The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
85
The original concept for the movie was going to be something akin to
Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Herzlinger: And you know what’s amazing, something I’ve learned as a
filmmaker is how organic the process is. Every time you make a movie you
make three different movies. You make the movie that’s on the page, you make
the movie that you’re shooting on the day, and then you make the movie that
you’re editing in post. And they’re three different beasts entirely.
In the first stage, you can have The Wizard of Oz; by the second stage
you’ve got Basic Instinct; and by the third stage you’ve got Silence of the
Lambs. They are three separate entities, and that’s one of the things I love
as a filmmaker and as a film fan, is how organic the process and the experience
is.
Getting back to E.T., when I left that theater, I just wanted to go in again.
I’ve never done any drugs in my life, but I think that is what an addiction
feels like.
E.T. also has the biggest emotional range of any film I can think of.
Herzlinger: You experience every emotion and every fraction of any emotion
we’re capable of feeling in that movie.
It’s one of two movies where, culturally, it’s OK for men to cry. There’s
E.T., and there’s Old Yeller.
Herzlinger: You’re absolutely right. I’ve seen my dad cry twice in my lifetime.
One is when we had to put my dog to sleep. The other is when he was
watching E.T.
I didn’t understand what I was feeling when I watched it the first time,
but through the years as you grow up, you understand. These are images of
light, color, light, and sound that are being projected on a flat screen that are
making you feel emotions that maybe you haven’t felt in years. Or, if you’re
at a Spielberg film, and you have the great fantasies that made me want to
make movies in the first place.
It allows you to escape from your life for two hours and go on a ride, go
on a journey that you can’t otherwise experience. Sure, you can read a book
and escape and go into that world of a book. You’re creating that world in
your own imagination. It’s wonderful, it’s great. For me, the idea of seeing