Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Director’s Cut
1977, PG, 137 min.
Directed by Steven Spielberg, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Richard Dreyfuss, Francois Truffaut, Teri Garr, Melinda Dillon, Bob Balaban.

Reported to be neither the original releaseor the 1980 Special Edition, this cut of Close Encounters is the definitivedirector’s cut. This is the movie that proves what Stanley Kubrick taughtin 2001: Build a monolith, and they will come.

This article appears in July 23 • 1999 (Cover).

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Marjorie Baumgarten is a film critic and contributing writer at The Austin Chronicle, where she has worked in many capacities since the paper's founding in 1981. She served as the Chronicle's Film Reviews editor for 25 years.