Album Review: 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind: 40th Anniversary Remastered Edition' (2017)

In the fall of 1977, Arista Records (a now defunct label owned by Sony Music Entertainment) released Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, a 10-track selection of cues and themes composed by John Williams for Steven Spielberg's eponymous "humans meet aliens" UFO film.

Arista released the album as a single-disc vinyl LP, as well as on cassette and eight-track tape. It also released the disco version of "Theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind" on a 7-inch single, which was included as a bonus on the vinyl release. The theme, if memory serves, was incorporated into the tape editions as a bonus track; this was also done with the 1990 compact disc distributed by Varese Sarabande Records under license by the original label.

Composer John Williams and director Steven Spielberg began working on Close Encounters of the Third Kind (CE3K) as early as 1975, shortly after Jaws (the duo's second collaboration) was completed. The most important element, Spielberg told Williams, was that "music would be the means through which humanity makes first contact with extra-terrestrials."

According to Mike Montessino's liner notes to the 40th Anniversary expanded soundtrack from CE3K:

It was a dream project for any film composer, as well as a unique challenge. The result remains, even four decades later, one of Williams' most ambitious works and, by his own admission, one of his most creatively satisfying. "I loved working on Close Encounters because I loved the picture," he said upon its conclusion in 1977. "The idea of contact with life that we know is out there in some form is an irresistible attraction for any artist working on any medium.

Williams' original concept for the Arista soundtrack album was to release it as "a 74-minute double LP, much like his successful Star Wars album earlier that same year." However, the record label decided to pare the material down and released the album as a single two-sided LP, with the 7-inch single of the disco "Theme from CE3K" tossed in for good measure. (This was a poor decision on Arista's part; as Montessino writes in the liner notes to the expanded edition re-release, "the 2-LP release would have included almost all the music heard in the film, including [like the released album] cues that were partially used as well as some early alternate versions.")

Album cover art from Arista's single LP Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. (C) 1977 Arista Records

The 1977 album (LP, cassette, and eight-track) and subsequent compact disc consist of the following selections:

1. Main Title and Mountain Visions
2. Nocturnal Pursuit
3. The Abduction of Barry
4. I Can't Believe It's Real
5. Climbing Devil's Tower
6. The Arrival of Sky Harbor
7. Night Siege
8. The Conversation
9. The Appearance of the Visitors
10. Resolution and End Title
11. Theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (disco version): 7-inch single record as an extra inside the vinyl LP; included as a bonus track on the tape and compact disc editions

As is the case with most soundtrack albums (including Walt Disney Records' most recent Star Wars releases, including The Force Awakens, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and 2017's The Last Jedi,  the 1977 album was, essentially, a "greatest hits" collection rather than a comprehensive representation of the complete score. Whether this is because recording companies believe that listeners have short attention spans or that longer albums (which often require two discs) are a huge gamble that's not worth the expense or risk, I have no idea. What I do know, though, is that most original soundtrack albums from movies or TV shows all seem to follow this trend; only rarely do recording companies release "expanded" or "complete" scores on any format.

(C) 1998 Arista Records/Sony Music Entertainment

 In 1998, following the 20th Anniversary re-release of CE3K in its third and definitive "Director's Edition," Arista (which closed down in 2001) produced a Collector's Edition which presented Williams' score in (mostly) chronological order. In addition to the 10 tracks from the 1977 record, Arista added 13 previously unreleased cues and expanded several of the familiar ones. In addition, several tracks were renamed for clarity's sake. For instance, The Conversation became The Dialogue, while The Abduction of Barry became Barry's Kidnapping.

Produced by Mike Montessino, the producer and sound engineer behind other "expanded editions" of John Williams scores, including Empire of the Sun, Jaws, Jurassic Park, AI: Artificial Intelligence, and 1941, the 1998 extended edition is also the centerpiece of  La-Land Records' 40th Anniversary Remastered Edition of Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Music by John Williams.

(C)2017 La-La Land Records/Arista Records/Sony Music Entertainment

Released in November 2017 as a limited edition (only 5000 units were made), the 40th Anniversary Remastered Edition is a two-disc collection of cues that were used for the various versions of CE3K, including the 1977 theatrical release and the studio-mandated Special Edition of 1980; since that version of the film included new footage that showed the interior of the mother ship, John Williams composed Inside, a track recorded at Symphony Hall in Boston in June of 1980.

Disc One is a digitally remastered re-release of the 1998 Expanded Edition album; Disc Two is a longer (31-track) disc comprised of familiar tracks heard on Disc One, unused alternate versions that were previously unreleased, and cues from the film (including the track Inside that I mentioned earlier). Both discs present the tracks in roughly chronological order, reflecting their appearance in Spielberg's film.

My Take

Remarkably, Williams was working on the original Star Wars at virtually the same time as Close Encounters, doing most of the composing in early 1977 at  his office at 20th Century Fox. While both scores sweep the listener away with epic adventure, action, and mystery, they are, like the films themselves, nothing alike, affirming what Spielberg has called Williams' "chameleon-like" ability to adapt styles to suit the needs of a particular project. - Mike Montessino in the essay "The Gift of Music and Light"

The music of CE3K is, indeed, quite different from Star Wars' 19th Century Romantic era style. If you're not familiar with the vast musical output of John Williams for the motion picture and TV industry, the musical styles of Close Encounters and Star Wars are so dissimilar that you wouldn't suspect that they were both written by the same composer.

