THE UFO INCIDENT
US, 1975, 100 minutes, Colour.
James Earl Jones, Estelle Parsons, Barnard Hughes, Dick O’ Neill
Directed by Richard A. Colla.
The UFO Incident is an early American telemovie. It is based on alleged incidents from September 1961 in the White Mountains, New Hampshire. The film is based on the book, The Interrupted Journey, by John G. Fuller.
The film focuses on the experiences of Betty and Barney Hill – an interesting couple, especially in terms of race relationships, black and white, as the characters are played by James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons.
It was alleged that on their return from a trip to Canada, they had UFO experiences and consequently suffered anxiety and nightmares. The film shows them being taken by hypnosis into their memories and the experience of the UFO and the aliens visualised.
The film was released two years before Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Similar stories of abduction were told in such films as Fire in the Sky.
However, the strength of this film comes not so much from the themes but in the director’s attention to the characters of the two leads and spending a great deal of time establishing the quality of their relationship. This makes for an above average telemovie.
1. The quality of the film as a telemovie, as bringing a strange subject into many homes? Its role as arousal of audience interest, sense of identification?
2. The style of the film as a telemovie, the focus on the two main characters, the use of close-ups, especially for dialogue and interrogations? The use of locations to open out the psychological drama? The technique of cross cutting between memories, interviews, the hypnosis? How were audiences then involved in the incidents, the mystery, in the minds of Barney and Betty?
3. The film pointed out the historical data, gave names and dates. How authentic did this seem, why? The nature of the puzzle, audience presuppositions about UFOs? How authentic were the explanations given as regards the UFO's, the imaginations and the psyches of Barney and Betty? Technical explanations about fear in the 60's?
4. Audience interest in and possible identification with Barnie and Betty? Each individual in himself or herself, the nature of their marriage, previous marriages and the effect of the divorce and sense of guilt, their love for one another, their happiness?
5. The importance of the racial theme and intermarriage? The way that they could cope with their ordinary life? Their inability to cope with their UFO experience? The reaction on each of them individually, on their relationship, the need for seeking medical and psychiatric attention? What was the real nature of the incident, was it clear what happened? The importance of the memory of Barney and of Betty? the effect of memory in closing off the incident, in needing hypnotic help to bring it to the surface? The explanation of the basis of fear and of trauma, the possibility of creating the incident in the subconscious, the shared experience?
6. The presentation of the hypnotist and his credibility? The records kept, interviewing each of them independently, the nature of trauma, the hypnotist, the importance of the decision to watch the tapes together and integrate what they had said under hypnosis into their ordinary lives? The psychological effect of the relief of the psychiatric treatment?
7. How well did the structure of the film lead the audience through the experiences of Barney and Betty and the relief of their trauma?
8. The presentation of the UFO, the visualising of the aliens? The background of science fiction, popularity, films, stories, popular talk? The aliens as scapegoats for fears? What did Barney and Betty learn from the outside, from within? The object itself and their being taken in? Their treatment by the aliens? Is it possible for the human psyche to create this kind of fantasy?
9. Audience interest in the scientific background, science fiction? The melodrama of the incident itself?
10. How interesting an exploration of human nature, human psyche and psychology, psychotherapy? The therapeutic value for a home audience in watching this film?
