Contact is a 1997 American
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
drama filmA drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
adapted from the
Carl SaganCarl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer and science communicator in astronomy and natural sciences. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books...
novel of the same nameContact is a science fiction novel written by Carl Sagan and published in 1985. It deals with the theme of contact between humanity and a more technologically advanced, extraterrestrial life form. It ranked No. 7 on the 1985 U.S. bestseller list....
and directed by
Robert ZemeckisRobert Lee Zemeckis is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Zemeckis first came to public attention in the 1980s as the director of the comedic time-travel Back to the Future film series, as well as the Academy Award-winning live-action/animation epic Who Framed Roger Rabbit ,...
. Both Sagan and wife
Ann DruyanAnn Druyan is an American author and producer specializing in productions about cosmology and popular science. She made substantial contributions to the PBS documentary series, Cosmos, and was the wife of late scientist and educator, Carl Sagan.-Film career:Along with Carl Sagan and Steven Soter,...
wrote the story outline for the film adaptation of Contact.
Jodie FosterAlicia Christian "Jodie" Foster is an American actress, film director, producer as well as a former child actress....
portrays the film's
protagonistA protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
, Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway, a
SETIThe search for extraterrestrial intelligence is the collective name for a number of activities people undertake to search for intelligent extraterrestrial life. Some of the most well known projects are run by the SETI Institute. SETI projects use scientific methods to search for intelligent life...
scientist who finds strong evidence of
extraterrestrial lifeExtraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
and is chosen to make
first contactFirst contact is a common science fiction theme about the first meeting between humans and extraterrestrial life, or of any sentient race's first encounter with another one....
. The film also stars
Matthew McConaugheyMatthew David McConaughey is an American actor.After a series of minor roles in the early 1990s, McConaughey gained notice for his breakout role in Dazed and Confused . He then appeared in films such as A Time to Kill, Contact, U-571, Tiptoes, Sahara, and We Are Marshall...
,
James WoodsJames Howard Woods is an American film, stage and television actor. Woods is known for starring in critically acclaimed films such as Once Upon a Time in America, Salvador, Nixon, Ghosts of Mississippi, Casino, and in the television legal drama Shark. He has won three Emmy Awards, and has gained...
,
Tom SkerrittThomas Roy "Tom" Skerritt is an American actor who has appeared in over 40 films and more than 200 television episodes since 1962.-Early life:...
,
William FichtnerWilliam Edward Fichtner is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Sheriff Tom Underlay on Invasion, as Alexander Mahone on Prison Break, as William Sharp in Armageddon, and as Ken Rosenberg in the video games Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.- Early life...
,
John HurtJohn Vincent Hurt, CBE is an English actor, known for his leading roles as John Merrick in The Elephant Man, Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Braddock in The Hit, Stephen Ward in Scandal, Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant and An Englishman in New York...
,
Angela BassettAngela Evelyn Bassett is an American actress. She has become well known for her biographical film roles portraying real life women in African American culture, including singer Tina Turner in the motion picture What's Love Got to Do with It, as well as Betty Shabazz in the films Malcolm X and...
and
David MorseDavid Bowditch Morse is an American stage, television, and film actor. He first came to national attention as Dr. Jack Morrison in the medical drama St. Elsewhere from 1982 to 1988...
.
Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan began working on the film in 1979. Together, they wrote a 100+ page
film treatmentA film treatment is a piece of prose, typically the step between scene cards and the first draft of a screenplay for a motion picture, television program, or radio play. It is generally longer and more detailed than an outline , and it may include details of directorial style that an outline omits...
and set Contact up at
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
with
Peter GuberHoward Peter Guber is an American film producer and executive and Chairman and CEO of Mandalay Entertainment...
and
Lynda ObstLynda Rosen Obst is a feature film producer. She was born in New York and is a graduate of Pomona College in Claremont, CA. She worked as an editor at The New York Times before moving to Los Angeles with her then-husband David Obst...
as producers. When the film ended up in
development hellIn the jargon of the media-industry, "development hell" is a period during which a film or other project is trapped in development...
, Sagan published Contact as a novel in 1985 and the film adaptation was rejuvenated in 1989.
Roland JofféRoland Joffé is an English-French film director who is known for his Oscar nominated movies, The Killing Fields and The Mission. He began his career in television. His early television credits included episodes of Coronation Street and an adaptation of The Stars Look Down for Granada...
and
George MillerGeorge Miller is an Australian film director, screenwriter, producer, and former medical doctor. He is most well known for his work on the Mad Max movies, but has been involved in a wide range of projects, including the Oscar-winning Happy Feet and "Babe" family films.Miller is the older brother...
had planned to direct it, but Joffé dropped out in 1993 and Miller was fired by Warner Bros in 1995. Robert Zemeckis was eventually hired to direct, and filming for Contact lasted from September 1996 to February 1997. The majority of the visual effects sequences were handled by
Sony Pictures ImageworksSony Pictures Imageworks, Inc. is a visual effects and character animation company headquartered in Culver City, California, USA. SPI is a division of Sony Pictures Digital Productions, which oversees the digital production and online entertainment assets of Sony Pictures Entertainment.The company...
.
The film was released on July 1, 1997 to mixed reviews. Contact grossed approximately $171 million in worldwide
box officeA box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
totals. The film won the
Hugo Award for Best Dramatic PresentationThe Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...
and received multiple awards and nominations at the
Saturn AwardThe Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video. The Saturn Awards were devised by Dr. Donald A. Reed in 1972, who felt that films within...
s. The release of Contact was publicized by controversies from the
Clinton administrationThe United States Presidency of Bill Clinton, also known as the Clinton Administration, was the executive branch of the federal government of the United States from January 20, 1993 to January 20, 2001. Clinton was the first Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a second full term...
and
CNNCable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, as well as individual lawsuits from George Miller and
Francis Ford CoppolaFrancis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
.
Plot
Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway (
Jodie FosterAlicia Christian "Jodie" Foster is an American actress, film director, producer as well as a former child actress....
) is a gifted scientist, encouraged as a child by her father (
David MorseDavid Bowditch Morse is an American stage, television, and film actor. He first came to national attention as Dr. Jack Morrison in the medical drama St. Elsewhere from 1982 to 1988...