As Williams himself noted nearly 40 years ago, "Close Encounters is more atmospheric and impressionistic, more abstract, and certainly less romantic than Star Wars. It strikes me as the exact opposite. I like to think of Star Wars as the future, with sights heretofore unseen; the music should be a stabilizing element, emotionally familiar.  Close Encounters, however, is real, not fantastic to our eyes; it takes place in the here and now, not the distant future. The whole object of Steven Spielberg's film is to create a sense of credibility, and therefore the music takes the opposite course - more abstract and futuristic."

In other words, if the music of Star Wars evokes the works of Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz, and even Ludwig von Beethoven, Williams' score for Close Encounters is reminiscent of such 20th Century abstract composers as Arnold Schoenberg and Alexander Striabin. The musical cues, especially those of CE3K's first two acts (when Spielberg keeps the audience guessing as to whether the film's aliens are friendly or - as in the 1950s B-movies - invaders from space) tend to be atonal, eerie, and often in the lower register. 

To illustrate Williams' deliberate use of musical misdirection: in the scenes when Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) is either chasing UFOs in his electric lineman's truck or heading toward Devil's Tower in Wyoming, the composer uses "a descending pair of four-note phrases that Williams associated with the character." As Montessino explains in the liner notes for the 40th Anniversary Remastered Edition, "The theme is suggestive of the well-known Dies irae ("Day of [God's] Wrath) plainchant melody associated with the Catholic requiem mass. In Close Encounters, Williams uses it for tense or urgent moments...."

Obviously, any piece of music associated with the wrath of God - and Dies irae definitely counts as such - sounds ominous, even frightening (it's also used in the main title of The Shining). This fits with Spielberg's intent to fool a first-time viewer of CE3K into thinking that the aliens in this movie may not be coming in peace. 

Of course, Spielberg is also reminding the viewer that even though the alien visitors don't mean any harm, we Earthlings are by nature rather suspicious, even paranoid beings. Most of us, I'm sure, are not psychologically ready for a close encounter of the first kind (visual sighting) with a real extra-terrestrial, much less a close encounter of the third kind (contact). Well, Spielberg clearly didn't think that a post-Vietnam, post-Watergate America (especially its government) was remotely ready for a first-contact situation with interstellar visitors and their flying saucers. 

Williams' music, as presented in Spielberg's film and on this album, gradually progresses from atonal eeriness to more familiar melodic themes once the aliens' motives prove to be benign. The cues still don't resemble Star Wars' Romantic era leitmotivs or recognizable "songs," but they now sound more mellow and wondrous, especially after the Dialogue, the 4-minute, 28 second track that features the famous five-note motif known as "Theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind." 

What do I mean by mellow and wondrous? Well, for instance, both Resolution and End Titles and Inside feature excerpts from Ned Washington and Leigh Harline's "When You Wish Upon a Star," the Oscar-winning song from Walt Disney Pictures' classic Pinocchio. The interpolated melody is heard briefly in the former track; a more complete choral performance is heard in Inside, a cue Williams composed in 1980 for that year's Special Edition re-release.

These two tracks are used - successfully - to convey Roy Neary's - and the audience's - sense of childlike wonder when he is chosen to be humanity's ambassador to the aliens and invited to board the mothership at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  Along with the rest of the score, these two tracks by John Williams constitute, in short, a wonderful gift of music and light.  

Disc One: Extended Soundtrack Presentation

1. Main Title and the Vision
2. Navy Planes
3. Lost Squadron
4. Trucking
5. Into the Tunnel and Chasing UFOs
6. Crescendo Summit
7. False Alarm and The Helicopter
8. Barry's Kidnapping
9. Forming the Mountain
10. TV Reveals/Across Country
11. The Mountain
12. The Cover Up and Base Camp
13. The Escape
14. Climbing the Mountain
15. Outstretched Hands
16. The Light Show
17. Barnstorming
18. The Mothership
19. The Dialogue
20. The Returnees
21. The Appearance of the Visitors
22. Contact
23. End Titles

Disc Two: Alternates and Additional Music

1. Main Title
2. Roy's First Encounter
3. Encounter at Crescendo Summit
4. Chasing UFOs
5. Watching the Skies
6. Vision Takes Shape
7. Another Vision
8. False Alarm
9. The Abduction of Barry
10. The Cover-up
11. TV Reveals
12. Roy and Jillian on the Road
13. I Can't Believe It's Real
14. Across the Fields
15. Stars and Trucks
16. Who Are You People?
17. The Escape (Alternate)
18. Climbing Devil's Tower
19. Dark Side of the Moon
20. The Approach
21. Night Siege
22. The Conversation
23. Inside
24. Contact (Alternate)
25. Eleventh Commandment
26. TV Western
27. Lava Flow
28. The Five Tones
29. Advance Scout Greeting
30. The Dialogue (Early Version)
31. Resolution and End Titles