch was a once in a lifetime event" Funny how it turned out the exact opposite. Although, Steven Spielberg has said during the making of Close Encounters he thought about an alternate ending where one of the Aliens from the mother ship gets left behind. Years later Spielberg gives us the ultimate masterpiece E.T.
Spielberg is a genie. I think he arrived on one of those space ships. Mind blown- Spielberg did Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. and Poltergeist (writer) in the span of a year and a half and Jurassic park and Schindler's List in a span of two years.
Amazing to learn Steven considered Philippe Noiret, Yves Montand, Trintignant or Piccoli for Truffaut's role. I am sure they would have been equally good, but Francois had this genuine charm that none could have topped
Please, what does he say between 27:24 and 27:27?, "real kind", "wheel kind" or anything else? I´m adding spanish subtitles to this video and i´m really stuck at this point. The automatic transcription says "real" but i´m not sure when i listen carefully. Thanks.
So sorry he never got around to making that film about the kids. I imagine it evolved into E.T., whose original title was A Boy's Life. But I'd still like to see his version of Truffaut's Small Change.
Someone in another comment said it may have become _The Goonies._ Too bad I never saw it as a teen, but there were so many movies of the 1980s I did see.
i went to see this with a large group of friends only two of us liked it the rest thought it was boring i believe that i was the only one who got that it was steven's take on the giving of the torah on mt sinai
I absolutely love Star Wars (the first, episode IV, etc) Saw it 13 times in the theater because it kept coming back to the theater for two weeks etc. I love both so much. But, CE3K is my favorite movie ever!
It might be Spielberg’s best film? I love Raiders, Jaws, E.T., Last Crusade, Saving Private Ryan, etc. But I have actually watched Close Encounters more, and more in the theater than any other film of his.
Interesting that he wanted the French character to be a different take on the German investigator. I recently watched a video saying the whole movie is about communication, and trouble communicating. From the start there's communication difficulties between the investigators and the Mexican witness; then the Frenchman in charge with the Americans, then between husband and wife, father and kids, and of course the aliens with the human beings. If the French character was instead American, British, Canadian, or Australian, or French with no need of a translator, then this thesis would fall apart.
He never talks about it but the French Character was nothing more than a substitute for French UFO investigator Jacques Vallee. A very well known UFOlogist in that world. Any nerd UFO aficionado would know who he is. Lacombe is Jacques Vallee in every way. Francois Truffaut was fabulous in the role.
@maxwesty I've done a ton of coke, never made me stop blinking.. I'm not talking about later interviews, talking about this one.....are you guys produced in a moron factory??
Interesting interview. Does anyone know what happened to the film Spielberg was planning in 1978 “about little children in the afternoon”? I suppose he could mean E.T., but he still had to make 1941 and Raiders. Was he linked to a project that someone else ended up directing?
@@aliensoup2420 Yes but I don't think he already had the script for E.T. back in '78, did he? E.T. was several years later and was loosely based on the "Night Skies" project that never got made. I'm referring to when he tells Snyder that his next project is about "little children in the afternoon". Maybe it never got out of pre-production...
@@atroyz Yeah, "A Boy's Life" was the working title for "ET". Now I'm beginning to wonder if JJ Abram's "Super 8" was not derived from Spielberg's 'Night Skies" since they both involve kids and Aliens, and Spielberg was the producer.
@@karlkarlos3545 _The Goonies_ sounds plausible. There was a script about a boy and his alien friend floating around Hollywood by a writer/filmmaker from India. So it would be good to know whether or not Spielberg saw it before making _E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,_ and the progression of his ideas leading to the script. Although he says _Close Encounters of the Third Kind_ could lend itself to a sequel, he doesn't talk in this interview about leaving the alien behind. I'd like to know when that became the thing.
