Back in 1975, there was a little movie called Jaws. Maybe you’ve heard of it. The film was about a giant killer shark that terrorized a summer resort town. Three robotic sharks were built to play the film’s monster, and every one of them was prone to malfunction. In response, the director — a young upstart filmmaker named Steven Spielberg — came up with several means of getting around this setback. First and foremost is that the shark’s proximity was frequently announced through subtle and cost-effective means, such as buoys or cues from John Williams’ now-famous score. In other scenes, only the dorsal fin of the shark would be shown.
Basically put, Spielberg brilliantly utilized the concept that something can be much more frightening if it goes unknown and unseen. This is an approach used liberally and to even greater effect in his later directorial project, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
Right from the movie’s very start, the first thing to grab my attention was Spielberg’s skillful knowledge at what to show and what to hold back. We see a distinctly alien space pod filled with all manner of unnatural flora, but the aliens themselves are hidden in shadow. All we see of them at first are their strange silhouettes and their glowing red chests. E.T. himself isn’t entirely seen until the end of the first act, with an artful series of gradual reveals leading up to that point. Naturally, this leads to a lot of initial questions about the aliens themselves, many of which are never answered: Why they’re here, what they look like, where they came from, what they’re doing, etc. On a similar note, Spielberg frequently finds new ways to conceal E.T. (many of which were budget-saving measures, no doubt) in ways that keep the conceit fresh.
Even more impressive is how Spielberg extends this treatment to humans in the film. Nearly every figure of authority in this film — even the schoolteacher! — is a faceless and shadowy figure with little, if any, dialogue. As such, we don’t know who they are, what they’re truly capable of or what exactly they plan to do with E.T. It isn’t until 80 minutes in that one of them finally gets a face, and it isn’t until the start of the third act (during E.T.’s apparent death, quite tellingly) that the conceit is dropped entirely and all the masks are discarded to show the humans beneath the authority.
Naturally, this whole obscurity conceit works solely because of the film’s exemplary lighting and camera work. The scenes at Elliot’s school make the classroom look appropriately boring. The other day-time scenes take place with the window blinds shut, which adds a lot more atmosphere. When E.T. is finally put under observation, the film takes on a harsh and whited-out look. And during the night scenes… oh my God. The night-time scenes are so absolutely exquisite in their use of light and shadow that every single frame is a work of art.
Another visual strength is in the superb special effects. Making an alien sympathetic is inherently more difficult than doing the same for, say, a dog. It takes a lot more effort to believe that a lump of latex and/or pixels is ever in any serious danger, especially when the subject is something so unfamiliar as an extra-terrestrial. Fortunately, the effects that went into E.T. go a long way toward making the character expressive and lifelike. There were several moments when watching this puppet come to life was simply magical. Then again, I should note that I saw the CGI-aided 20th anniversary edition (complete with the infamously boneheaded move to replace all the guns in the film with walkie-talkies), so make of that what you will.
Still, there are a lot of nits to pick in this film. For example, there’s the fact that Elliott makes both of his siblings take a solemn vow of secrecy regarding the alien, yet Elliott himself insists to all the kids at the bus stop that he really did see an alien. WTF? Then again, I suppose that the secret promise never mattered too much, since the little sister character (the one played by a young Drew Barrymore) is repeatedly shown to be a hopeless blabbermouth. And another plot hole: It’s explicitly stated that the government/NASA agents had seen the device E.T. built to phone home, yet they didn’t post a single agent to stand guard at that site? Seriously, that’s just stupid. Speaking of which, take a look at this. That’s either a laughable comparison of E.T. to Christ or it’s just plain laughable.
Yet far more prominent than the plot holes is the saccharine. Maybe it’s just because so much time has passed or maybe it’s because I’m more heartless than I originally thought, but this relationship between a boy and his alien just didn’t seem to click for me, no matter how hard the movie tried to sell it. There are so many scenes between the two that are drawn out and milked dry for all the emotion that the cast and crew can muster. Perhaps for that reason, I couldn’t help feeling like the emotion was overly forced.
Nevertheless, the movie still works as a tearjerker for one simple reason. I’m sure you all know the reason why, just as I’m sure you’ve had the E.T. theme song go through your head at least once while reading this review. John Williams’ output here is undoubtedly a big part of what set the bar for his work so legendarily high. No matter how saccharine or overdramatic the movie got, Williams was always on hand to enrich and enhance the emotions onscreen, never failing to evoke the desired reaction in the audience.
…But I still just couldn’t bring myself to fear for E.T.’s safety. Maybe it’s because he’s an alien and extraterrestrials in science fiction can be quite well-known for convenient ways to keep from dying. Maybe it’s because of the aforementioned difficulty inherent in relating to something otherworldly. Maybe its because the humans chasing him turned out to be totally non-malicious. Maybe it’s because even without knowing the ending in advance (which I did), the premise dictates that the film could only end in one possible way.
Whatever the reason, I just don’t think that the screenplay for E.T. was that heartbreaking, even if the entire cast and crew put in a Herculean amount of effort to make it so. Nevertheless, I will gladly concede that the movie is a technical masterpiece, loaded with top-notch special effects, one of John Williams’ finest scores (and that’s saying a damn lot) and exemplary work in cinematography and editing. Though I didn’t find it particularly sad or tearjerking, I will not deny that it is a film classic.