), who has long since passed away. She presently is working for the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (
SETIThe search for extraterrestrial intelligence is the collective name for a number of activities people undertake to search for intelligent extraterrestrial life. Some of the most well known projects are run by the SETI Institute. SETI projects use scientific methods to search for intelligent life...
) program at the
Arecibo ObservatoryThe Arecibo Observatory is a radio telescope near the city of Arecibo in Puerto Rico. It is operated by SRI International under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation...
in
Puerto RicoPuerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
. She and her colleagues listen to radio transmissions in hopes of finding signals sent by extraterrestrial life. Government scientist David Drumlin (
Tom SkerrittThomas Roy "Tom" Skerritt is an American actor who has appeared in over 40 films and more than 200 television episodes since 1962.-Early life:...
) pulls the funding from SETI as he believes it's a futile exercise. After 13 months of soliciting funds in vain, Ellie gains funding from billionaire industrialist S. R. Hadden (
John HurtJohn Vincent Hurt, CBE is an English actor, known for his leading roles as John Merrick in The Elephant Man, Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Braddock in The Hit, Stephen Ward in Scandal, Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant and An Englishman in New York...
), who has been following Arroway's career and allows her to continue her studies at the
Very Large ArrayThe Very Large Array is a radio astronomy observatory located on the Plains of San Agustin, between the towns of Magdalena and Datil, some fifty miles west of Socorro, New Mexico, USA...
(VLA) in
Socorro County, New Mexico-2010:Whereas according to the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau:*75.1% White*1.1% Black*11.7% Native American*1.2% Asian*0.0% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander*2.8% Two or more races*8.1% Other races*48.5% Hispanic or Latino -2000:...
.
Four years later, with Drumlin pressuring to close SETI, Arroway finds a strong signal repeating a sequence of
prime numberA prime number is a natural number greater than 1 that has no positive divisors other than 1 and itself. A natural number greater than 1 that is not a prime number is called a composite number. For example 5 is prime, as only 1 and 5 divide it, whereas 6 is composite, since it has the divisors 2...
s, apparently emitting from the vicinity of the star
VegaVega is the brightest star in the constellation Lyra, the fifth brightest star in the night sky and the second brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere, after Arcturus...
. This announcement causes both Drumlin and the
National Security CouncilThe White House National Security Council in the United States is the principal forum used by the President of the United States for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials and is part of the Executive Office of the...
, led by
National Security AdvisorThe Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor , serves as the chief advisor to the President of the United States on national security issues...
Michael Kitz (
James WoodsJames Howard Woods is an American film, stage and television actor. Woods is known for starring in critically acclaimed films such as Once Upon a Time in America, Salvador, Nixon, Ghosts of Mississippi, Casino, and in the television legal drama Shark. He has won three Emmy Awards, and has gained...
), to attempt to take control of the facility. As Arroway, Drumlin, and Kitz argue, the team at the VLA discover a video source buried in the signal:
Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
s welcoming address at the
1936 Summer OlympicsThe 1936 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event which was held in 1936 in Berlin, Germany. Berlin won the bid to host the Games over Barcelona, Spain on April 26, 1931, at the 29th IOC Session in Barcelona...
in
BerlinBerlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. Arroway and her team postulate that this would have been the first significantly strong television signal to leave Earth's atmosphere, which was then transmitted back from Vega, 26 light years away.
The project is put under tight security and its progress followed fervently worldwide. President
Bill ClintonWilliam Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
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. Government specialists unsuccessfully attempt to decode the drawings, later decoded by Hadden. He explains that the pages are meant to be interpreted in three dimensions, which reveals a complex machine allowing for one human occupant inside a pod to be dropped into three rapidly spinning rings.
The nations of the world come together to fund the construction of the machine at
Cape CanaveralCape Canaveral, from the Spanish Cabo Cañaveral, is a headland in Brevard County, Florida, United States, near the center of the state's Atlantic coast. Known as Cape Kennedy from 1963 to 1973, it lies east of Merritt Island, separated from it by the Banana River.It is part of a region known as the...
on top of Launch Complex 39. An international panel is put together to select a candidate (including both Arroway and Drumlin) to travel in The Machine. While Ellie is one of the top selections, her lack of religious faith is noted by Palmer Joss (
Matthew McConaugheyMatthew David McConaughey is an American actor.After a series of minor roles in the early 1990s, McConaughey gained notice for his breakout role in Dazed and Confused . He then appeared in films such as A Time to Kill, Contact, U-571, Tiptoes, Sahara, and We Are Marshall...
), a trusted friend and one of the panel members. Drumlin is ultimately selected. On the day of testing the machine, a religious fanatic (
Jake BuseyWilliam Jacob "Jake" Busey is an American actor, musician and film producer. He is sometimes credited as "Jacob Busey" or "William Busey".-Personal life:...
) obliterates the machine completely in a suicide bombing, killing Drumlin and everyone else onboard.
However, after the destruction, the mysterious and secretive Hadden reveals to Arroway that there is in fact a second machine, hidden in Hokkaido, Japan, and in fact Arroway will be the "pilot."
Arroway begins her journey, outfitted with several recording devices. When the pod travels through a series of
wormholeIn physics, a wormhole is a hypothetical topological feature of spacetime that would be, fundamentally, a "shortcut" through spacetime. For a simple visual explanation of a wormhole, consider spacetime visualized as a two-dimensional surface. If this surface is folded along a third dimension, it...
s, she is separated briefly and can observe the outside environment. This includes a radio array-like structure at Vega, and signs of a highly-advanced civilization on an unknown planet. She finds herself in a surreal landscape similar to a picture she drew as a child of
Pensacola, FloridaPensacola is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle and the county seat of Escambia County, Florida, United States of America. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 56,255 and as of 2009, the estimated population was 53,752...
, and is approached by a blurry figure that resolves into that of her deceased father. Arroway recognizes him as an alien taking her father's form, and attempts to ask questions about extraterrestrial life. The alien deflects her questions, explaining that this journey was just humanity's "first step" to joining other space-faring species.
