A film with many special effects... and one 'special effect' ...

Rating: 9/10 (21 May 2016)

The mere mention of a boy befriending an alien evokes immediate imagery. Indeed, we all picture the squashy head of an adorable monster with an extensible neck, huge expressive eyes and unforgettable raspy voice, a pointing finger with an ability to glow at the most cinematically emotional moment, a little boy and a legendary bike ride that flew him to a moon, that had the good idea to be full that very magical night.
If Cinema is a world of imagery and magic, well then a certain movie made by a certain Spielberg in a certain cinematic year (that happened to be the one I was born in), deserved its instant place as one of the most glorious exemplification of the reason to be of Cinema as an Art and an escapist medium. I'm being verbose, am I? Well, I'm sorry to maintain the suspense, but this is a trick I learned from Steven Spielberg himself, who, more than anyone, knows how to tickle your curiosity enough to make you want for more, so that the emotional effect is twice more satisfying.
And it works, really. The film opens in total darkness; mysterious creatures are wandering near a spaceship. We only see the plants and mushrooms that seem to be the reason of their presence. Suddenly, flashlights and screeching vehicles indicate a hostile presence, the aliens escape leaving one of them alone. Like in "Jaws", we never see the creature until Spielberg judges it's the right time. Indeed, we have to discover the kid first, so that his discovery of his alien friend will have the right effect. Spielberg loves imagery but he never takes them for granted, it's all about the effects.
The boy is Elliott (Henry Thomas), he lives in one of these suburban houses, impersonal but with a charm of their own. He's a middle child, so, a little bit teased by his 16-year old brother Michael (Robert MacNaughton) and a little less mollycoddled than his 5-year old sister, Gertie (Drew Barrymore). He's an outcast in his own family and the separation of his parents didn't help. Spielberg wanted a movie that would evoke the feeling of loneliness in children of dysfunctional families and the late Melissa Mathison's script was the material he needed in order to express the emptiness felt by a boy without a father and without a clear position in the family. And who better than a misfit kid to feel an immediate sympathy toward a naturally misfit creature? That's to say, it had to be young Elliott, to shine a flashlight on E.T. so that both would be scared in a funny and touching symmetry.
This 'close encounter' is actually the first hint on what will cement the friendship between the two loners: reciprocity. And like Michael explains to the scientists, Elliott doesn't think E.T.'s thoughts but feels his feelings. This is not about telepathy but empathy, and empathy is a virtue molded by childhood times, because we have less perspective of the world, and are more capable to judge according to our heart than our mind. Beyond the friendship, this is also a film about childhood and it's very revealing that all the props needed to communicate with E.T. and even help him to communicate with his people, all belong to childhood world. Star Wars toys, electronic games, Reese's Pieces, you name them. Of course, out of all the childhood-defining props used in the film, the BMX bike is the most emblematic one and it's no wonder it inspired the most memorable moment of the film.
Maybe this is what the film owes its timeless and universal appeal to, being a world of kids, where everything is seen from their perspective, where adults are half-showed like in "Tom and Jerry" cartoons, where you feel like flying when riding your bike, when you think of freeing the frogs rather than dissecting them. Childhood as a time of innocence and purityit's a bit corny and I remember a comic-book I read when I was a kid, where the hero, after seeing the film, was glad E.T. was discovered by children, a friend of him was skeptical, but to prove him wrong, the hero dressed as an alien and approached a group of kids, they tied him up. On his road to the laboratory, the hero said, "you were right, that's only Sci-fi". I also remember when we first saw the film during a school trip, some boys were laughing at the sight of poor E.T. and I thought he was lucky not to have met them.
So maybe the film is less about childhood than Spielberg's own vision of childhood? And perhaps this is why the film is accused of being manipulative, like any Spielberg's film after all. Now, is Spielberg manipulative? No more than any author who wants to create the right emotional impact, yes he knows that an E.T dying to make his friend recover is the tear-jerking jackpot, but isn't the scene efficient for all that, and doesn't it make us jump of joy when E.T. suddenly resurrects and happily repeats "E.T. Phone Home", not to mention John Williams' triumphant score to complete the effect or the so emotional farewell. (Ouch!) Again, it's all about effects and it is easy to accuse Spielberg of manipulation, but the fact is that he took a staple of movies: friendship between different persons and made it an instant icon, something on the same level of imagery as "The Wizard of Oz".
So whatever was manipulative still made it it the most successful of all time, for 11 years before another Spielberg film would dethrone it. He must have a way with audience, because he considers himself like this audience, if you think the film is overly sentimental from the way it portrays kids, well that's Spielberg's vision, and as
naive as it is, it contributed to a creature without which we simply can't imagine Cinema.