The brilliance of Steven Spielberg’s “family” films is that they work just as well for adults and children. I don’t mean this in the lazy, contemporary sense, which usually involves throwing in some pop cultural references or veiled sex jokes for parents to chuckle at while their children laugh at the CGI cartoon animals. Rather, I mean that, in Spielberg’s best, what plays as exciting action to a young viewer can have another, seriously heavy set of implications to someone with a full set of adult experiences under their belt. When you watch a Spielberg film as a child, your heart is in your throat; when you revisit it as an adult, your heart may well be in your stomach.

Take Close Encounters of the Third Kind. When I first rented the film as an eleven-year-old, it was a thrilling story about aliens, and a man gifted with a vision which allowed him to make contact. His dedication alienates him (so to speak) from the world around him: his wife takes the kids and leaves him, he loses his job, and his neighbors shun him, all because they don’t understand. Richard Dreyfuss’ Roy Neary is a Hero, on a Hero’s Quest, and the hardships he has to go through simply serve to test his resolve.

Rewatching the film for the first time as an adult, however, shines a decidedly different light on Dreyfuss’ character. None of the facts listed in the previous paragraph are wrong, per se– Roy did see a spaceship, and he does have a vision, and he does ultimately see through a government conspiracy (albeit a fairly benevolent one, as far as these things go) and make contact with life from another world. Only now, having held a job and been in a relationship and spent several years living the life of an adult, it becomes impossible not to see Neary as his peers do. Neary’s wife (Teri Garr) doesn’t understand, but she puts up with him far longer than most people would (“Don’t you think I’m taking this rather well?” she wryly deadpans after Roy rousts her out of bed at three in the morning). And even before he begins smashing windows and building a dirt mountain in the rec room, Neary bears every hallmark of being an utter raving lunatic. As a child, you want to believe Neary; as an adult, you want to cross the street to avoid him.

This Saturday’s MFA screening of Close Encounters was accompanied by a quick Q&A with author Ben Mezrich, who has learned firsthand that aliens can bring this sort of thing out in people. Mezrich’s new book, The 37th Parallel, tells the story of former sheriff’s deputy Chuck Zukowski. That “former” is due largely to the fact that Zukowski has spent the past several decades tirelessly investigating the peculiar UFOlogical phenomenon of cattle mutilation across the American south (the book’s title refers to the latitudinal home of nearly all such incidents, as well as the Pentagon and Area 51). While writing his book, Mezrich accompanied Zukowski on several of his regular UFO stakeouts, and discussed his theories on the government’s involvement in alien cover-ups. Mezrich himself is non-committal on the truth of alien contact, but does appear at least partly swayed by Zukowski’s conviction, admitting at the very least that something pretty unusual happened in Roswell in 1947.

Did his obsession with aliens ruin Chuck Zukowski’s life? Mezrich doesn’t seem to think so. Sure, his preoccupation lost him his job at the sheriff’s department in El Paso, Colorado, but he still makes a living as a computer programmer. Moreover, his wife is more patient than Ronnie Neary; while she doesn’t share his convictions, she allows his expeditions, provided he carries a gun and a GPS unit at all times (when Mezrich asked her if she minds her husband’s second life, she laughed “At least he’s not having an affair!”). And Mezrich’s book is currently in development to be adapted as a major motion picture, with Robert Downey, Jr. in talks to star. For someone whose passion is looking at exsanguinated cows, Zukowski’s life could be worse.

Which I suppose is where most folks ultimately fall, and why Spielberg’s films appeal as much to adults as to kids. By the time we reach maturity, most of us have come to realize that we’re not Indiana Jones– and, god willing, we’re not Roy Neary either. But neither are quite so far removed that we can’t see a little of ourselves in them, if something were to push us one direction or the other. In the end, most of us are closer to Chuck Zukowski, chasing UFOs and staring down disemboweled livestock. Whether or not that’s a metaphor is up to us.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind
1977
dir. Steven Spielberg
137 min.

Screened Saturday, 12/10 @ Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Author Ben Mezrich in attendance