Steven Spielberg Explains at TCM Film Festival How ‘Close Encounters’ and His Parents’ Divorce Inspired ‘E.T.’ (Video)

thewrap.com:

TCM Film Festival, as well as how “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” directly inspired the story for the emotional sci-fi drama.Spielberg was in conversation with Ben Mankiewicz for nearly half an hour, kicking off the discussion with his experience of working with Joan Crawford on the TV series “Night Gallery.” Of working with Crawford, Spielberg said, “She was not Mommie Dearest.” The Oscar-winning filmmaker then discussed the making of his first big hit “Jaws” (the film went 100 days over schedule), before talking about how his 1977 film “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” inspired the story for “E.T.”“I had been working on an actual literal script about my parents’ separation and divorce, and I had been working on ideas about that and what it did to my sisters and myself, and this was back in 1976 when I was actually filming ‘Close Encounters,’” Spielberg began, before talking about a moment of inspiration while shooting the scene in which the aliens come out of the ship.“We’re shooting this scene and I suddenly thought wait a second, what if that little creature never went back to the ship?

What if the creature was part of a foreign exchange program? Dreyfuss goes, he stays or she stays. And what was the feeling that I had: what if I turn my story about divorce into a story about children, a family, trying to fill the great need and creating such responsibility – a divorce creates great responsibility especially if you have siblings, we all take care of each other.