True but because Steven diversified his resume he's going down a legend while people will only know George for Star Wars nothing wrong with that by the way but Steven to me is more of a artist in it's true form
So sad that Spielberg would even have to explain his movie (one of the top ten best ever made) was not suppose to be StarWars. It's painful to watch him (Spielberg, who's a genius) explain himself to schneider (MORON). It's amazing that the human race has made it this far.
it's too bad Snyder doesn't know a thing what-so-ever about film making because it would have been nice to have known exactly who did what in Close Encounters. eg "ah Steve what input did you have on the special effects of the film? "Ah Steve, who picked the locations? "Ah Steve etc; instead of this silly superficial conversation about pranks in theaters when they were kids
Spielberg's greatest film, I can't believe this is not as celebrated as Star Wars. Even as a kid, I was WAY more dazzled and blown away by "Close Encounters". The one-two punch of Jaws and Close Encounters is the bedrock of Spielberg's reputation. Thank you so much for posting this!!!!!
@Mr Right Star War is for thumbsuckers, Close Encounters is for people with brains, and I knew this at 8 years old. I saw both in the theater when they came out (I saw Star Wars opening day). I liked Star Wars, I was blown away by Close Encounters. The audience for Star Wars had a blast, as did the audiences for Superman (which came out the next year), Raiders, E.T., all of those blockbusters. The audiences at Close Encounters (I saw it three times) went through an experience that left the entire theatre walking out in a daze, but like a kind daze, like Christmas time, I can't even explain it. And the communicating with an alien ship through music is beyond brilliant. Please, don't embarrass yourself. You can keep your Star Wars and your ten million hilariously dopey sequels, I didn't even like Empire that much when it came out, I hated Yoda. Seriously. I just saw both movies recently! Star Wars looked as one-dimensional as ever, Close Encounters was as entrancing and as multi-dimensional as ever. End of discussion, geek.
Those 2 films definitely placed him in the spotlight, but 1941 switched it off. Raiders is what cemented his reputation, and from then on it was pretty much smooth sailing.
@@aliensoup2420 "1941" didn't "switch it off". It was a bomb, but nobody thought Spielberg was "over", any more than people thought Scorsese was "over" after "New York New York". The only person who was "over" during that era was Cimino. When "Raiders" came out, the press wasn't "here's Spielberg, the comeback kid". "Jaws" and "Close Encounters" - which was rereleased in the Special Edition, remember? - were still very much in the forefront of people's minds. And no, it wasn't "smooth sailing" after that. He had more big hits, but never any hip ones, lol.
I don't agree. I love spielberg but I never grew up with Close Encounters unlike ET and Jurassic and finally saw it in my late teenage years. It didn't have any impact on me and the ending was a little wrong (Spielberg even agrees now). It's nowhere near as influential or as much fun as Star Wars
@@TTM9691 Inside hollywood a bomb means you're in dangerous ground. He was not cemented until Raiders. Until then he was the golden boy who made Jaws, but it may have been a fluke hit coz of Verna Fields.
I've seen just about all his films at the drive-in with my Mother and Father. Starting with Jaws to E.T. to the Indiana Jones films. It was a very special time in my life as a kid growing into a young teenager. I am 55 years old now and still love these films like it's the first time watching them.
I’m with you. I’m 54 and seen many of these films at the drive-in or at the theatre. What a magical time to be alive.
Man, Spielberg is so young. what a time. what an era.
The time of artists, not agendas.
@@Cre80s yep. Film is supposed to be a medium for artistic expression. Nowadays, it's all about one agenda i.e. money-making and nothing else.
i guess im asking randomly but does anyone know a method to log back into an Instagram account..?
I was dumb lost the password. I love any help you can offer me
@Anthony Deandre instablaster ;)
@@anthonydeandre6808 click the lost password link and enter your password and reset it. Lol. Use your 🧠.
Close Encounters is now in movie history as one of the greatest films ever made
This is gold. Spielberg is, for me, "the cinema" of an era. And Close encounters was the first film i watched in a theatre, i was seven. I love it and i love Spielberg´s cinema. Thank you very much for this.
I'm a fan of Spielberg and especially Close Encounters and I had never seen this until now !!!! So I really want to thank you for this gem (and for the quality of the image of the video, for a 1978 TV interview !) because it was simply perfect for my rainy friday evening !!!!! :)
Brilliant man, brilliant movie. Close encounters remains one of the greatest films of all time
It feels weird seeing Spielberg without glasses and a beard.
Close Encounters was made for the cinema screen, remember seeing it as a kid when it was released. So ahead of it's time.