Arroway considers these answers and falls unconscious, finding herself on the floor of the pod where she is being repeatedly called by the machine's control team. She learns that from all external vantage points, she and the pod merely dropped through the machine. She insists that she was gone for approximately 18 hours, but her recording devices only show static. Kitz resigns as National Security Advisor to lead a
congressional committeeA congressional committee is a legislative sub-organization in the United States Congress that handles a specific duty . Committee membership enables members to develop specialized knowledge of the matters under their jurisdiction...
to determine if the machine was an elaborate hoax designed by Hadden, who has since died. Arroway is described as an unwitting accomplice in a hoax orchestrated by Hadden; she asks them to accept her testimony on faith. Kitz and
White House Chief of StaffThe White House Chief of Staff is the highest ranking member of the Executive Office of the President of the United States and a senior aide to the President.The current White House Chief of Staff is Bill Daley.-History:...
Rachel Constantine (
Angela BassettAngela Evelyn Bassett is an American actress. She has become well known for her biographical film roles portraying real life women in African American culture, including singer Tina Turner in the motion picture What's Love Got to Do with It, as well as Betty Shabazz in the films Malcolm X and...
) together reflect on the fact that Arroway's recording devices not only contained static, but contained 18 hours of it. Arroway is given continued grant money for the SETI program at the Very Large Array.
Cast
- Jodie Foster
Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster is an American actress, film director, producer as well as a former child actress....
as Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Ann Arroway: SETI scientist who first discovers the alien contact message
- Jena Malone
Jena Malone is an American actress and musician who has appeared on television, in films, and on Broadway. She made her movie debut with the film Bastard Out of Carolina , and has appeared in films including Contact , Stepmom , Donnie Darko , Saved! , Into the Wild , and Sucker Punch .Malone is...
as Young Ellie Arroway
- Matthew McConaughey
Matthew David McConaughey is an American actor.After a series of minor roles in the early 1990s, McConaughey gained notice for his breakout role in Dazed and Confused . He then appeared in films such as A Time to Kill, Contact, U-571, Tiptoes, Sahara, and We Are Marshall...
as Palmer Joss: Renowned Christian philosopher who becomes romantically involved with Arroway
- James Woods
James Howard Woods is an American film, stage and television actor. Woods is known for starring in critically acclaimed films such as Once Upon a Time in America, Salvador, Nixon, Ghosts of Mississippi, Casino, and in the television legal drama Shark. He has won three Emmy Awards, and has gained...
as Michael Kitz: National Security Advisor who also heads the Congressional investigation of Arroway
- Tom Skerritt
Thomas Roy "Tom" Skerritt is an American actor who has appeared in over 40 films and more than 200 television episodes since 1962.-Early life:...
as David Drumlin: Scientific aide to the President of the United States
- William Fichtner
William Edward Fichtner is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Sheriff Tom Underlay on Invasion, as Alexander Mahone on Prison Break, as William Sharp in Armageddon, and as Ken Rosenberg in the video games Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.- Early life...
as Kent Clark: A blindBlindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
SETI scientist who assists Arroway in her studies
- John Hurt
John Vincent Hurt, CBE is an English actor, known for his leading roles as John Merrick in The Elephant Man, Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Braddock in The Hit, Stephen Ward in Scandal, Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant and An Englishman in New York...
as S.R. Hadden: An eccentric and reclusive billionaire industrialist who is fundamental in deciphering the alien's message, and eventually dies while aboard the MirMir was a space station operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, at first by the Soviet Union and then by Russia. Assembled in orbit from 1986 to 1996, Mir was the first modular space station and had a greater mass than that of any previous spacecraft, holding the record for the...
space station
- Angela Bassett
Angela Evelyn Bassett is an American actress. She has become well known for her biographical film roles portraying real life women in African American culture, including singer Tina Turner in the motion picture What's Love Got to Do with It, as well as Betty Shabazz in the films Malcolm X and...
as Rachel Constantine: White House Chief of Staff to President Clinton
- David Morse
David Bowditch Morse is an American stage, television, and film actor. He first came to national attention as Dr. Jack Morrison in the medical drama St. Elsewhere from 1982 to 1988...
as Theodore Arroway: Arroway's father. He encourages his daughter to study amateur radioAmateur radio is the use of designated radio frequency spectrum for purposes of private recreation, non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, and emergency communication...
and the possibilities of extraterrestrial communications. He dies of a heart attack when Ellie is nine years old
- Jake Busey
William Jacob "Jake" Busey is an American actor, musician and film producer. He is sometimes credited as "Jacob Busey" or "William Busey".-Personal life:...
as Joseph: a religious fanatic responsible for the destruction of the machine and the death of David Drumlin
- Rob Lowe
Robert Hepler "Rob" Lowe is an American actor. Lowe came to prominence after appearing in films such as The Outsiders, Oxford Blues, About Last Night..., St. Elmo's Fire, and Wayne's World. On television, Lowe is known for his role as Sam Seaborn on The West Wing and his role as Senator Robert...
as Richard Rank: leader of the Conservative coalitionIn the United States, the conservative coalition was an unofficial Congressional coalition bringing together the conservative majority of the Republican Party and the conservative, mostly Southern, wing of the Democratic Party...
- Geoffrey Blake
Geoffrey Lewis Blake is an American film and television actor.Blake was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Marjorie Myers and Avery Felton Blake. Blake's film credits include Contact, Young Guns, Forrest Gump, and Cast Away...
as Fisher: SETI scientist
- Max Martini
Maximilian Carlo "Max" Martini is an American film, theater and television actor known for his roles as Corporal Fred Henderson in Saving Private Ryan, Wiley in Level 9, First Sergeant Sid Wojo in The Great Raid, and as Master Sergeant Mack Gerhardt on the military television drama, The...
as Willie: SETI scientist
Development
Carl SaganCarl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer and science communicator in astronomy and natural sciences. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books...
conceived the idea for Contact in 1979. The same year,
Lynda ObstLynda Rosen Obst is a feature film producer. She was born in New York and is a graduate of Pomona College in Claremont, CA. She worked as an editor at The New York Times before moving to Los Angeles with her then-husband David Obst...
, one of Sagan's closest friends, was hired by film producer
Peter GuberHoward Peter Guber is an American film producer and executive and Chairman and CEO of Mandalay Entertainment...
to be a studio executive for his
production companyA production company provides the physical basis for works in the realms of the performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, and video.- Tasks and functions :...
