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Contact is a 1997 science fiction drama film directed by Robert Zemeckis and adapted from the Carl Sagan novel of the same name. Both Sagan and wife Ann Druyan wrote the story outline for the film adaptation of Contact and also served as co-producers. Jodie Foster portrays the film's protagonist, Dr. Ellie Arroway, a SETI scientist who finds conclusive radio proof of extraterrestrial life. Supporting roles are played by Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, Tom Skerritt, William Fichtner, John Hurt, Angela Bassett and David Morse.
gifted young child, Ellie Arroway is encouraged by her father Theodore to study amateur radio and the possibilities of extra-terrestrial communications.
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Quotations
But before I die, I would to give something back to the people of this Earth, who have given—from whom I have taken—so much.
I'm not against technology, doctor. I'm against the men who deify it at the expense of human truth.
If it's just us, it seems like an awful waste of space.
Mathematics is the only true universal language.
Some celestial event. No - no words. No words to describe it. Poetry! They should've sent a poet. So beautiful. So beautiful... I had no idea.
You could call me a man of the cloth, without the cloth.
Encyclopedia
Contact is a 1997 science fiction drama film directed by Robert Zemeckis and adapted from the Carl Sagan novel of the same name. Both Sagan and wife Ann Druyan wrote the story outline for the film adaptation of Contact and also served as co-producers. Jodie Foster portrays the film's protagonist, Dr. Ellie Arroway, a SETI scientist who finds conclusive radio proof of extraterrestrial life. Supporting roles are played by Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, Tom Skerritt, William Fichtner, John Hurt, Angela Bassett and David Morse.
Plot
As a gifted young child, Ellie Arroway is encouraged by her father Theodore to study amateur radio and the possibilities of extra-terrestrial communications. After her father passes away, Arroway continues her studies, completing her graduate degree under Dr. David Drumlin and becoming involved in the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. There, she meets Kent, a blind researcher who assists her by listening to the radio signals for patterns in the noise, and Palmer Joss, a Christian theology student who becomes romantically involved with Ellie. After some time, Drumlin decides to pull the funding from SETI, and Arroway is forced to find other sources of funding to continue the program. After eighteen months of searching, Arroway is able to gain funding from reclusive billionaire industrialist S.R. Hadden, allowing her to continue her program at the Very Large Array in New Mexico.
Four years later, with Drumlin applying pressure to close the program and money running low, Arroway finds a strong signal repeating a sequence of prime numbers from the Vega star. She and her team determine it is not natural. This announcement causes both Drumlin and the National Security Agency (NSA), led by Michael Kitz, to attempt to take control of the facility. As Arroway, Drumlin, and Kitz argue, Kent and the other team members discover that a video source is buried in the signal; this eventually resolves into footage of Adolf Hitlers welcoming address to the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. Though Arroway and her team postulate that this would have been the first television signal broadcast outside of Earth's atmosphere, and has been transmitted then relayed back from Vega, 26 light years away, the project is brought under tight security.
President Bill Clinton and Drumlin give a television address to downplay the impact of the Hitler image, while Arroway learns that a third set of data was found in the signal; over 60,000 "pages" of what appear to be technical drawings. Specialists are unsuccessful in attempting to decode the drawings. As Arroway returns home one night, she is contacted by Hadden, offering to meet her at a remote airport. Aboard his private plane, Hadden introduces himself to Arroway, and reveals that he has found the means to decode the message, as the pages are meant to be interpreted in three dimensions. Arroway gives this information to the decoding team, and the message is slowly deciphered, eventually revealing the workings of some machine which allows for one human occupant inside a pod to be dropped into three rapidly spinning rings, but its exact purpose unknown.
The nations of the world come together to fund the construction of The Machine at Cape Canaveral, and an international panel is put together to select one of nine candidates (including both Arroway and Drumlin) for the first run. While Arroway is one of the top selections, her lack of religious faith is called out by Joss, one of the panel members, and Drumlin is ultimately selected. During the first test run of the system, Joseph, a religious fanatic, detonates explosives on the Machine, killing himself and many crew members including Drumlin. The machine is destroyed. With the rest of the world unable to justify the cost of rebuilding the Machine, Arroway dejectedly returns home to find another message from Hadden, who has now taken residence on the Mir space station for medical reasons. Hadden shows Arroway that a second Machine was secretly constructed at Hokkaido, Japan at a much more secure facility, and that Arroway is the top candidate to travel in it.
