Movie, She Wrote: E.T. and Melissa Mathison
Did you know that many of your favourite film classics were written by women? Here's the first in a newsletter mini-series looking back at some of our favourites.
We tend to think of E.T. as belonging to Steven Spielberg.
After all, he directed the film, and the idea began with him on the set of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. But, there’s more to the story. The science-fiction fable that cemented Spielberg’s status as a leading Hollywood director was written by a woman called Melissa Mathison.
Let’s go back to 1980 when Spielberg was filming Raiders of the Lost Ark in Tunisia. At the time, he was playing with an idea in his head – a story about an alien that gets stuck on Earth and befriends a family.
On a day when heat rippled across the desert, and Harrison Ford and hundreds of male extras in German uniforms prepared for a scene, he spotted a lone woman picking through the sand. Intrigued, he went over to ask what she was doing.
“You know, this used to be the ocean floor and look at all these fossils…” she said, still studying the ground. This was Melissa: captured by detail and absorbed in the moment, undaunted by the scene around her and the person addressing her.
“The thing about Melissa was, she could just watch the traffic of everyday things speed by her, which was just fine with her because in her life she preferred to stroll. Moviemaking is often a lot of thunder and lightning, and Melissa was always the calm eye of the storm.”
Steven Spielberg on Melissa Mathison
Melissa’s tendency for understating surfaced as they chatted. She described herself as ‘Harrison’s friend’ (they were later married and had two children) and ‘a failed writer’ (she had written several scripts and one – Black Stallion – happened to be one of Spielberg’s favourite films).
Before the conversation was over, Spielberg had asked her to write E.T. with him. (You read a lot about Spielberg and his collaborative instincts, but that’s fast. Melissa was serene, contemplative and POWERFUL - love it.)
She turned him down.
After Harrison discussed with Melissa and Spielberg pitched once again, she reconsidered, and she and Spielberg got straight to work. They threw ideas around and developed the story right there on set, then Melissa went away for six weeks to write the script. It came back pitch perfect, with virtually no revisions.
In interviews, Melissa was quick to credit an important source of inspiration. Her ideas for E.T.’s powers, such as his ability to heal, came from a trusted source: she spoke to children!
She wasn’t yet a mother but had a natural connection with children and would listen carefully as they talked - so she didn’t write them as the precocious/angelic stereotypes that had come before in Hollywood. She wrote them as real kids - maybe that’s why we all related to the characters and why E.T.’s story touched so many?
If you want to hear from Mathison herself, check out this 1982 interview for E.T. - she has a great sense of fun and good vibes. (Watch from 1:45 to see what she thought about if a man had written the film…).
Who loved watching E.T. as a kid? Did she get the children’s voices right?
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Seems like a life attitude to aspire to!!
Love, love love!!!!