The Power of the Reaction Shot
So, what’s the rule? It’s astonishingly simple: show the reaction before you show the cause. For Spielberg, the most powerful tool for conveying wonder isn’t a state-of-the-art special effect; it’s the human face. He understands that before we, the audience,
can feel awe, we need to see someone else feeling it first. He delays the reveal of the alien, the spaceship, or the supernatural event, and instead focuses his camera on the wide-eyed, jaw-dropped faces of his characters. This technique, sometimes called the “Spielberg Face,” does more than just build suspense. It acts as an emotional permission slip. By showing us a character’s unfiltered astonishment, he tells us it’s okay to feel that way, too. He grounds the extraordinary in a relatable, human experience, making the eventual spectacle feel earned and infinitely more resonant.
Close Encounters of the Awestruck Kind
Nowhere is this rule more brilliantly applied than in 1977’s *Close Encounters of the Third Kind*. For most of the film, the aliens are little more than dazzling, mysterious lights in the sky. We don’t see a single extraterrestrial being until the film’s final minutes. Instead, Spielberg builds his entire narrative around the human obsession they inspire. We watch Richard Dreyfuss’s Roy Neary frantically sculpt a mysterious shape out of mashed potatoes, his face a mask of desperate confusion and inspiration. We see little Barry Guffin toddle out of his house, his face lit up with an innocent, angelic glow as the alien mothership approaches. The film’s most iconic moments are not of alien hardware, but of human faces gazing upward, their expressions shifting from fear to pure, unadulterated wonder. By the time the ship finally lands and its peaceful occupants emerge, we’re not just watching a spectacle; we’re sharing a moment of profound contact that the characters have been chasing all along.
E.T. and the Child’s-Eye View
Five years later, Spielberg refined this technique to perfection with *E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial*. The film is a masterclass in perspective. It’s told almost entirely from the point of view of a lonely child, Elliott. For the first act, E.T. is a shadow, a rustle in the cornfield, a mysterious presence in the tool shed. We experience the alien through Elliott’s fear, curiosity, and eventual empathy. The magic isn’t just that there’s an alien in the suburbs; it’s in the secret bond that forms between boy and creature. Think of the scene where Elliott coaxes E.T. out with Reese's Pieces. The tension and magic come from the quiet, hesitant interaction, not from a flashy creature reveal. Spielberg keeps his camera low, at a child’s eye level, reinforcing that this is their story. The government adults are menacing, faceless figures seen only from the waist down. The magic is in the friendship, and the friendship is what makes us believe in, and care for, a strange little brown alien with a glowing heart.
Why It’s More Than Just a Trick
This focus on humanity isn't just a clever cinematic trick; it’s a philosophy. So many other alien films, from *Alien* to *Independence Day*, focus on the threat, the otherness, and the horror of the unknown. They show you the monster early to establish the stakes. Spielberg’s approach is fundamentally more optimistic. He suggests that our first contact with the unknown doesn’t have to be terrifying. It can be a moment of grace, connection, and wonder. By prioritizing the human reaction, he taps into our own capacity for imagination and empathy. He lets our minds fill in the blanks, making the eventual reveal a collaborative experience between filmmaker and audience. We’re not just passively watching a UFO; we are, for a moment, the person on the side of the road staring up at it, our hearts pounding with a mixture of fear and hope. That shared emotion is the secret ingredient that makes his films feel less like movies and more like memories.