In Hokkaido, Arroway is prepared for her journey, and outfitted with several recording devices. The Machine is successfully brought to full power and Arroway experiences travels through a series of wormholes, separated by a brief period of time where she can observe the outside environment, including a radio array-like structure at Vega. She sees signs of a highly-advanced civilization on some unknown planet. Arroway eventually finds herself in a surreal landscape similar to one of her childhood pictures of Pensacola, Florida, and approached by a blurry figure that resolves into that of her father. Arroway regains her thoughts and recognizes him as an alien taking her father's form, and attempts to ask several questions about the aliens. The alien does not answer these but simply points out that this journey was humanity's first small step to joining other intergalactic species, and more steps will come later. As Arroway considers these answers, she falls unconscious and finds herself at the bottom of the pod, with the control team trying to figure out if she is okay. She recovers, but learns that from all external vantage points, she or the pod never traveled anywhere and simply dropped through the Machine, despite Arroway insisting she was gone for 18 hours, and that her recording devices only show static.
Kitz resigns as the head of the NSA to lead a Congressional committee to determine if the Machine was all a fraud by Hadden, who had the resources to set up an elaborate hoax but has since passed away. Arroway is accused of collaborating with Hadden to waste trillions of dollars, but she asks them to accept her testimony on faith. As she leaves the committee, she is joined by Joss, and is cheered on by a crowd who believe in her story. As Kitz discusses the case with the White House chief of staff Rachel Constantine, Constantine notes that Arroway's recording devices contained 18 hours of static. Kitz concedes that Arroway's story may be true, and together, they give Arroway continued grant money for the SETI program. As the film closes, Arroway is shown at the Very Large Array describing the universe to a group of schoolchildren, telling them that the universe is so big that if it was just composed of us, it would be "an awful waste of space".
Cast
Production
Development
Carl Sagan conceived the idea for Contact in 1979. That same year, Lynda Obst, one of Sagan's closest friends, was hired by film producer Peter Guber to be a studio executive for his production company, Casablanca FilmWorks. She pitched Guber the idea for Contact, who immediately commissioned a development deal. Sagan, along with wife Ann Druyan, wrote a 100+ page film treatment, which they finished in November 1980. Druyan explained that "Carl's and my dream was to write something that would be a fictional representation of what contact would actually be like, that would convey something of the true grandeur of the universe." They added the science and religion analogies as a metaphor of philosophical and intellectual interest in searching for the truth of both humanity and alien contact. Sagan incorporated Kip Thorne's study of wormhole space travel into the screenplay. The characterization of Dr. Ellie Arroway was inspired from Dr. Jill Tarter, head of Project Phoenix of the SETI Institute; Jodie Foster researched her role by meeting Tarter. Although Guber was impressed with Sagan and Druyan's treatment, he hired various screenwriters to rewrite the script. New characters were added, one of them being a Native American park ranger-turned-astronaut.
Guber also suggested that Arroway have an estranged teenage son, whom he believed would add more depth to the storyline. "Here was a woman consumed with the idea that there was something out there worth listening to," Guber continued, "but the one thing she could never make contact with was her own child. To me, that's what the film had to be about." Sagan and Druyan disagreed with Guber's idea and it was not incorporated into the storyline. In 1982, Guber took Contact to Warner Bros. Pictures and with the film laboring in development hell, Sagan started to turn his original idea into a novel, which was published by Simon & Schuster in September 1985. The film adaptation remained in development and Guber eventually vacated his position at Warner Bros. in 1989.
Guber became the new president of Sony Pictures Entertainment and tried to purchase the film rights of Contact from Warners, but the studio refused. Coincidentally, in 1989, Obst was hired as a new executive at Warners and began to fast track the film, by hiring more writers. Roland Joffé was eventually hired to direct, using a screenplay by James V. Hart. Joffé almost commenced pre-production before he dropped out and Obst then hired Michael Goldenberg to rewrite the script, who finished his second draft in late-1993. Goldenberg's second draft rekindled Warner Bros.' interest in Contact and Robert Zemeckis was offered the chance to direct, but he turned down the opportunity in favor of making a film based on the life of Harry Houdini. "The first script [for Contact] I saw was great until the last page and a half," Zemeckis recalled. "And then it had the sky open up and these angelic aliens putting on a light show and I said, 'That's just not going to work.'"