, Casablanca FilmWorks. She pitched Guber the idea for Contact, who commissioned a development deal. Sagan, along with wife
Ann DruyanAnn Druyan is an American author and producer specializing in productions about cosmology and popular science. She made substantial contributions to the PBS documentary series, Cosmos, and was the wife of late scientist and educator, Carl Sagan.-Film career:Along with Carl Sagan and Steven Soter,...
, wrote a 100+ page
film treatmentA film treatment is a piece of prose, typically the step between scene cards and the first draft of a screenplay for a motion picture, television program, or radio play. It is generally longer and more detailed than an outline , and it may include details of directorial style that an outline omits...
, finishing in November 1980. Druyan explained, "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 ThorneKip Stephen Thorne is an American theoretical physicist, known for his prolific contributions in gravitation physics and astrophysics and for having trained a generation of scientists...
's study of
wormholeIn physics, a wormhole is a hypothetical topological feature of spacetime that would be, fundamentally, a "shortcut" through spacetime. For a simple visual explanation of a wormhole, consider spacetime visualized as a two-dimensional surface. If this surface is folded along a third dimension, it...
space travel into the screenplay. The characterization of Dr. Ellie Arroway was inspired by Dr.
Jill TarterJill Cornell Tarter is an American astronomer and the current director of the Center for SETI Research, holding the Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI at the SETI Institute.-Education:...
, head of
Project PhoenixProject Phoenix is a SETI project: a search for extraterrestrial intelligence by analyzing patterns in radio signals. It is run by the independently funded SETI Institute of Mountain View, California, USA....
of the
SETI InstituteThe SETI Institute is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to “explore, understand and explain the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe”. SETI stands for the "search for extraterrestrial intelligence". One program is the use of both radio and optical telescopes to search...
; Jodie Foster researched the lead role by meeting her. Tarter served as a consultant on the story, realistically portraying struggling careers of women scientists from the 1950s to 1970s. The writers debated whether Arroway should have a baby at the film's end. 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 a Native American
park rangerA park ranger or forest ranger is a person entrusted with protecting and preserving parklands – national, state, provincial, or local parks. Different countries use different names for the position. Ranger is the favored term in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Within the United...
-turned-astronaut. Guber 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 said, "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.Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
Pictures and with the film laboring in
development hellIn the jargon of the media-industry, "development hell" is a period during which a film or other project is trapped in development...
, Sagan started to turn his original idea into a
novelContact is a science fiction novel written by Carl Sagan and published in 1985. It deals with the theme of contact between humanity and a more technologically advanced, extraterrestrial life form. It ranked No. 7 on the 1985 U.S. bestseller list....
, which was published by
Simon & SchusterSimon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
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 EntertainmentSony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. is the television and film production/distribution unit of Japanese multinational technology and media conglomerate Sony...
and tried to purchase the
film rightsFilm rights are the rights under copyright law to make a derivative work—in this case, a film—derived from an item of intellectual property. Under U.S...
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 JofféRoland Joffé is an English-French film director who is known for his Oscar nominated movies, The Killing Fields and The Mission. He began his career in television. His early television credits included episodes of Coronation Street and an adaptation of The Stars Look Down for Granada...
was eventually hired to direct, using a screenplay by
James V. HartJames V. "Jim" Hart is an American screenwriter and author.-Career:He wrote the 2005 children's novel Capt. Hook: The Adventures of a Notorious Youth, a prequel depicting J. M. Barrie's villain Captain Hook, the nemesis of Peter Pan, when Hook was a youngster...
. Joffé almost commenced
pre-productionPre-production or In Production is the process of preparing all the elements involved in a film, play, or other performance.- In film :...
before he dropped out and Obst then hired
Michael GoldenbergMichael Goldenberg is an American playwright, Hollywood screenwriter, and film director.Goldenberg was the screenwriter and director of Bed of Roses in 1996. He was the co-screenwriter for the film adaptation of Contact and co-adapted the 2003 live-action version of Peter Pan with director P.J....
to rewrite the script, who finished his second draft in late-1993. Goldenberg's second draft rekindled Warner Bros.' interest in Contact and
Robert ZemeckisRobert Lee Zemeckis is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Zemeckis first came to public attention in the 1980s as the director of the comedic time-travel Back to the Future film series, as well as the Academy Award-winning live-action/animation epic Who Framed Roger Rabbit ,...
was offered the chance to direct, but he turned down the opportunity in favor of making a film based on the life of
Harry HoudiniHarry Houdini was a Hungarian-born American magician and escapologist, stunt performer, actor and film producer noted for his sensational escape acts...
. "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 MillerGeorge Miller is an Australian film director, screenwriter, producer, and former medical doctor. He is most well known for his work on the Mad Max movies, but has been involved in a wide range of projects, including the Oscar-winning Happy Feet and "Babe" family films.Miller is the older brother...
to direct and Contact was greenlighted to commence pre-production. Miller cast
Jodie FosterAlicia Christian "Jodie" Foster is an American actress, film director, producer as well as a former child actress....
in the lead role, approached
Ralph FiennesRalph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes is an English actor and film director. He has appeared in such films as The English Patient, In Bruges, The Constant Gardener, Strange Days, The Duchess and Schindler's List....
to play Palmer Joss and also considered casting
Linda HuntLinda Hunt is an American film, stage and television actress. After making her film debut playing Mrs. Oxheart in Popeye , Hunt portrayed Billy Kwan, her breakthrough performance in The Year of Living Dangerously...
as the
President of the United StatesThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
. In addition to having aliens put on a
laser lighting displayA laser lighting display or laser light show involves the use of laser light to entertain an audience. A laser light show may consist only of projected laser beams set to music, or may accompany another form of entertainment, typically a dance concert or other musical performance.Laser light is...
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 asked Goldenberg to rewrite Contact in an attempt to portray the
PopeThe Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
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 fired the director, blaming pushed-back
start dateThe start date of a film refers to the first day of principal photography.A film project which has been green-lit does not typically enter pre-production until it has been assigned a start date, and for this reason a film with a start date is generally regarded as more likely to proceed to...
s, budget concerns and Miller's insistence that the script needed five more weeks of rewriting. Robert Zemeckis, who previously turned down the director's position, decided to accept the offer. Warner Bros. granted Zemeckis total
artistic controlArtistic control or Creative Control is a term commonly used in media production, such as movies, television, and music production. A person with artistic control has the authority to decide how the final product will appear. In movies, this commonly refers to the authority to decide on the final...
and the right of
final cut privilegeFinal cut privilege is a film industry term, usually used when a director has contractual authority over how a film is ultimately released for public viewing.- Condition :...
