The “genius” director Denis Villeneuve called “my first cinema crush”
Considered one of the modern masters of science fiction, Denis Villeneuve has taken the directorial reigns on several of the biggest sci-fi movies in recent times. They include 2016’s Arrival starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner, Blade Runner 2049, the follow-up to Ridley Scott’s 1982 original starring Ryan Gosling and the recent adaptation of Frank Herbert’s epic Dune.
Villeneuve has also taken the lead on many films outside of the science fiction genres too, though, such as the action thriller Sicario, the psychological thriller Prisoners and his early film Polytechnique, Incendies and Enemy. Quite simply, Villeneuve is one of the biggest directors around right now.
One director that Villeneuve is in great admiration of is Steven Spielberg. He once told IndieWire that he considers the American filmmaker to be a “genius director” because it’s Spielberg’s films that provide some of the “big[gest] artistic shocks” of the movie medium compared to some of his contemporaries.
Of particular interest to Villeneuve is Spielberg’s 1977 classic science fiction drama Close Encounters of the Third Kind. While Villeneuve loved the film in general, he also found a deep admiration for it because Spielberg cast French new wave director Francois Truffaut in it, which introduced him to the genre.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind was written and directed by Spielberg and, alongside Truffaut, starred Richard Dreyfuss, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr and Bob Balaban. It tells of Roy Neary, just your average blue-collar working American, whose life is changed forever when he has an encounter with a UFO.
Spielberg had wanted to make the film for several years before he struck a deal with Columbia Pictures to actually produce it. He was joined by a talented group of screenwriters, including Paul Schrader, John Hill and David Glier, among a few others.
In 2017, Villeneuve told the Toronto Film Critics Association of his love for Spielberg and how it developed from a young age. He said, “I was raised in a small village in Quebec, so mostly in this part of the world, the cinema I was in contact with was American cinema.”
Villeneuve continued, “So I remember where I discovered the job of director when I was suddenly attracted to the movies of someone specific, and why him? Why was he such a strong storyteller? There was a mark of an artist there. And it was Spielberg. So as a kid, I was inspired by Spielberg very early. That was my first cinema crush!”
