My Life at the Movies 11.18.08: 1982 - E.T.
Posted by DC Perry on 11.18.2008
In the middle of a young boy's dream...
Don't wake me up too soon...
Gonna take a ride across the moon...
You and me...
Ah, 1982. We're starting to close in on real time, as far as my movie viewing is concerned. This was the year I saw my first movie. Believe it or not, Gentle Reader Born After 1990, once upon a time, if you wanted to see a movie, you had to leave the house. And if you missed seeing it, you were screwed. The movie theater in my town was a converted "real theater" (which has since been converted back), so going to the movies was a great big Annie-style production when I was a kid. My first movie, not counting the previously mentioned drive-in double feature of Clash of the Titans and Rocky III, was Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. I slept with my hands over my ears for weeks – who the hell am I kidding, I still sleep with my hands over my ears. Those things freaked me out. Part of me wants to choose Star Trek II as the best movie of the year for purely nostalgic reasons, but that would be unfair. Plus I'm going to do it in a later column, so I'm trying to build up goodwill. Other great films from 1982 include Blade Runner (a tough one to pass over, as it's also a personal favorite), Tootsie, Poltergeist, Gandhi, and An Officer and a Gentleman. But for the pure wonder and magic that trumps 1982's other offerings, we need only look to the poetic words of the Jewish Elvis himself, Neil Diamond, and just turn on our heart lights. That's right. Let it shine wherever you go.
Recap!
1982 at a Glance
US President: Ronald Reagan
Median annual salary: $20,171
Gallon of gas: $1.30
Dozen eggs: $.84
New house: $83,900
New car: $9,890
Movie ticket: $2.94
Boston Red Sox: 89-73, third place, American League East
Me: First grade, rocking my 1979 Buck Rogers lunchbox
First things first. The more I watch movies from the 80s as an adult, the more I realize how many plots were predicated on benign parental neglect. Where would movies like Adventures in Babysitting, Back to the Future, Flight of the Navigator, The Goonies, or E.T. be with parents who took even the slightest interest in their kids' comings and goings? (I don't mention Ferris Beuller's Day Off, since it's basically a parody of exactly this sort of thing.) So 10-year-old Elliot (Henry Thomas) can wander off, play catch with an alien, spend the night outside in a sleeping bag waiting for said alien to reappear, and the only thing anyone even mentions to him is that he dropped the pizza; the pizza his mom (Mary, played in glorious oblivion by Dee Wallace) didn't even know his brother ordered and sent him to get. Mary's house isn't anyone's dream of suburbia, but it's no nightmare, either. They're getting by. She's a working single mom, with kids old enough to step up and pull their weight. Most parents in Mary's situation would demand it. I know I would. Michael (Robert MacNaughton), Elliot, and Gertie (Drew Barrymore) have had to grow up faster than others might, but they also have an innocence that lets them see E.T. for exactly what he is, thanks in no small part to Mary's refusal to grow up herself.
Grown ups can't see him. Only little kids can see him.
E.T. is a fairy tale. If it's not clear from the lopped-off-at-the-neck point of view all the adults are shot in (expect Mary, who's barely crossed the threshold out of childhood), it should be by the time Mary lies down to read Gertie a bedtime story. Peter Pan. I don't recommend trying to lay one story on top of the other and connect the dots (though some line up nicely), but at their hearts, they're the same kind of story. Michael refers to E.T. as an elf and a goblin several times before he meets him, but really, E.T. is a fae. He heals things, both vegetable and animal. He flies. He makes things fly. He finds a child and forms a special, unbreakable bond with him, and very nearly carries him out of the world forever. The world of grown ups, of course, has no love for the world of faerie, since it steals children and keeps them from growing into productive, useful adults. Though if they catch a fae, they'll be happy to study it. "They won't feel anything. They won't be hurt."
But they'll give it a lobotomy or do experiments on it or something.
Never mind the nonsense about the 20th anniversary edition replacing the federal agents' guns with walkie-talkies. Yes, it's screwing with a classic, and yes, Spielberg can't seem to help himself when it comes to this kind of junk. But it doesn't ruin the movie. Whether Elliot's in danger of being blasted off his bike by a shotgun or not, the real danger is in what the agents represent, not in what they hold. E.T. represents everything naïve, innocent, and hopeful in Elliot, and the federal agents are out to hunt them down and pull them apart. (Phillip Pullman takes this metaphor and runs wild with it in his His Dark Materials trilogy, though it's obviously been used before and will be used again.) But even though the federal agents have walkie-talkies and/or guns and drive big, scary vans, Elliot and E.T. have something the headless grown ups lost a long time ago. Hope.
We could grow up together, E.T.
There are great little in-jokes and references throughout the movie, like Elliot showing E.T. his Star Wars toys, several references to Yoda, and a potshot at the idea of being beamed aboard a space ship ("This is reality!"). Elliot falling all over himself in class while E.T. gets bombed on beers (kept on the bottom shelf of the fridge, I might point out) at home is classic slapstick. Mars, Inc. famously shot themselves in the foot by demanding payment before they would allow their M&Ms candies to be used in the film. Instead, Reece's Pieces flew off the shelves in 1982. As a kid, I dragged my feet through the living room if my parents were watching Entertainment Tonight, on the off chance that the E.T. they were talking about was my favorite rubber-necked alien. And we all got sick of hearing "E.T. phone home." And, of course, this movie spawned one of the worst video games of all time. But it reminded us that the world was a place full of wonder, and that if we stopped putting the groceries away for 10 seconds, we might find something amazing right under our noses. And of course, another brilliant score from John Williams doesn't hurt. This is the best movie of 1982.