. The director cast Matthew McConaughey as Palmer Joss, who dropped out of the lead role in The Jackal to take the role in Contact. Despite being diagnosed with
MyelodysplasiaThe myelodysplastic syndromes are a diverse collection of hematological medical conditions that involve ineffective production of the myeloid class of blood cells....
in 1994, Sagan continued to be involved in the production of the film. For the cast and main crew members, he conducted an
academic conferenceAn academic conference or symposium is a conference for researchers to present and discuss their work. Together with academic or scientific journals, conferences provide an important channel for exchange of information between researchers.-Overview:Conferences are usually composed of various...
that depicted a detailed history of
astronomyAstronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
.
During the development of Contact, the production crew simultaneously watched
Stanley KubrickStanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
's
2001: A Space Odyssey2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
(1968) for inspiration.
Filming
Principal photographythumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....
for Contact began on September 24, 1996 and ended on February 28, 1997. The first shooting took place at the
Very Large ArrayThe Very Large Array is a radio astronomy observatory located on the Plains of San Agustin, between the towns of Magdalena and Datil, some fifty miles west of Socorro, New Mexico, USA...
(VLA) in
Socorro, New MexicoSocorro is a city in Socorro County in the U.S. state of New Mexico. It stands in the Rio Grande Valley at an elevation of . The population was 9,051 at the 2010 census...
. "Shooting at the VLA was, of course, spectacular but also one of the most difficult aspects of our filming", producer
Steve StarkeySteve Starkey is an American film producer and second unit director who is widely associated with Robert Zemeckis. He served as an assistant film editor for both Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi .-Filmography:*Star Wars Episode V: The Empire...
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 FoundationThe National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
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 shootingLocation shooting is the practice of filming in an actual setting rather than on a sound stage or back lot. In filmmaking a location is any place where a film crew will be filming actors and recording their dialog. A location where dialog is not recorded may be considered as a second unit...
in New Mexico and
ArizonaArizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
, production for Contact returned to Los Angeles for five months' worth of location and
sound stageIn common usage, a sound stage is a soundproof, hangar-like structure, building, or room, used for the production of theatrical filmmaking and television production, usually located on a secure movie studio property.-Overview:...
shooting utilizing a total of nine sound stages at Warner Bros. Studios in
BurbankBurbank is a city in Los Angeles County in Southern California, United States, north of downtown Los Angeles. The estimated population in 2010 was 103,340....
and
Culver StudiosThe Culver Studios is a historic Colonial-styled movie studio located at 9336 W. Washington Blvd., in Culver City, California. It was the site of filming for Gone with the Wind, Citizen Kane and other classics from Hollywood’s Golden Age...
. All together the
art departmentArt department in movie terms means the section of a production's crew concerned with visual artistry. Working under the supervision of the production designer and/or art director, the art department is responsible for arranging the overall look of the film as desired by the film director...
created over 25 sets.
In an attempt to create a sense of realism for the storyline, principal
CNNCable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
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 LiveLarry King Live is an American talk show hosted by Larry King on CNN from 1985 to 2010. It was CNN's most watched and longest-running program, with over one million viewers nightly....
and
CrossfireCrossfire was a current events debate television program that aired from 1982 to 2005 on CNN. Its format was designed to present and challenge the opinions of a politically liberal pundit and a conservative pundit.-Format:...
were also included. Ann Druyan makes a
cameo appearanceA cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
as herself, debating Rob Lowe's character, Richard Rank, on Crossfire. In January 1997, a
second unitIn film, the second unit is a team that shoots subsidiary footage for a motion picture. Its work is distinct from that of the first unit, which shoots all scenes involving principal actors...
was sent to
Puerto RicoPuerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
for one week at the
Arecibo ObservatoryThe Arecibo Observatory is a radio telescope near the city of Arecibo in Puerto Rico. It is operated by SRI International under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation...
.
Other second unit work took place in Fiji and Newfoundland
CanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. Also essential to the production were a host of technical consultants from the
SETI InstituteThe SETI Institute is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to “explore, understand and explain the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe”. SETI stands for the "search for extraterrestrial intelligence". One program is the use of both radio and optical telescopes to search...
, the
California Institute of TechnologyThe California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...
, the VLA and a former
White House staff memberThe Executive Office of the President consists of the immediate staff of the President of the United States, as well as multiple levels of support staff reporting to the President. The EOP is headed by the White House Chief of Staff, currently William M. Daley...
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 BurgessDon Michael Burgess, A.S.C. is an American cinematographer. He studied at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles.-Filmography:*Mo' Money *Josh and S.A.M. *Forrest Gump *Richie Rich...
shot the film in
anamorphic formatAnamorphic format is a term that can be used either for: the cinematography technique of capturing a widescreen picture on standard 35 mm film, or other visual recording media, with a non-widescreen native aspect ratio; or a photographic projection format in which the original image requires an...
using
VistaVisionVistaVision is a higher resolution, widescreen variant of the 35mm motion picture film format which was created by engineers at Paramount Pictures in 1954....
cameras. The sound designers used
Pro ToolsPro Tools is a digital audio workstation platform for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, developed and manufactured by Avid Technology. It is widely used by professionals throughout the audio industries for recording and editing in music production, film scoring, film, and television...
software for the
audio mixingAudio mixing for film and television is a process during the post-production stage of a moving image program by which a multitude of recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels...
, which was done at
Skywalker SoundSkywalker Sound is the sound effects, sound editing, sound design, sound mixing and music recording division of George Lucas' Lucas Digital motion picture group. Its main facilities are located in Lucas Valley, near Nicasio, California...
.
Visual effects
Designing Contacts visual effects sequences was a joint effort among eight separate VFX companies. This included
Sony Pictures ImageworksSony Pictures Imageworks, Inc. is a visual effects and character animation company headquartered in Culver City, California, USA. SPI is a division of Sony Pictures Digital Productions, which oversees the digital production and online entertainment assets of Sony Pictures Entertainment.The company...