In December 1993, Warner Bros. hired George Miller to direct and Contact was greenlighted to commence pre-production. Miller cast Jodie Foster in the lead role, approached Ralph Fiennes to play Palmer Joss and also considered casting Linda Hunt as the President of the United States. In addition of having aliens putting on a laser lighting display around Earth, another version of the Goldenberg scripts had an alien wormhole swallow up the planet, transporting Earth to the center of the galaxy. Miller also had Goldenberg rewrite Contact in an attempt to portray the Pope as a key supporting character. Warner Bros. was hoping to have the film ready for release by Christmas 1996, but under Miller's direction, pre-production lasted longer than expected.
The studio eventually fired the director, blaming pushed-back start dates, budget concerns and Miller insisting that the script needed five more weeks of rewriting. Robert Zemeckis, who previously turned down the director's position before Miller, then decided to accept the offer. Warner Bros. granted Zemeckis total artistic control and the right of final cut privilege. The director cast Matthew McConaughey as Palmer Joss, who dropped out of the lead role in The Jackal (which went to Bruce Willis) in favor of Contact. Despite being diagnosed with Myelodysplasia in 1994, Sagan continued to be involved in the production of the film. For the cast and main crew members, he conducted an academic conference that depicted a detailed history of astronomy.
Filming
Principal photography for Contact began at the Very Large Array (VLA) in Socorro, New Mexico on September 24, 1996. "Shooting at the VLA was, of course, spectacular but also one of the most difficult aspects of our filming," producer Steve Starkey said. "It is a working facility so in order for us to accomplish shots for the movie, we had to negotiate with the National Science Foundation for 'dish control' in order to move the dishes in the direction we needed to effect the most dramatic shot for the story." Following arduous first weeks of location shooting in New Mexico and Arizona, production for Contact returned to Los Angeles for five months' worth of location and sound stage shooting utilizing a total of nine different sound stages at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank and Culver Studios.
In an attempt to create a sense of realism for the storyline, principal CNN news outlet commentators were scripted into Contact. More than 25 news reporters from CNN had roles in the film and the CNN programs Larry King Live and Crossfire were also included. Ann Druyan makes a cameo appearance as herself, debating Rob Lowe's character, Richard Rank, on Crossfire. In January 1997, a second unit was sent to Puerto Rico for one week at the Arecibo Observatory. Filming ended on February 28, 1997, which constituted of the art department creating over 25 setpieces. Other second unit work took place in Fiji and Newfoundland. Also essential to the production were a host of technical consultants from the SETI Institute, the California Institute of Technology, the VLA and a former White House staff member to consult on Washington D.C. and government protocol issues.
Sagan visited the set a number of times, where he also helped with last minute rewrites. Filming was briefly delayed with the news of his death on December 20, 1996. Contact was dedicated in part to his legacy. Cinematographer Don Burgess shot the film in anamorphic format using VistaVision cameras. The sound designers used Pro Tools software for the audio mixing, which was done at Skywalker Sound.
Visual effects
Designing Contacts visual effects sequence was a joint effort between eight separate VFX companies. This included Sony Pictures Imageworks, Peter Jackson's Weta Digital, George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic and Effects Associates. Weta Digital, in particular, was responsible for designing the wormhole sequence. Jodie Foster admitted she had difficulty with blue screen technology because it was a first for the actress. "It was a blue room. Blue walls, blue roof. It was just blue, blue, blue," Foster explained. "And I was rotated on a Lazy Susan with the camera moving on a computerized arm. It was really tough." News footage of then-President Bill Clinton was 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 initially approached Sidney Poitier to play the President, but the actor turned the role down in favor of The Jackal.
