Contact (film)

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Contact

Contact Promotional Movie Poster
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Produced by Steve Starkey
Robert Zemeckis
Written by James V. Hart and Michael Goldenberg (screenplay)
Carl Sagan (novel and story)
Ann Druyan (story)
Starring Jodie Foster
Matthew McConaughey
James Woods
John Hurt
Tom Skerritt
and
Angela Bassett
Music by Alan Silvestri
Cinematography Don Burgess
Editing by Arthur Schmidt
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date(s) July 11, 1997 U.S. release
Running time 153 minutes
Language English
Budget $90,000,000[1]
Gross revenue $171,000,000[2]
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Contact is a 1997 science fiction film adapted from the novel by Carl Sagan. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, it stars Jodie Foster as Dr. Eleanor Ann Arroway, Matthew McConaughey as Palmer Joss, James Woods as National Security Advisor Michael Kitz, and Tom Skerritt as Dr. David Drumlin.

The story follows the relentless efforts of the film's main protagonist, Dr. Eleanor Arroway, or "Ellie," to advance research with the SETI project and search for evidence of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence by listening for contact via radio astronomy, something which she feels would be the greatest possible human achievement "for the history of history". The film explores what might happen if such contact indeed were made, and the enormous difficulties the human race might encounter in coming to understand that contact, with significant internal conflict occurring in differences over culture, religion, politics, and human perception as the story plays out. Sagan also explores what kind of message a much older alien civilization might hold for humanity in its fledging steps to join an interstellar community of sentient beings.

Contents

[edit] Plot

The film opens with a montage shot of Earth in space, with a loud background noise made up of radio and television signals from recent years. As the camera tracks backwards at impossible speed the transmissions become older, until the camera loses sight of Earth, the Solar system, and the Milky Way in a vast, silent universe.

The main protagonist, Ellie Arroway, is introduced as a child, fascinated by amateur radio. After Ellie asks her father whether humans can talk to other planets, and whether there are other civilizations, the scene changes to Arroway in her late 20s, a brilliant scientist and researcher working on the SETI program. While working at Arecibo, she meets Palmer Joss, a Christian theology student researching a book on science's impact on the Third World. Despite her commitment to the SETI project, Arroway is ridiculed by her former teacher, Dr. David Drumlin, who shuts down the project.

Ellie spends the next thirteen months trying to find a new source of funding for her research and succeeds in obtaining a large grant from the reclusive billionaire industrialist S.R. Hadden (John Hurt). Leasing time from the Very Large Array of radio telescopes in New Mexico, Ellie and her colleagues spend the next four years combing the skies until she detects a powerful signal of extraterrestrial origin coming from the star Vega composed of prime numbers, something which could not have happened randomly in nature.

Arroway sees the Hitler footage from Vega.
Arroway sees the Hitler footage from Vega.

Government and military officials descend on Ellie's project, intent on taking control of it and displeased with the open announcement of the discovery. During arguments, one of Ellie's team members finds a complex interlaced data structure woven into the sequence of prime numbers. They discover that a sideband of additional data is interlaced with a television image, with video footage of Adolf Hitler making his opening speech at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin; apparently an extraterrestrial intelligence had received this early human broadcast and transmitted it back to earth.

The team also discovers that what was thought to be background noise amongst the frames of the Hitler footage is actually tens of thousands of pages of data written in an alien language. For some time the team is stumped by the language, but Hadden supplies Ellie with a way to decipher the data, interpreting it as a three-dimensional blueprint for some sort of mechanical device. Later, Ellie travels to a White House Cabinet meeting to discuss theories on what the machine does, and whether or not it should be built. Ellie believes the machine is a communication or transport device which might take a person to Vega, while several officials worry that the machine is an alien weapon or Trojan Horse. Ellie finds support from Palmer Joss, who has become the personal religious adviser to President Clinton, who decides to authorize the building of the machine.

Construction begins at Cape Canaveral on "The Machine," supported financially by an international lobby. A committee of scientists, philosophers, theologians, and politicians is formed to select a candidate for the journey. Dr. Drumlin and Dr. Arroway become the main American contestants for the "machine seat." During questioning, Ellie is forced by Palmer to reveal her atheism, and as a result, Drumlin is eventually chosen to make the journey. However, during the day of the Machine's first test, a religious cult leader infiltrates the site and commits a suicide bombing, killing dozens including Drumlin and completely destroying The Machine.

Later, S.R. Hadden again surprises Ellie by revealing to her the existence of a second Machine, secretly ordered and built by his corporation in Hokkaidō, Japan, and tells her that the International Machine Consortium still wants her to go on the journey.