,
Peter JacksonSir Peter Robert Jackson, KNZM is a New Zealand film director, producer, actor, and screenwriter, known for his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy , adapted from the novel by J. R. R...
's
Weta DigitalWeta Digital is a digital visual effects company based in Wellington, New Zealand. It was founded by Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor, and Jamie Selkirk in 1993 to produce the digital special effects for Heavenly Creatures. In 2007 Weta Digital’s Senior Visual Effects Supervisor, Joe Letteri, was...
,
George LucasGeorge Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...
' Industrial Light & Magic and
Effects AssociatesEffects Associates is a physical-effects facility based in Pinewood Studios and one of the longest serving such companies in Europe. It is a division of the digital visual effects and post-production facility Cinesite Ltd.-History:...
. Weta Digital, in particular, was responsible for designing the
wormholeIn physics, a wormhole is a hypothetical topological feature of spacetime that would be, fundamentally, a "shortcut" through spacetime. For a simple visual explanation of a wormhole, consider spacetime visualized as a two-dimensional surface. If this surface is folded along a third dimension, it...
sequence. Jodie Foster admitted she had difficulty with
blue screenChroma key compositing is a technique for compositing two images together. A color range in the top layer is made transparent, revealing another image behind. The chroma keying technique is commonly used in video production and post-production...
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 SusanA Lazy Susan is a rotating tray, usually circular, placed on top of a table to aid in moving food on a large table or countertop.- Origin :The term "Lazy Susan" made its first written appearance in a Good Housekeeping article in 1906, although their existence dates back to the 18th century...
with the camera moving on a computerized arm. It was really tough."
News footage of then-President
Bill ClintonWilliam Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
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 PoitierSir Sidney Poitier, KBE is a Bahamian American actor, film director, author, and diplomat.In 1963, Poitier became the first black person to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field...
to play the President, but the actor turned the role down in favor of The Jackal. Shortly after Poitier's refusal, Zemeckis saw a
NASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
announcement in August 1996. "Clinton gave his
Mars rockAllan Hills 84001 is a meteorite that was found in Allan Hills, Antarctica on December 27, 1984 by a team of U.S. meteorite hunters from the ANSMET project. Like other members of the group of SNCs , ALH 84001 is thought to be from Mars. However, it does not fit into any of the previously...
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 correctionColor correction by using color gels, or filters, is a process used in stage lighting, photography, television, cinematography and other disciplines, the intention of which is to alter the overall color of the light; typically the light color is measured on a scale known as color temperature, as...
. This helped solve
continuityIn fiction, continuity is consistency of the characteristics of persons, plot, objects, places and events seen by the reader or viewer over some period of time...
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 supervisorIn the context of film and television production, a visual effects supervisor is responsible for achieving the creative aims of the director and/or producers through the use of visual effects...
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 TenPowers of Ten is a 1968 American documentary short film written and directed by Charles and Ray Eames. The film depicts the relative scale of the Universe in factors of ten . The film is an adaptation of the book Cosmic View by Dutch educator Kees Boeke, and more recently is the basis of a new...
(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 TomorrowThe Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 American science-fiction disaster film that depicts the catastrophic effects of global warming in a series of extreme weather events that usher in global cooling which leads to a new ice age. The film did well at the box office, grossing $542,771,772 internationally...
(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 that "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." The machine was then designed by concept artist Steve Burg, reusing a conceptual design he had originally created to appear as the "Time Displacement Device" in
Terminator 2Terminator 2: Judgment Day is a 1991 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron and written by Cameron and William Wisher Jr.. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Robert Patrick, and Edward Furlong...
in a scene that didn't make it to the final cut.
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 CenterThe John F. Kennedy Space Center is the NASA installation that has been the launch site for every United States human space flight since 1968. Although such flights are currently on hiatus, KSC continues to manage and operate unmanned rocket launch facilities for America's civilian space program...
in
Cape CanaveralCape Canaveral, from the Spanish Cabo Cañaveral, is a headland in Brevard County, Florida, United States, near the center of the state's Atlantic coast. Known as Cape Kennedy from 1963 to 1973, it lies east of Merritt Island, separated from it by the Banana River.It is part of a region known as the...
, where officials allowed them access to sites off-limits to most visitors. Filmmakers were also brought onto Launch Complex 39 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.
The climactic scene depicting the mysterious beach near the galactic core where Arroway makes "contact", in particular, called for major visual innovations. The goal was an idyllic seashore with a sky blazing with stars that might exist near the core of the galaxy. Ralston said that "the thought was that this beach would have a heightened reality. One that might make the everyday world seem like a vague daydream." To keep the question alive whether any of it was real in Arroway's mind, elements such as ocean waves running in reverse and palm tree shadows swaying with sped up motion were applied.
The Hitler newsreel also required digital manipulation.
Music
The original score was composed by
Alan SilvestriAlan Anthony Silvestri is an American film composer and conductor.-Career:Silvestri is best known for his collaborations with director Robert Zemeckis, having scored Romancing the Stone , the Back to the Future trilogy , Who Framed Roger Rabbit , Death Becomes Her , Forrest Gump , Contact ,...
, most of which was released on 19 August 1997 by
Warner Bros. RecordsWarner Bros. Records Inc. is an American record label. It was the foundation label of the present-day Warner Music Group, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of that corporation. It maintains a close relationship with its former parent, Warner Bros. Pictures, although the two companies...
. The full score is approximately an hour long, 44 minutes of which is on the CD, including every major cue. The CD track entitled "Good to Go" features a slightly alternate opening - a brief brass motif that is not in the film, but all other cues are identical in orchestration to the mix in the film.
The Region 2 Special Edition DVD release contains a 5.1 isolated score track which presents the complete score (this feature, as with many isolated scores, is not mentioned in most product descriptions of the DVD.)
Science and religion
Contact frequently suggests cultural conflicts between religion and science would be brought to the fore by the apparent contact with aliens that occurs in the film. A point of discussion is the existence of a god, with a number of different positions being portrayed. A description of an emotionally-intense
experienceReligious experience is a subjective experience in which an individual reports contact with a transcendent reality, an encounter or union with the divine....
by Palmer Joss, which he describes as seeing God, is met by Arroway's suggestion that "some part of [him] needed to have it"; that it was a significant personal experience but indicative of nothing greater. Joss compares his certainty that God exists to Arroway's certainty that she loved her deceased father, despite being unable to prove it.
