My journey as a lifelong film student began the first time I saw “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” in a theater.
It happened about halfway through the picture, as Elliot (Henry Thomas), the 10-year-old protagonist visited by a creature from outer space, sets out through the wilderness with his little friend to build an interstellar telephone. They’re deep into the rough part of the forest when, to Elliot’s surprise, E.T. takes command of the bike — through some kind of telekinetic hocus-pocus — and plunges it over a cliff.
Though only three or four years old at the time, I remember the audience’s reaction vividly. As everyone knows, the bicycle lifts into the air and across the face of the moon, providing the film its signature image. But, in that brief moment when it seemed like the boy and his alien friend were doomed, a sizzle of tension spread through the theater. My mother, who was about three times my size at the time, clutched my shoulder in a panic.
Noticing this response, I was stunned by the film’s power. The movie, directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Melissa Mathison, unfurls so masterfully, one doesn’t realize how completely their emotions are turned over to it.
On the occasion of the film’s long-awaited debut on DVD, it’s excellent fun to revisit the picture in its new format. The disc version includes all of the digitally enhanced shots of the alien added to last year’s 20th anniversary re-release, including a screwy fun-in-the-bathtub scene that was left out entirely upon the film’s original 1982 print.
None of this works, mind you, because the mechanical model originally created by Carlo Rambaldi, with its slippery skin and expressive face, was so perfectly crafted that any other version of the creature is a detraction. Fortunately, after some cajoling, Spielberg agreed to release the priced-to-own DVD with both the original and digitally enhanced versions accessible to users.
Visually, the digital transfer is as beautiful as you could hope. The images captured by cinematographer Allen Daviau — who went on to photograph “The Color Purple” and “Empire of the Sun,” Spielberg’s most visually sophisticated films — are rendered in all of their tonal subtlety. Breaking from the deep and bright color choices the director made early in his career, “E.T.” adopts the cozy, muted look that — to Spielberg and the rest of white America — evokes childhood.
So does the melancholy of divorce, a development in the protagonist’s life which is referred to only a few times in dialogue but which lends an uncommon edge to every moment in the film. Think about it; is there any wonder this child would bond with a space creature abandoned by those who love him?
As Elliot, Thomas gives what is generally considered the finest performance by a child actor in any contemporary film. He isn’t cute or overcoached; much like E.T., he comes off as kind-hearted, curious and deceptively wise. It’s also a treat to revisit a very young Drew Barrymore as Elliot’s sister — she gets most of the movie’s best lines — and Dee Wallace as their harried, quietly wounded mom.
After thoroughly absorbing a picture into your consciousness over a period of 20 years, certain elements which seemed to be in the background upon first viewing can subsequently knock you over. Take John Williams’ score, for example, which now seems to stand out above any single performance, image or line of dialogue. Never had the composer written a movie theme so bold and so musically intricate.
To even label it a score in the conventional sense is degrading. The music doesn’t exist to punctuate the movie; it’s a fully realized, self-contained work with far-flung and contrasting movements, each serving to lead the film into different areas of feeling.
We hear echoes of Beethoven as Elliot’s bicycle magically takes fight and Wagner when government officials snatch E.T. from his child caretakers. And in the film’s most lyrical scene, in which the alien’s luminous touch heals Elliot’s bleeding finger as Wallace reads Barrymore the story of Peter Pan, the music takes on a giddy quality that is completely its own.
Particularly in the last reel, which contains one of the great denouements in movie history, the movie’s soundtrack is a tour-de-force, leading audiences from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other in a span of about 15 minutes.
Despite everything “E.T.” has going for it, those who read the entertainment press will recall that the film’s recent re-release was met with apathy. Perhaps this can be attributed to resentment toward the movie’s new digital enhancements, or because younger generations, conditioned to the crack-addict pace of today’s movies, are unable to appreciate the film’s warm, observant sensibility.
For whatever reason, the cultural zeitgeist that prevailed in making “E.T.” the highest grossing film of all time no longer exists. This is both surprising and lamentable, considering the admiration Spielberg courts among young male audiences who largely decide the types of movies that arrive at the multiplex.
As opposed to Spielberg’s “Jaws” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” — efficient, but empty, thrill-machines — “E.T.” is a work of art. It gets into the mind and the heart, filling young viewers with wonder about the universe and those who populate it. For adults, the film offers perhaps a greater reward — the opportunity to experience life, once again, through the eyes of a child.