I saw Jaws in the theater as a kid in 1975. To this day, it's my favorite movie of all time. I also saw Close Encounters in the theater in 1977. I remember wanting to see it, not just because it was science fiction and was about UFO's, but also because the "guy who made Jaws made it". Both blew me away. Such a great streak of movies that came out in the mid-late 70's. I was lucky enough to see some of the "classic" and not so "classic" (but still fun) movies in the theater in the late 70s including:
Rocky
King Kong
Star Wars
Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger
Superman The Movie
Magic (first Rated R movie I ever saw)
Jaws 2
Grease
Apocalypse Now
Amityville Horror (filmed in my hometown where I watched some of the filming)
Tom: You said that you would not do a sequel to Jaws. Would you do a sequel to this?"
Spielberg: Yea, this movie was designed for sequels, as opposed to Jaws witch was a once in a lifetime event"
Funny how it turned out the exact opposite. Although, Steven Spielberg has said during the making of Close Encounters he thought about an alternate ending where one of the Aliens from the mother ship gets left behind. Years later Spielberg gives us the ultimate masterpiece E.T.
I saw this movie 2 days ago, Oct 26,2022 , and I am still so amazed. Hats off to this genius 🫡
Close Encounters should be brought back to screen worldwide,as it was ment to be seen.People would be amazed by it.😉
It was
American hero of major mo pics..E.T. was phenomenal..color purple..he kept it coming consistent.
Yay 4Longevity.
Substance.
That "movie about little kids and what they do from 3-7" evolved into E.T.
Someone said it sounds like _The Goonies._
A great insight into the mind of a brilliant film director, saw this film for the first time tonight.
He knows a lot more than he lets on!
Thank You for Posting!
one of my top 10 favourite movies! wish I cuddof seen it in a cinema at the time of its release only I was 5 at that time!
Spielberg is a genie. I think he arrived on one of those space ships. Mind blown- Spielberg did Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T. and Poltergeist (writer) in the span of a year and a half and Jurassic park and Schindler's List in a span of two years.
Sir Run Run Shaw, as Tom mentions, was not only a huge HK movie producer, he also co-produced 'Blade Runner'.
Interesting. SS's trademark is a shooting star. All his films have one.
This is gold.
Great interview thanks
17:03 - lol so **that's** where Chunk's confession to the Fratellis in 'The Goonies' comes from!
Peter Jackson's team needs to release their famous MAL software so we can remove any static sound and restore video like this. Thanks for posting. :)
Amazing to learn Steven considered Philippe Noiret, Yves Montand, Trintignant or Piccoli for Truffaut's role. I am sure they would have been equally good, but Francois had this genuine charm that none could have topped
thanks for subtitles.
Spielberg was always beyond his time
Bright.charmed.
So now we know the origin of Chunk's barf story in The Goonies.
Please, what does he say between 27:24 and 27:27?, "real kind", "wheel kind" or anything else? I´m adding spanish subtitles to this video and i´m really stuck at this point. The automatic transcription says "real" but i´m not sure when i listen carefully. Thanks.
So sorry he never got around to making that film about the kids. I imagine it evolved into E.T., whose original title was A Boy's Life. But I'd still like to see his version of Truffaut's Small Change.
Someone in another comment said it may have become _The Goonies._ Too bad I never saw it as a teen, but there were so many movies of the 1980s I did see.
Goonies
Now don’t pick the flowers lol
I think he was being serious. Bizarre.
@@redditanonymous-p9w he who
I was 7 ..45y3rs
Where is the sequel?
Tom Synder has a really irritating quality of sounding like his comments are so smart and insightful.
I'm surprised that Spielberg said Close Encounters was designed to have sequels. What was the reason that one was never made?
Steve looked guudt back in the day.
It's funny when they talk about sequels because Jaws had at least 3 sequels and supposedly ET was a sequel to Close Encounters
This is why I have the 30 anniversary bluray with all the cuts and extra materials
i went to see this with a large group of friends
only two of us liked it
the rest thought it was boring
i believe that i was the only one who got that it was steven's take on the giving of the torah on mt sinai
Filming Jaws, writing CEIII; Dreyfus at every turn.
I saw Close Encounters in the theater about a month ago. Does anyone think that it might actually be better than Star Wars(1977)?
