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By contrast, Speilberg has telescoped the film's middle section, which describes Roy's ascent, through madness, to the space traveler's wave length—his alienation. Instead of inching away from his baffled family into the cocoon of his tran scendence, Roy breaks with them in an abrasively strong scene, a kind of group tantrum. At the end, Roy enters the starship, and this time the audience goes with him—for a brief survey of the ship's angelic multiterraced interior. Roy grins beatifically; the wooden husband has turned into a real boy. Pinocchio lives.
A sage once wrote that "life is a continual becoming." That is the message of Close Encounters—both kinds—and of the film-making tendency to take well-enough and try to make it better. The old Hollywood machine has become a malleable organism, as the new directors claim the right to restage their films the way George Balanchine keeps reshaping his ballets. Moviegoers are advised to join in the collaborative process. Shall we dance? —By Richard Corliss