Ellie travels to Hokkaidō, where Palmer meets her and reveals that his acts at the committee hearing were influenced not entirely by his beliefs but also by his personal fear of losing her. Ellie enters the Machine and it is activated, creating a massive energy vortex in the core of the machine through which Ellie's transport pod passes. Inside, Ellie travels at immense speed through a series of wormholes, eventually losing consciousness. She awakens on a beach that resembles childhood drawings she had made of the beach at Pensacola. An entity approaches her which slowly takes the form of her deceased father. Ellie realizes the experience is not real, and that the aliens have created the environment after downloading her thoughts and memories. She talks briefly with the alien, who explains there are many more civilizations in space. Ellie wants to take proof back with her to earth, but is told this is the way it has been for billions of years. When the alien senses Ellie's desperation, he comforts her, adding that in the immensity of space, "the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other."

Ellie wakes up inside the transport pod and is told that the pod had simply dropped through the Machine without going anywhere. Opinion divides over whether she had actually made the journey or hallucinated it, and an enormous political firestorm erupts. Later, at a congressional hearing led by Michael Kitz, Arroway admits that she has no evidence but asserts that the journey really took place. Ironically she asks them to take on faith the event happened. The congressional panel appears unmoved, going so far as to suggest that the transmission was nothing but an elaborate hoax concocted by Hadden, who has since passed away from cancer. Ellie leaves the hearing with Palmer, and is amazed to find a crowd of 'believers' gathered in front of the building. Later, in private, Kitz and the White House chief of staff discuss the interesting fact that Arroway's video headset, which she had worn during her journey, contained blank static, but had recorded approximately 18 hours of static, the same amount of time Arroway claimed she was gone. Though the information is suppressed, Kitz is pressured by the chief of staff and agrees to continue to fund Ellie's SETI work. Ellie returns to the radio-telescope array back in New Mexico, and is seen motivating young children on a school trip, in order to keep on believing that everything is possible and that there is a high chance that, there are worlds "out there".

[edit] Cast

[edit] Production

[edit] Development

Sagan had intended Eleanor Arroway's story to be a movie even before he published the novel of Contact in 1985; the book had its origins in a 60-page film treatment Sagan wrote with his wife, Ann Druyan, from 1980-81.[3] Though the author had been interested in the movies since the 1960s, when he advised Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke during the making of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and he had talked with Francis Ford Coppola about "the possibility of making a film about alien contact,"[4] the movie version of Contact would languish in various stages of pre-production for more than a decade before finally getting made.

Sagan, Druyan, and film producer Lynda Obst spent hundreds of hours discussing how Contact could be adapted for the screen, in conversations that were tape-recorded and to which Sagan biographer Keay Davidson later received access. Davidson wrote, "These transcripts make enthralling reading [and] show how seriously these bright, enthusiastic, middle-aged children of postwar America and the 1960s wanted to make a movie that would intellectually entice viewers."[4] Along with conducting scientist think tanks and talking to female scientists about sexism in the field, the discussions included how scientifically complex the final film could be. Scientific accuracy was crucial in Sagan's mind; Druyan later said that, whenever they were watching a movie together and the filmmakers made a scientific error, Sagan would sarcastically ask, "Couldn't they afford to hire a graduate student?"[4]

After years in limbo (Obst lost control of the project in the early 1980s, and she didn't begin working on it again until she was hired at Warner Bros., who owned the rights), the project was greenlit in 1993, with George Miller attached to direct.[1] Jodie Foster signed on to play Ellie after reading the screenplay's second draft, and Ralph Fiennes was approached for the role of Palmer Joss.[1]

Warner Bros. had hoped to release the film by Christmas 1996, but after Miller asked several times to push back production, the studio fired him.[1] Druyan later told Entertainment Weekly that "Warner Bros. finally came to the conclusion that George would make a great movie, but [that] it wouldn't be ready until after the millennium." Robert Zemeckis (who had been offered the project before Miller) took the project over, making a series of quick decisions: he changed the ending, kept Foster, and cast Matthew McConaughey as Joss. Carl Sagan died during the film's production, just seven months before its release.

[edit] Adaptation

Carl Sagan, author of Contact
Carl Sagan, author of Contact

Although the film remained relatively true to the plot of the original novel, it differed from the original book in several notable respects. In the novel, for example, five scientists undertake the journey in the "machine," whereas in the film Ellie takes the journey alone. In the novel there is a female President in office, but the film uses footage of then-President Bill Clinton. Much of the characterization and dialogue of the President in the novel (including, with a few small changes, the memorable line "Twenty million people died defeating that son of a bitch, and he's our first ambassador to outer space?") was transferred to the Presidential advisor played by Angela Bassett. Due to the movie being made after the fall of the Soviet Union, the novel's subplot of a Cold War-era world united by the message (and the character of a Russian scientist with whom Ellie has a turbulent friendship) was dropped.