Shortly after Poitier's refusal, Zemeckis saw a NASA announcement in August 1996. "Clinton gave his Mars rock speech," the director 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." One of the notable features of Contact is its use of digital color correction. This helped solve continuity errors during the location shooting at the Very Large Array in New Mexico. "The weather killed us, so we were going back in and changing it enough so that the skies and colors and times of day all seem roughly the same," visual effects supervisor Ken Ralston commented. The opening scale view shot of the entire Universe, lasting approximately three minutes, was inspired by the short documentary film Powers of Ten (1977). At the time, it was the longest continuous computer-generated effect for a live-action film, a distinction now held by the opening sequence from The Day After Tomorrow (2004).
The decoding of the extraterrestrial message, with its architectural drawings of the Machine, was created by Ken Ralston and Sony Pictures Imageworks. This is the sixth-film collaboration between director Zemeckis and VFX supervisor Ralston. Imageworks created over 350 visual effects shots, utilizing a combination of model and miniature shots and digital computer work. On designing the Machine, Zemeckis explained that "The Machine in Sagan's novel was somewhat vague, which is fine for a book. In a movie, though, if you're going to build a giant physical structure of alien design, you have to make it believable." He continued: "It had to be huge, so that the audience would feel like it was bigger than man should be tinkering with. It had to look absolutely real."
Early conceptual designs of the Pod itself were based, as it existed in the novel, on one of the primary shapes in geometry, a dodecahedron or a twelve-sided figure. Eventually the Pod was modified to a spherical capsule that encases the traveler. Zemeckis and the production crew also made several visits to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, where officials allowed them access to sites off-limits to most visitors. Filmmakers were also brought onto Launch Pad V prior to the launch of the space shuttle. There, they concentrated on the mechanics of the elevator and the gantry area and loading arm. The resulting photographs and research were incorporated into the design of the Machine's surrounding supports and gantry. Once the concept met with the filmmakers' approval, physical construction began on the sets for the Pod itself, the interior of the elevator and the gantry, which took almost four months to build. The remainder effects were compiled digitally by Imageworks.
Release
Box office/Home video
Contact had its premiere on July 1, 1997 at the Westwood Theater in Los Angeles, California. The film was released in the United States on July 11, 1997 in 1,923 theaters, earning $20,584,908 in its opening weekend. Contact eventually grossed $100.92 million in the US and $70.2 million in foreign countries, coming to a worldwide total of $171.12 million, passing the film's $90 million budget. With VHS release in early-December 1997, Contact earned an additional $49 million in rental figures. Warner Home Video released Contact on DVD later that month, containing two separate audio commentaries by director Robert Zemeckis, producer Steve Starkey, and visual effects supervisors Ken Ralston and Stephen Rosenbaum.
The release of Contact in July 1997 rekindled public interest of Sagan's 1985 novel. The book remained on the New York Times Best Seller list from July 27, 1997—September 21.
Critical analysis
Contact received a generally average-favorable response from critics. Based on 51 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, 65% of the critics enjoyed the film with an average score of 6.7/10. Contact was more balanced with 12 critics with the website's "Top Critics" poll, earning a 50% approval rating with a 6.3/10 score. By comparison, Metacritic calculated an average score of 62/100, based on 22 reviews. Roger Ebert gave a largely positive critique, believing Contact was on par with Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) to study Hollywood's most cinematic study of extraterrestrial life. "Movies like Contact help explain why movies like Independence Day leave me feeling empty and unsatisfied," Ebert commented.
Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film carried a more philosophical portrait of the science fiction genre compared to other films, but believed Contact still managed "to satisfy the cravings of the general public who simply want to be entertained," he said. Internet reviewer James Berardinelli called Contact "one of 1997's finest motion pictures, and is a forceful reminder that Hollywood is still capable of making magic." Berardinelli also felt the film was on par with Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) to be one of the greatest science fiction films ever made. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle largely enjoyed the first 90 minutes of Contact, but felt that director Robert Zemeckis was too obsessed with visual effects rather than cohesive storytelling for the pivotal climax. Rita Kempley, writing in The Washington Post, gave a largely negative review. She did not like the film's main premise, which Kempley described as "a preachy debate between sanctity and science."
