Post by erik on Jun 10, 2022 21:48:35 GMT -5
Forty years ago this weekend, a relatively small-scale science fiction film from the man who terrified the hell out of us with DUEL and JAWS and made us wonder in awe with CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND was released onto an unsuspecting public. That director of course was Steven Spielberg, and the film in question was E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL. Made for a mere $10 million, this poignant tale of a suburban Southern California boy named Elliott (Henry Thomas) who shields an alien being from government agents after the alien is accidentally stranded on Earth proceeded to smash the box office barrier in half, by grossing a mind-busing $500 million in its first year of release, a figure that has long since crossed the billion-dollar barrier.
Loosely based on parts of Spielberg's own suburban childhood in Phoenix, Arizona, but primarily filmed in the northeastern San Fernando Valley in the late summer and early fall of 1981, the film stars HenryThomas as basically a surrogate for the director in his youth, where he was often picked upon by older boys, and hobbled by a father who is no longer around. In the meantime, his mother (Dee Wallace) is so emotionally distant that, for a great deal of the film, she doesn't even know that Thomas is harboring a most "illegal" alien in his closet. But he does eventually introduce E.T. to his disbelieving older brother (Robert MacNaughton) and kid sister (Drew Barrymore). The whole film is a mix of science fiction, family sentiment, a certain amount of suspense, and more than a little black comedy (Barrymore's introduction to E.T. is still likely to produce a mix of horror and hilarity all at once).
We are definitively spoiled by CGI and stuff, but it's kind of hard anymore (unless, of course, you're Spielberg himself [natch!]) to conjure any kind of film magic in a realistic setting quite like the way it was done on this film 40 years ago, having to work with a rubber animatronic alien creature who forever implanted in everyone's mind the phrase "E.T., Phone Home", plus Elliott's and E.T.'s famous bicycle flight across the face of the Moon. It doesn't hurt either to have John Williams' great music score (recipient of one of this film's four Academy Awards) boost and uplift things, such as the emotional climax. But Spielberg is also there to provide a certain amount of levity (in remarking about E.T.'s interstellar gluttonous eating habits, Barrymore remarks "Is he a pig? He sure eats like one!"), as well as laying on the suspense during the film's opening seven minutes, set in a wooded forest where, needing to escape the government agents, E.T.'s friends accidentally leave him stranded, setting up all that is to follow.
Spielberg has had an infinite amount of masterpieces under his belt, of course; but this one clearly holds a special place in cinematic lore even now. E.T. still remains a singular cinematic achievement of the highest order.
Loosely based on parts of Spielberg's own suburban childhood in Phoenix, Arizona, but primarily filmed in the northeastern San Fernando Valley in the late summer and early fall of 1981, the film stars HenryThomas as basically a surrogate for the director in his youth, where he was often picked upon by older boys, and hobbled by a father who is no longer around. In the meantime, his mother (Dee Wallace) is so emotionally distant that, for a great deal of the film, she doesn't even know that Thomas is harboring a most "illegal" alien in his closet. But he does eventually introduce E.T. to his disbelieving older brother (Robert MacNaughton) and kid sister (Drew Barrymore). The whole film is a mix of science fiction, family sentiment, a certain amount of suspense, and more than a little black comedy (Barrymore's introduction to E.T. is still likely to produce a mix of horror and hilarity all at once).
We are definitively spoiled by CGI and stuff, but it's kind of hard anymore (unless, of course, you're Spielberg himself [natch!]) to conjure any kind of film magic in a realistic setting quite like the way it was done on this film 40 years ago, having to work with a rubber animatronic alien creature who forever implanted in everyone's mind the phrase "E.T., Phone Home", plus Elliott's and E.T.'s famous bicycle flight across the face of the Moon. It doesn't hurt either to have John Williams' great music score (recipient of one of this film's four Academy Awards) boost and uplift things, such as the emotional climax. But Spielberg is also there to provide a certain amount of levity (in remarking about E.T.'s interstellar gluttonous eating habits, Barrymore remarks "Is he a pig? He sure eats like one!"), as well as laying on the suspense during the film's opening seven minutes, set in a wooded forest where, needing to escape the government agents, E.T.'s friends accidentally leave him stranded, setting up all that is to follow.
Spielberg has had an infinite amount of masterpieces under his belt, of course; but this one clearly holds a special place in cinematic lore even now. E.T. still remains a singular cinematic achievement of the highest order.