I absolutely love Star Wars (the first, episode IV, etc)
Saw it 13 times in the theater because it kept coming back to the theater for two weeks etc. I love both so much. But, CE3K is my favorite movie ever!
It might be Spielberg’s best film? I love Raiders, Jaws, E.T., Last Crusade, Saving Private Ryan, etc. But I have actually watched Close Encounters more, and more in the theater than any other film of his.
Interesting that he wanted the French character to be a different take on the German investigator. I recently watched a video saying the whole movie is about communication, and trouble communicating. From the start there's communication difficulties between the investigators and the Mexican witness; then the Frenchman in charge with the Americans, then between husband and wife, father and kids, and of course the aliens with the human beings. If the French character was instead American, British, Canadian, or Australian, or French with no need of a translator, then this thesis would fall apart.
He never talks about it but the French Character was nothing more than a substitute for French UFO investigator Jacques Vallee. A very well known UFOlogist in that world. Any nerd UFO aficionado would know who he is. Lacombe is Jacques Vallee in every way. Francois Truffaut was fabulous in the role.
Why doesn't Steven Spielberg blink!!???? It drives me crazy!!
Your best takeaway?
@@mortalclown3812 No, just an observation.... Now in regards to my comment, your best takeaway??
@maxwesty I've done a ton of coke, never made me stop blinking.. I'm not talking about later interviews, talking about this one.....are you guys produced in a moron factory??
I think he's wearing contact lenses?
He's an alien.
Interesting interview. Does anyone know what happened to the film Spielberg was planning in 1978 “about little children in the afternoon”? I suppose he could mean E.T., but he still had to make 1941 and Raiders. Was he linked to a project that someone else ended up directing?
It was originally titled "A Boy's Life" and did eventually become "ET".
@@aliensoup2420 Yes but I don't think he already had the script for E.T. back in '78, did he? E.T. was several years later and was loosely based on the "Night Skies" project that never got made. I'm referring to when he tells Snyder that his next project is about "little children in the afternoon". Maybe it never got out of pre-production...
@@atroyz Yeah, "A Boy's Life" was the working title for "ET". Now I'm beginning to wonder if JJ Abram's "Super 8" was not derived from Spielberg's 'Night Skies" since they both involve kids and Aliens, and Spielberg was the producer.
i believe the rest of the project moved into the goonies.
@@karlkarlos3545 _The Goonies_ sounds plausible. There was a script about a boy and his alien friend floating around Hollywood by a writer/filmmaker from India. So it would be good to know whether or not Spielberg saw it before making _E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,_ and the progression of his ideas leading to the script. Although he says _Close Encounters of the Third Kind_ could lend itself to a sequel, he doesn't talk in this interview about leaving the alien behind. I'd like to know when that became the thing.
anyone think SS looks a bit like a young David Hasslehoff and Indiana Jones in this interview?!!
To me he looks like Bono.
thats him??!
..george Lucas perfected one thing.focused STAR WARS..never waivered just kept it gravy..Star Wars.50yrs.later George is rich.
True but because Steven diversified his resume he's going down a legend while people will only know George for Star Wars nothing wrong with that by the way but Steven to me is more of a artist in it's true form
SO MODEST
Those aliens weren't really good guys, though: they kidnapped people who had lives and families, THEN go on a spree terrorizing people!
So sad that Spielberg would even have to explain his movie (one of the top ten best ever made) was not suppose to be StarWars. It's painful to watch him (Spielberg, who's a genius) explain himself to schneider (MORON). It's amazing that the human race has made it this far.
Tom Snyder was dense.
Johnny Carson couldn't stand him.
I think he just played dense to get more out of his guests. But ya. I hear ya.
it's too bad Snyder doesn't know a thing what-so-ever about film making because it would have been nice to have known exactly who did
what in Close Encounters. eg "ah Steve what input did you have on the special effects of the film? "Ah Steve, who picked the locations?
"Ah Steve etc; instead of this silly superficial conversation about pranks in theaters when they were kids
Yeah well written produced movie however UTTER fantasy. Hi Stevey please get a new testament! Only then.. Mwa hahaha a.
Most of the film is guff , a lot of hot air baloney. Much ado about nothing. He has done much better movies and more is to come from him .