Awards
Sound designers Randy Thom, Tom Johnson, Dennis S. Sands and William B. Kaplan were nominated the Academy Award for Sound but lost to Titanic. Jodie Foster was nominated the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama, but Judi Dench was awarded the category for her work in Mrs. Brown. Contact won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation over The Fifth Element, Gattaca, Men in Black and Starship Troopers. The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films awarded individual awards to Jodie Foster (Best Actress and Jena Malone (Best Performance by a Younger Actor at the 24th Saturn Awards. Director Robert Zemeckis, writers James V. Hart and Michael Goldenberg, film score composer Alan Silvestri and the visual effects supervisors also received Saturn Award nominations. Contact was nominated the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film, but lost to Men in Black.
Controversies
Bill Clinton and CNN
On July 14, 1997, three days after Contacts opening day release in the United States, Warner Bros. was sent a letter from the White House Counsel protesting the use of then-President Bill Clinton's digitally composited appearance. Charles Ruff, leader of the Counsel, made no demands to director Robert Zemeckis or Warner Bros. in terms of pulling release prints, film trailers or other marketing, but defined the length and manner of Clinton's appearance as "inappropriate". No legal action was planned; the White House Counsel simply wanted to send a message to Hollywood to avoid unauthorized uses of the President's image. Zemeckis was reminded that official White House policy "prohibits the use of the President in any way ... (that) implies a direct ... connection between the President and a commercial product or service."
A Warner Bros. spokeswoman explained that "we feel we have been completely frank and upfront with the White House on this issue. They saw scripts, they were notified when the film was completed, they were sent a print well in advance of the film's July 11 opening, and we have confirmation that a print was received there July 2." However, Warner Bros. did concede that they never pursued or received formal release from the White House for the use of Clinton's image. While the Counsel commented that parody and satire are protected under the First Amendment, press secretary Mike McCurry believed that "there is a difference when the President's image, which is his alone to control, is used in a way that would lead the viewer to believe he has said something he really didn't say."
Shortly after the White House's complaint, CNN chairman, president and CEO Tom Johnson announced he believed in hindsight that it was a mistake to allow 13 members of CNN's on-air staff (including Larry King and Bernard Shaw) to appear in the film, even though both CNN and Warner Bros. are owned by Time Warner. Johnson added that, in the case of Contact, the CNN presence "creates the impression that we're manipulated by Time Warner, and it blurs the line." CNN then changed their policies for future films, which now requires potential appearances to be cleared through their ethics group.
Lawsuits
Director George Miller, who had developed Contact with Warner Bros. before Zemeckis' hiring, unsuccessfully sued the studio over breach of contract policies.
During the filming of Contact on December 28, 1996, filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola filed a posthumous lawsuit against Carl Sagan and Warner Bros. Pictures. Sagan had passed away that December 20th, six days before Coppola filed his lawsuit. "All I can say is, when a man writes a complaint with his lawyer while your husband is dying after a third bone-marrow transplant," Ann Druyan, widow of Sagan, continued, "and then waits for him to die so he can file it - it's outrageous." Producer Lynda Obst commented: "Ann and Carl made up this idea from scratch, piece by piece. I sat in the room watching them do it. Of course Carl had been thinking about alien encounters all his life. He's the one who made the subject credible in science. And for Coppola to file a lawsuit within days after he died — it's appalling."
Scott Edelman, who represented Druyan, added, "... It exceeds all bounds of decency that after waiting over 20 years, he chose to sue Sagan six days after he died." Coppola claimed that Sagan's novel was actually based on a story the pair had developed for a television special back in 1975, titled First Contact. Under their development agreement, Coppola and Sagan were to split proceeds from the project with American Zoetrope and Children's Television Workshop Productions, as well as any novel Sagan would write. The TV program was never produced, but in 1985, Simon & Schuster published Contact and Warner Bros. moved forward with development of a film adaptation. Coppola sought to seek at least $250,000 in compensatory damages and an injunction against production or distribution of the film.
In February 1998, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ricardo Torres dismissed Coppola's claim. Although Torres agreed that Sagan violated some terms of the contract, he explained that Coppola waited too long to file his lawsuit, and that the contract might not be enforceable as it was written. Coppola then appealed his suit, taking it to The California Courts of Appeal (CCA). In April 2000, the CCA dismissed his suit, finding that Coppola’s claims were barred because they were brought too late. The court noted that it was not until 1994 when the filmmaker thought about suing over Contact.
Further reading
External links
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