Also, in the novel, the destruction of the first Machine is due to sabotage, while in the the film this is dramatized to be a suicide bombing by a religious cult leader identified as "Joseph." This character may be based on a fundamentalist religious leader from the novel, Billy Jo Rankin, who vigorously opposed the construction of the Machine on theological grounds.

In the novel, Ellie has a sporadic romance with Presidential science advisor Ken van der Heer. The filmmakers left der Heer out entirely and "seriously discussed characters as varied as David Drumlin and the Russian scientist who collected dirty playing cards" as Ellie's love interest before settling on Palmer Joss, played in the film by Matthew McConaughey. The end of the novel does hint at the possibility of a relationship between Ellie and Palmer for the future. Ellie's character remains the lead, in a role reversal that inspired Foster to quip, of McConaughey, "He's got the girl's part."[1] In the novel, Joss plays a much smaller role, though he does send Ellie a talisman shortly before she goes on board the machine (a pendulum in the novel and a compass in the movie). McConaughey, who is religious, refused to deliver his character's line "My God was too small," telling Druyan that it was sacrilegious.[4]

Obst has said that the studio sent her notes warning her against "nerdifying" Ellie and, eventually, the novel's coda (in which Ellie discovers a hidden message deep within the digits of pi) was dropped, partly because executives thought that "pi would be too difficult a concept to explain to a mass audience."[4] Ideas that were discussed (and rejected) as possible replacement endings included a spectacular finale in which a light show in the sky is created by the extraterrestrials to prove their existence, and an ending in which Ellie (who, as the machine is taking off in the novel, thinks to herself she wishes she had had a baby) gives birth to a child.

[edit] The Machine

The Machine itself underwent a radical redesign from its novel counterpart:

  • In the novel, it is described as a dodecahedron-shaped vessel wrapped inside of three separate-free-floating spherical shells called benzels (the largest outer shell being approximately 30' in diameter), with a single hatch along the top of each segment. The Machine was also both built inside of- and activated from- a large hangar bay; which took the better part of ten years from when the US President authorized its construction to when it is activated. Through complex descriptions of what each part of the machine is and how it operates (or is thought to operate), the inner vessel remains stationary while the three outer shells counter-rotate perpendicular to each other along each axis (X, Y, and Z). Three Machines are built- one by the United States (which is sabotaged), one by Russia (which is plagued by malfunctions and never used), and a third one in Hokkaidō, Japan which was finally used. There is enough room inside for five occupants in cushioned seats which face each other. When the Machine arrives at its destination, the hatch opens automatically, and all five passengers exit the Machine onto a sandy beach. Later, they re-enter the Machine, and it automatically returns to Earth.
The film's (second) Machine in operation at Hokkaidō.
The film's (second) Machine in operation at Hokkaidō.
  • By contrast, the Machine design in the film is composed of two parts- a very large, crane-like structure standing well over 300ft-tall, and the smaller rigged traveling capsule which will make the trip to its final destination. Two identical copies are assembled, one at the Kennedy Space Center and another in Hokkaidō, Japan. Each machine consists of three massive rotating rings, supported at their points of rotation by large pillars. Directly aside the ringed complex is a tall crane with a long boom, which suspends the small travel capsule directly above the rings. The cage-like framework structure around the spherical capsule is also shaped like a dodecahedron. A retractable bridge extends to the side of the capsule leading to a wide circular hatch. When the capsule's hatch door is closed, the edge seams disappear, sealing in the occupant inside. When powered up, the Machine's rings spin up to high speed, generating a bright wormhole effect at the center of their orbits. The travel capsule is then dropped into the center of the rings, entering the wormhole. As the capsule returns to Earth, it continues the fall through the rings, landing a catch net. While the occupant of the capsule observes an hours-long journey through a series of wormholes to a distant location, it appears to the outside observer as though the travel capsule simply dropped straight through the rings to land in the net, with no extra time elapsing.
    • Ellie is never shown exiting or re-entering the Machine capsule in the film; she merely appears floating over the beach until she touches the sand.

Since construction of the novel's Machine takes so long, and requires new technologies and materials to be developed, world industries are revolutionized during this time, including the formation of several Earth-orbit space stations which contain thousands of individuals each. In contrast, the construction timeframe is much narrower in the film and there is no mention of the benefits of using alien technology in other applications.

