Roy Neary: Ultimate adventurer or worst dad ever?
Dec 27th, 2007 by daddydaddy
Had a little movie party last night, screening an all-time fave: Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
I’ve been waiting for years to see it on a big screen again, enhanced by surround sound and a cheerful bunch of fans and newbies. (Believe it or not, a full 1/3 of our guests had not seen the film. Ever.)
But a funny thing happened on the way to the fantastic finale: people balked.
Now, I was remembering the story as a quest for adventure, about a man who had to follow his true calling (in this case, an actual alien call), against all odds. And I remembered that one of those odds was his wife. Another, his kids. I distinctly remember the familial dissolution that was central to the film. In fact, I asked my guests before we ran the movie to consider: is this film really about aliens at all?
I asked this question because I was thinking of this as a film about the struggle between dreams and doubters, and an accurate portrayal of a man undergoing a midlife crisis: something even I could recognize at the tender age of 11 when the film was released.
But somehow the takeaway memory got wrapped up in all that blissful glittering of the mothership and the look on François Truffaut’s face when he says, “I envy you, Monsiuer Neary,” as Dreyfuss prepares to go on his cosmic journey.
Most of all, I remember wishing Roy Neary well.
But here we were, a group of still-new parents and everyone said: “Hey, did he just leave the kids behind? What about his wife? Did he give up???”
I argued that in the age of Kramer Vs. Kramer, this was a natural ending. Hey, it was the ’70s, people. The “me” generation, remember?
“But did Spielberg know what he was saying?” our audience members asked.
“I think he knew exactly what he was saying. And in his next film (E.T.), the dad is completely gone and it’s the boy who follows the adventure to its ultimate conclusion.”
But viewers were left with more of a sour taste than I ever had for the film, and I had to ask myself: is Roy Neary the ultimate adventurer or the worst dad ever? Would I leave my kids if aliens called? Would you?
Keep thinking… And in case you need a reminder about the general vibe, here’s a quick rehash:
Upon meditation, here are some further thoughts…
Let’s face it: Roy has seen the most incredible thing any human being has ever experienced. And he’s being drawn to it by forces beyond our comprehension.
If he has any real fault, I think it’s the fact that he fails to adequately communicate the miracle to his family and get them to share in the magic. Then again, how could he? Either you want to build mashed potato mountains, or you don’t. Right?
Roy’s just so disappointed that they can’t see the inherent innocence and wonder of visitors from another planet (or [I]Pinocchio[/I], the movie that Spielberg constantly references and that Roy tries (and fails) to get the family to go and see), that he goes off and leaves them behind. And the fact is, because of their refusal to dream, they’re kind of an ugly family. Maybe they’re not worth sticking around for after all…
I think you give Spielberg way too much credit here. Close Encounters is no midlife crisis, unless by that term, you mean a regression to a child-like state. Roy Neary gets to play with his food, track mud into the house (a lot of mud), and hang out all night chasing spaceships. That’s not an adult’s fantasy – it’s a child’s.
What we witness is not an agonizing coming to terms with adulthood and family obligations, but a simple escape from it. Once Neary leaves his family to follow his dream, his obsession, he doesn’t look back, and neither does the movie. We never see them again. His family is truly beside the point, not the point itself. Rather, we watch Neary, accompanied by his new mom figure – note the complete lack of sexual tension between Neary and Gillian: she is mom and only mom — traipse off in search of alien fairies and Roy’s Gepetto, Papa Truffaut. Dreyfus plays the role to perfection, seeming to become younger through the course of he movie. In the end, Mama Gillian trades in the fake boy, Roy, for her real boy, while Roy achieves his own real boyhood through Papa Truffaut’s blessing to go forth to the stars. Of course Truffaut envies him – he has succeeded in reverting to that naïve childlike state, while Truffaut remains behind, fatherly (grandfatherly, even), the old man of the classic cinema. The man who knows too much.
I think this is Spielberg’s central theme, this reclamation of childhood wonder, a theme he carries out to its fullest extent in E.T., where he dispenses entirely with any confusing Dad figure in order to allow Elliot to step forward as the main protagonist of Spielberg’s fantasy.
The family drama – and especially the various tensions assorted with being a Dad – come out later in the Spielberg oeuvre, in the Indiana Jones movies, of course, but perhaps most poignantly in Schindler’s List. Oskar Schindler is the embodiment of the father who wants to do everything for his children, but knows that it will never be enough. It’s a brilliant portrait, on so many levels.
But at the time of Close Encounters, I just don’t think Spielberg was all that conscious of family dynamics, of mid-life crises, of dads who leave or stay. He was 31 years old, with no children of his own yet, still a boy himself, more interested in surpassing his cinematic forbears than in worrying about whether his progeny would follow him.
Diane,
You are such an unbelievable smarty-pants! I love your post. Were you a film theory major in school or are you just that cool and smart?
xxoo,
Dana
How dare you raise the level of discourse to such extremes?!?! You’ve laid down a blog gauntlet that must be undone, lest the just-in-it-for-a-laugh, attention-deficit dudes and dudettes who peruse this humdrum trifle be annihilated by your brilliance.
But seriously: that’s the most brilliant response I could have ever hoped for. And more than that, it’s correct.
Touché, Madame Ebert. Now I have to watch Stevie’s oeuvre all over again, because you’ve deepened my own understanding. And my boyish sense of wonder.
My peeps, I’m a lawyer who studied film and literature as an undergrad — in other words, I know how to sling BS with the best of ‘em. I’m thrilled that you fell for it.
Now can we get us some classic “Klaatu Barada Nikto” up on that big screen of yours? I think we need a review before the new version comes out this spring.
Roy makes an effort, but it’s obvious from the get-go that he has no aptitude and only role-imposed motivations for fatherhood. His two sons are normal for their ages, that is to say, self-centered, cruel, destructive and heedless; his wife wants desperately to fit in and has the intellectual curiosity of a stump – but one can’t fault her for dumping Roy. Did he just give up? Well, yes, but only after his two sons and his wife abandoned him first. Too bad about the little girl…
He’s the worst dad. Don’t get me wrong, I love this move, I have watched it countless times, but he basically absconds and abandons his children. It’s the ultimate fugue, and we’re supposed to accept it because he’s a child at heart, he loves magic and Disney and gnomes… He leaves his kids and never pays child support; he’s a glorified dead-beat dad.
I do wonder, though, which is how I found this sight- what happened to Roy Neary? If there’s any justice, he’s the organ-player’s supper.