Contact depicts intense debate occurring as a result of the apparent contact with aliens. Many clips of well-known debate shows such as
CrossfireCrossfire was a current events debate television program that aired from 1982 to 2005 on CNN. Its format was designed to present and challenge the opinions of a politically liberal pundit and a conservative pundit.-Format:...
and
Larry King LiveLarry King Live is an American talk show hosted by Larry King on CNN from 1985 to 2010. It was CNN's most watched and longest-running program, with over one million viewers nightly....
are shown, with participants discussing the implications of 'The Message,' asking whether it is proof of the existence of alien life or of God, and whether science is encroaching upon religious ground by, as one believer puts it, "talking to your god for you." The head of a religious organization casts doubt on the morality of building the Machine, noting that "we don't even know whether [the aliens] believe in God." The first Machine is ultimately destroyed by a religious extremist, in the belief that building it was detrimental to humankind.
Although the revelation at the end of the film that Arroway's recording device recorded approximately 18 hours of static is arguably conclusive proof of the fact of - if not the experience of - her "journey," there are a number of coincidences and indications throughout the film that cast doubt on its authenticity. Director Robert Zemeckis indicates that "the point of the movie is for there always to be a certain amount of doubt [as to whether the aliens were real]." These indications mostly consist of visual cues during the "journey" which echo Ellie's experiences earlier in the film (which Ellie believed to be the result of the aliens "downloading [her] thoughts and memories"), but the timing of the Message's arrival and its eventual decoding are also highly coincidental: the Message was first received shortly before Arroway and her team were to be ejected from the VLA facility, and was only successfully decoded by S.R. Hadden (Arroway's only sponsor, who was close to death from cancer) after weeks of failed attempts by the team at the VLA.
At the end of the film, Arroway is put into a position which she had traditionally viewed with skepticism and contempt: that of believing something with complete certainty, despite being unable to prove it in the face not only of widespread incredulity and skepticism (which she admits that as a scientist she would normally share), but of evidence apparently to the contrary.
Zemeckis stated that he intended the message of the film to be that science and religion can co-exist rather than being opposing camps, as shown by the coupling of scientist Arroway with the religious Joss, as well as his acceptance that the "journey" indeed took place. This, and scattered references throughout the film posit that science and religion are not nominally incompatible: one interviewer, after asking Arroway whether the construction of The Machine - despite not knowing what will happen when it is activated - is too dangerous, suggests that it is being built on the "faith" that the alien designers, as Arroway puts it, "know what they're doing."
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, reaching a worldwide total of $171.12 million. With
VHSThe Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
release in early-December 1997, Contact earned an additional $49 million in rental figures.
Warner Home VideoWarner Home Video is the home video unit of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., itself part of Time Warner. It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video . The company launched in the United States with twenty films on VHS and Betamax videocassettes in late 1979...
released Contact on DVD later that month, containing three separate
audio commentariesOn disc-based video formats, an audio commentary is an additional audio track consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with video...
by director Robert Zemeckis & producer Steve Starkey, another by visual effects supervisors Ken Ralston and Stephen Rosenbaum, along with one by star Jodie Foster.
The release of Contact in July 1997 rekindled public interest in Sagan's 1985
novelContact is a science fiction novel written by Carl Sagan and published in 1985. It deals with the theme of contact between humanity and a more technologically advanced, extraterrestrial life form. It ranked No. 7 on the 1985 U.S. bestseller list....
. The book remained on the
New York Times Best Seller listThe New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. It is published weekly in The New York Times Book Review magazine, which is published in the Sunday edition of The New York Times and as a stand-alone publication...
from July 27 to September 21, 1997.
Contact was released on Blu-ray on October 6, 2009.
Critical analysis
Contact received a generally average-favorable response from critics. Based on 56 reviews collected by
Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, 68% of the critics enjoyed the film with an average score of 6.8/10. 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,
MetacriticMetacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
calculated an average score of 62/100, based on 22 reviews.
Roger EbertRoger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
gave a largely positive review, believing Contact was on par with
Steven SpielbergSteven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
's
Close Encounters of the Third KindClose Encounters of the Third Kind is a 1977 science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, and Cary Guffey...
(1977) to study Hollywood's most cinematic study of extraterrestrial life. "Movies like Contact help explain why movies like
Independence DayIndependence Day is a 1996 science fiction film about an alien invasion of Earth, focusing on a disparate group of individuals and families as they converge in the Nevada desert and, along with the rest of the human population, participate in a last-chance counterattack on July 4 – the same...
leave me feeling empty and unsatisfied," Ebert commented.
Kenneth TuranKenneth Turan is an American film critic and Lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California.-Background:...
of the
Los Angeles TimesThe Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
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 BerardinelliJames Berardinelli is an American online film critic.-Personal life:Berardinelli was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey and spent his early childhood in Morristown, New Jersey. At the age of nine years, he relocated to the township of Cherry Hill, New Jersey...
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 KubrickStanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
's
2001: A Space Odyssey2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
(1968) to be one of the greatest science fiction films ever made.
Mick LaSalleMick LaSalle is an American Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] [[film reviewer] and the author of two books on pre-[[Motion Picture Production Code|Hays Code]] Hollywood...
of the
San Francisco Chroniclethumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
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
climaxThe Climax is the point in the story where the main character's point of view changes, or the most exciting/action filled part of the story. It also known has the main turning point in the story...
. Rita Kempley, writing in
The Washington PostThe Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
, 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 designSound design is the process of specifying, acquiring, manipulating or generating audio elements. It is employed in a variety of disciplines including filmmaking, television production, theatre, sound recording and reproduction, live performance, sound art, post-production and video game software...
ers
Randy Thom,
Tom JohnsonTom Johnson is an American sound engineer. He has won two Academy Awards for Best Sound and has been nominated for five more in the same category...