Things that are consistent between the novel and film Machine designs-

  • The walls of the Machine are made of solid, opaque materials. However, when activated, the walls fade and the environment outside can be easily viewed.
  • The capsules are both based on dodecahedrons.
  • Both Machines incorporate three concentric, round objects that counter-spin perpendicular to each other; one stacked inside the other.
  • In the climax of both the film and novel, the traveler(s) return to Earth, awed by their journeys and are anxious to share what they have seen. However, no one outside of the Machine's effect sees anything significant happen. In the novel, the Machine's sphere shells spin up to speed, and then automatically slow down after a few moments; in the film, the travel capsule simply falls through the bright effect, and lands in the netting as if nothing had happened.
  • Though the traveler(s) bring electronic recording devices with [them], all are immediately erased by the effects of wormhole travel, making them useless as evidence of any voyage or their time on the beach. (However, while the recording device in the film shows nothing but static, the length of the blank recording is noted to be consistent with the length of the trip perceived by Ellie.)
  • No attempt is made to use the Machine again after its 'failure to perform as anticipated.'

[edit] Effects

The special effects of Contact were produced by both Sony Pictures Imageworks as well as Peter Jackson's Weta Digital. Typical of Zemeckis' work, the effects work was intensive, in what was a first for Foster. She later said, when asked about working in front of a bluescreen, "It was a blue room. Blue walls, blue roof. It was just blue, blue, blue. And I was rotated on a lazy Susan with the camera moving on a computerized arm. It was really tough."[1] The elaborate effects were well-received upon Contact's release, garnering nominations for several awards, including a Saturn Award and Annie Award, and winning the 1998 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. The film also received a nomination in the Academy Awards for Best Sound. Among the film's more notable effects scenes:

  • The movie opens with a scale view, lasting approximately three minutes, of the entire Universe. It begins by tracking away from the Earth and through the solar system, through the Oort Cloud, then through the nebulae and stars in the galaxy, away from the Milky Way, through the Large Magellanic Cloud, through Andromeda, and through billions of other galaxies, finally ending up by coming out of the eye of young Ellie. The effect is accompanied by slight anachronisms in the audio, which are meant to emphasize the observer's distance from Earth by juxtaposing the tracking shot with radio transmissions that travel at the speed of light and were produced years or decades before the present. Close to Earth, modern-day radio chatter is heard; but as the "spacecraft" passes Saturn, which is approximately one light-hour from Earth, we hear Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech (1963), even though the film is set in the "present day" (1997). The radio transmission of the speech would, in fact, have reached the stars Pollux and Arcturus by then. Also, there is a minor "astrographical" error in the sequence. When the camera passes through the Eagle Nebula, the three distinctive columns are shown as we see them from earth, not as they would be seen in a pull back of that magnitude. When passing by Mars, the "face" can be seen.
  • News footage of then-President Bill Clinton was used and digitally altered to make it appear as if he is speaking about alien contact. This was not the original plan for the film; Zemeckis had actually asked Sidney Poitier to play the President. Soon after Poitier turned the role down,[1] Zemeckis saw a NASA announcement in August 1996 featuring then-President Bill Clinton. "Clinton gave his Mars rock speech," the director later explained, "and I swear to God it was like it was scripted for this movie. When he said the line 'We will continue to listen closely to what it has to say,' I almost died. I stood there with my mouth hanging open."[1] Zemeckis incorporated the Clinton speech into the film, and the altered footage caused a controversy both from the White House and from news organizations, over the ethics of fictionalizing such footage.[5][6]
  • Jena Malone, who played Young Ellie, has dark brown eyes, while Jodie Foster has blue eyes. Rather than have Malone wear blue contact lenses, computerized colorization was used to make her brown eyes blue.
  • In the scene where young Ellie fetches her dad's medicine, she runs around a corner, up a flight of stairs, around another 90° corner, and down a hallway towards a bathroom medicine cabinet with a mirror on its door. In an unusually smooth transition, the film switches from point-of-view of the camera to a view of the reflection on the bathroom mirror in mid-hallway.
  • In the scene before Ellie descends to the beach, six different emotional performances (happy, sad, afraid, etc.) of Foster and one of Malone are composited over each other.
  • In the scene on the beach with Ellie and her "father," the water appears to only recede from the sand; there are no waves approaching the beach.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Cover story: Making Contact. Benjamin Svetkey, Entertainment Weekly (1997-07-18). Retrieved on 2007-02-06.
  2. ^ Contact (1997). Box Office Mojo. Retrieved on 2007-09-24.
  3. ^ Sagan, Carl. Contact: A Novel. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985. p. 432.
  4. ^ a b c d e Davidson, Keay. Carl Sagan: A Life. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1999.
  5. ^ http://web.archive.org/web/20031105101908/
  6. ^ http://www.parascope.com/articles/slips/fs_184.htm

[edit] External links

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v • d • e
Films directed by Robert Zemeckis
1970s
1980s
1990s
Back to the Future Part III (1990) · Death Becomes Her (1992) · Forrest Gump (1994) · Contact (1997)
2000s
What Lies Beneath (2000) · Cast Away (2000) · The Polar Express (2004) · Beowulf (2007) · A Christmas Carol (2009)