Great Moments in Mystery Box Storytelling: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Back in 2007, director J.J. Abrams gave a TED talk where he praised what he called "mystery box" storytelling. To him, a mystery box of a narrative represent hope, potential, and infinite possibility (his words). In the years since his talk, geeks have used Abrams' own words against him whenever he used an element of mystery to buttress weak stories (as he did in Lost, Super 8, his Star Trek movies, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, etc.).

There's nothing wrong with using a bit of mystery to stir an audience's imagination and keep them engaged in a story; likewise, storytellers don't necessary have to answer all of the questions that they raise in order to tell satisfying stories. On the other hand, explicitly building a narrative around questions that are either never answered or only provide lackluster resolutions provides more frustration than entertainment, something that I don't think Abrams understands yet.

Still, you have to cut Abrams some slack. One of his idols is Steven Spielberg, and one of Spielberg's blockbuster films is a textbook example of mystery box storytelling: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).

For those of you who aren't familiar with this film, Close Encounters tells the story of Roy Neary (played by Richard Dreyfuss), an electrician in Indiana who sees a UFO and is then haunted by a vision that drives him to meeting with aliens in Wyoming. Press coverage of this film described it as Spielberg's passion project, something that he had been working on since 1973 and had been avidly researching UFO sightings so he could faithfully recreate what many eyewitnesses have reported seeing. Spielberg's work paid off: It was his second hit movie after Jaws (1975), it won numerous awards, and it was positively reviewed by critics everywhere. It currently holds a 96 percent positive rating at Rotten Tomatoes, and it will be celebrating its 40th anniversary this year with a brief re-release in theaters.

To be fair, this film is still impressive to look at. Spielberg created many memorable scenes, the special effects still hold up, and John Williams' music score is one of his best. Yet for everything it does right and for as many people it has won over, Close Encounters can't escape the fact that it doesn't have much of a plot. What little plot it does have mostly focuses on the aliens' mysterious, suspenseful actions and speculation about what they will do once they land on our planet. The end result doesn't add up to much, and the rest is mostly filler.

"You now know that we've been kidnapping humans from your planet 

against their will for decades, and you're still OK with that? Cool!"

Many of the scenes involve aliens doing strange things for reasons that are never made clear other than to generate suspense for the film's grandiose finale. The aliens drop off a squadron of fighter planes (no pilots, just the planes) in the Sonoran Desert that went missing in the 1940s.* The aliens' space craft almost collide with two airline flights, and then they lead Indiana police on a wild goose chase. They orchestrate a sing-a-long session with a group of people in India, and they repeatedly provide to the U.S. government the latitude and longitude coordinates of where they will land in Wyoming (at the Devils Tower butte) to return human beings that they've been abducting since the '40s. Why do the aliens do any of this stuff? The movie never says why, other than that they provide "mystery box" plot points and excuses to use flashy special effects.

Close Encounters ends with aliens and humans communicating through a series musical exchanges, although the film never says why such creatures could master interstellar space travel--enough to allow for mountain-sized space ships to travel between planets--yet they can't be bothered to understand and use any of our planet's spoken languages. As the film shows, these aliens abducted plenty of people over the years, so it's not like they didn't have the chance to practice their language skills. Then again, Close Encounters would have been much shorter if the aliens just sent this message:


TO THE LEADERS OF EARTH:

PLEASE JOIN US FOR AN IMPROV MUSIC JAM SESSION AT THE LOCATION YOU CALL 'DEVILS TOWER' THIS THURSDAY NIGHT, STARTING AT 11. SESSION WILL INCLUDE RELEASE OF EARTHLINGS WE HAVE KIDNAPPED, FOLLOWED BY ALL-NIGHT KEGGER. YOU BRING THE SOUND SYSTEM AND D.J., WE WILL BRING NACHOS AND BEER.

LATER,
THE ALIENS (THE ONES WITH THE FLYING SAUCERS)

P.S. WE HAVE IMPLANTED SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES INTO A FEW MEMBERS OF YOUR POPULATION; PLEASE HAVE THEM READY FOR PICK UP. THEY WILL BE OUR ENTERTAINMENT FOR AN INTERGALACTIC MIXER NEXT WEEK.


The aliens aren't the only shortcoming in Close Encounters; the human characters aren't particularly interesting either. Most of Roy Neary's story involves his obsession with Devils Tower, a story thread that could have been shortened to a few minutes if he just had a better understanding of national monuments in his own country.** (In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt declared Devils Tower as the first United States National Monument.) When he finally arrives at Devils Tower, the aliens decide to take him back with them into space after they return all of the other people that they've kidnapped. What is so special about Neary (and what was so not special about the returned abductees) is never explained.

"I'm sure that you made a very impressive sculpture in your living room, Mr. Neary, 

but we already have one of those. It's in Wyoming."

The other main character, Jillian (Melinda Dillon) doesn't have much to do in Close Encounters; in fact, she does so little that it's a wonder that she's in the movie at all. Her story arc is her son Barry (Cary Guffey) being abducted by aliens from her house in Indiana, and she goes to Devils Tower with Neary to get her son back. She goes to Wyoming not knowing for sure that she'll get her son back, but when she does get him back she doesn't have to do anything on her part to secure his return. Barry just walks out of the space ship at the end with the rest of the abductees, with no explanation as to why they abducted him at all for just a few days (or why she was the one who had to go to Wyoming to get her son back, instead of the aliens--who can traverse the vast depths of space--flying back to Indiana to return him to his home).

I suppose one can admire Spielberg's efficiency in Close Encounters. After all, he did in just over two hours what Chris Carter couldn't do in nine seasons with The X-Files--namely, to tell a story about one man's obsession with UFOs and bring it to some kind of convincing resolution. But even with that in mind, Close Encounters is at least 90 minutes longer than it needs to be, because most of it is nonsensical, irrelevant details. That's what mystery box storytelling is all about: Teasing an audience's curiosity and imagination in order to keep a shallow, under-plotted story moving forward.

I suppose some people will do anything to avoid paying child support.

In light of everything I've written above, the thing that amuses me is how revered Close Encounters still is among the film critics. With so many shortcomings, this film would be the perfect candidate for the common criticism of style over substance and how special effects run amok at the expense of plot and character development. The fact that Close Encounters remains immune to these critiques just goes to show the power of this particular mystery box and why someone like J.J. Abrams' seeks to emulate it, regardless of how empty the box actually is.

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* As I was re-watching this scene a few weeks ago, I was half expecting a disoriented Indiana Jones to climb out of one of the fighter planes.

** I suppose Neary's story could have been even more contrived--he could have started singing Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" for no discernible reason.