In the Midwest, cable man Roy Neary (RICHARD DREYFUSS) is called to investigate some power outages when he has a terrifying encounter with a UFO. The aliens implant an image into his brain of a strange shape that turns out to be Devils Tower in Wyoming, the eventual sight of man's first confirmed contact with extraterrestrial life.

Roy gets no support from his wife, Ronnie (TERI GARR), who craves only a simple Midwest existence with Roy and their three kids. But Roy becomes increasingly obsessed with finding answers and is drawn to Jillian (MELINDA DILLON), a single mother whose 4-year-old son, Barry (CARY GUFFEY), was abducted by the aliens for reasons unknown. Together, they travel to Wyoming on a collision course with history.

The movie, which chronicles the epic First Contact of mankind with an alien species, is told from three different perspectives. The first is from the point of view of a blue-collar cable man, Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss), who has a close encounter with a UFO one dark night on call in rural Indiana and is inexplicably compelled to travel to Wyoming for what he can only describe as "answers."

The second perspective is that of Jillian (Melinda Dillon), a single mother whose 4-year-old son Barry (Cary Guffey) has been contacted by the aliens and subsequently abducted. The third perspective is that of a French UFO expert, Claude Lancombe (the late, great French director Francois Truffaut), who spearheads a government effort to decipher the aliens' intentions and set up the First Contact at Devils Tower National Monument.

The film is full of unforgettable scenes of equal parts dread and wonder. The Spielberg visual style cut its proverbial teeth on "Jaws" two years earlier and was refined and darn-near perfect on "Close Encounters." The man's use of light in scenes is awe-inspiring, from a little boy opening his front door to the blinding glow of a UFO to the way the boy's mother's flashlight pierces through the misty night woods as she searches for him.

I have always loved the way Spielberg frames large-scale sequences, too, such as the wide-angled camera tracking of Lancombe and his team during their brief trip to the Middle East where throngs of worshipers chant the aliens' five-note tonal welcome. When he asks the interpreter to ask the crowd where they heard the notes they are chanting, the camera pulls back and dozens of fingers flood the screen pointing straight up. Great moment!

Spielberg was creating instant iconography back then. There is a sure-handedness and energy to the direction here that you wish you could just harness and spread around to a dozen filmmakers now working today. And like "Jaws" with its shark, Spielberg doesn't give you much of the aliens and their exotic spacecraft until the very end. There's a patience here that pays off in a humdinger of a climax that doesn't entail a big car chase or shoot out, but a simple, grand sequence of man and spaceman meeting for the first time and exchanging basic pleasantries.

At the same time, "Close Encounters" has always been a great meditation on obsession as Roy Neary's life is turned upside down by his intense need to see the aliens again and get answers to his all-important questions of "Why?" and "How?" Spielberg has admitted in interviews that he wouldn't have made "Close Encounters" the same way today because he couldn't get his mind around basing so much of a movie around a main character who ultimately makes the decision to leave his wife and children. In that case, it's good the story came to him when it did. Only Steven Spielberg in his youthful prime could have made this picture and made it as great as it is.

The only negative is the two times he has revisited the film in the years since and re-cut it. In 1980, he was given more money to finish certain sequences and extend the film's climax so that you get to see briefly what happens to Roy once he is aboard the Mothership. Basically, it's about three or four extra minutes of Dreyfuss slowly staring up at some special effects before the hatch closes and the ship leaves. Spielberg wisely discarded this needless, drawn-out sequence when he offered up his Director's Cut in 1998. That edit kept some of the cooler additions, though, such as Lancombe and his team finding a massive naval vessel in the middle of the Gobi Desert.

Regardless of which edit you watch (I recommend the '98 Director's Cut reviewed below), the film has stood the test of time in all its versions and it rates a most enthusiastic 9.5 out of 10 rating. (T. Durgin)