,
Dennis S. SandsDennis S. Sands is an American sound engineer. He has been nominated for four Academy Awards in the category Best Sound. He has worked on over 240 films since 1979.-Selected filmography:* Forrest Gump * Contact * Cast Away...
and
William B. KaplanWilliam B. Kaplan is an American sound engineer. He has been nominated for seven Academy Awards in the category Best Sound. He has worked on over 80 films since 1972.-Selected filmography:* Back to the Future * Top Gun...
were nominated the
Academy Award for SoundThe Academy Award for Sound Mixing is an Academy Award that recognizes the finest or most euphonic sound mixing or recording, and is generally awarded to the production sound mixers and re-recording mixers of the winning film. Compare this award to the Academy Award for Sound Editing...
but lost to
TitanicTitanic is a 1997 American epic romance and disaster film directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. A fictionalized account of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson, Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater and Billy Zane as Rose's fiancé, Cal...
. Jodie Foster was nominated the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama, but
Judi DenchDame Judith Olivia "Judi" Dench, CH, DBE, FRSA is an English film, stage and television actress.Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years she played in several of William Shakespeare's plays in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo...
was awarded the category for her work in
Mrs. BrownMrs. Brown is a 1997 British drama film starring Judi Dench, Billy Connolly, Geoffrey Palmer, Antony Sher and Gerard Butler...
. Contact won the
Hugo Award for Best Dramatic PresentationThe Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...
over
The Fifth ElementThe Fifth Element is a 1997 French science fiction film directed, co-written, and based on a story by Luc Besson, starring Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, and Milla Jovovich...
,
GattacaGattaca is a 1997 science fiction film written and directed by Andrew Niccol. It stars Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman and Jude Law with supporting roles played by Loren Dean, Ernest Borgnine, Gore Vidal and Alan Arkin....
,
Men in BlackMen in Black is a 1997 science fiction comedy film directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, starring Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith and Vincent D'Onofrio. The film was based on the Men in Black comic book series by Lowell Cunningham, originally published by Marvel Comics. The film featured the creature effects...
and
Starship TroopersStarship Troopers is a 1997 American military science fiction film, written by Edward Neumeier , directed by Paul Verhoeven, loosely adapted from Starship Troopers, a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein. It is the only theatrically released film in the Starship Troopers franchise...
. The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films awarded individual awards to Jodie Foster (Best Actress) and Jena Malone (
Best Performance by a Younger ActorThe following are a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Performance by a Younger Actor:- References :* , Saturn Awards...
) at the 24th
Saturn AwardThe Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video. The Saturn Awards were devised by Dr. Donald A. Reed in 1972, who felt that films within...
s. Director Robert Zemeckis, writers James V. Hart and Michael Goldenberg, film score composer Alan Silvestri and the
visual effects supervisorIn the context of film and television production, a visual effects supervisor is responsible for achieving the creative aims of the director and/or producers through the use of visual effects...
s also received Saturn Award nominations. Contact was nominated the
Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction FilmThe Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film is a Saturn Award given to the best film in the science fiction genre by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films.-Winners:-External links:*...
, but lost to Men in Black.
American Film InstituteThe American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
Lists
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills - Nominated
- AFI's 10 Top 10
AFI's 10 Top 10 honors the ten greatest American films in ten classic film genres. Presented by the American Film Institute , the lists were unveiled on a television special broadcast by CBS on June 17, 2008....
- Nominated Science Fiction Film
In popular culture
Due to the movie's notability,
South ParkSouth Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
s creators
Matt StoneMatthew Richard "Matt" Stone is an American screenwriter, producer, voice artist, musician and actor, best known for being the co-creator of South Park along with creative partner and best friend, Trey Parker....
and
Trey ParkerTrey Parker is an American animator, screenwriter, director, producer, voice artist, musician and actor, best known for being the co-creator of the television series South Park along with his creative partner and best friend Matt Stone.Parker started his film career in 1992, making a holiday short...
are well known for poking fun at the movie for its twists and turns. In the episode "
Tom's Rhinoplasty"Tom's Rhinoplasty" is the eleventh episode of the first season of the animated television series South Park. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on February 11, 1998. In the episode, the South Park Elementary boys become infatuated with the new substitute teacher Ms. Ellen,...
" where Mr. Garrison is waking up from his nose job operation, the doctor asks if he has seen the movie. Garrison, in response, vomits in disgust of the movie. It was also referenced in the episode "
Cancelled"Cancelled" is the season 7 premiere episode and the overall 97th episode, although intended to be the 100th, of the Comedy Central series South Park. It originally aired on March 19, 2003.- Plot :...
".
It is also briefly mentioned in the
Family GuyFamily Guy is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian...
episode "
Three Kings"Three Kings", alternatively spelled "3 Kings", is the fifteenth episode of the seventh season of the animated comedy series Family Guy. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on May 10, 2009...
" by
StewieStewie Griffin is a fictional character from the animated television series Family Guy. Once obsessed with world domination and matricide, Stewie is the youngest child of Peter and Lois Griffin, and the brother of Chris and Meg....
.
Bill Clinton and CNN
On July 14, 1997, three days after Contacts opening day release in the United States, Warner Bros. received a letter from
White House CounselThe White House Counsel is a staff appointee of the President of the United States.-Role:The Counsel's role is to advise the President on all legal issues concerning the President and the White House...
Charles Ruff protesting the use of then-President Bill Clinton's digitally composited appearance. The letter made no demands to director Robert Zemeckis or Warner Bros in terms of pulling
release printA release print is a copy of a film that is sent to a movie theater for exhibition.-Definitions:Release prints are not to be confused with the other types of print used in the photochemical post-production process:...
s, film trailers or other marketing, but called the duration and manner of Clinton's appearance "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 AmendmentThe First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
, 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 JohnsonWyatt Thomas Johnson is an American journalist and media executive, best known for serving as president of Cable News Network during the 1990s and, before that, as publisher of the Los Angeles Times newspaper...
announced he believed that in hindsight it was a mistake to allow 13 members of CNN's on-air staff (including
Larry KingLawrence Harvey "Larry" King is an American television and radio host whose work has been recognized with awards including two Peabodys and ten Cable ACE Awards....
and
Bernard ShawBernard Shaw is a retired American journalist and former news anchor for CNN from 1980 until his retirement in March 2001.-Early years:...
) to appear in the film, even though both CNN and Warner Bros. are owned by
Time WarnerTime Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...
. 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 MillerGeorge Miller is an Australian film director, screenwriter, producer, and former medical doctor. He is most well known for his work on the Mad Max movies, but has been involved in a wide range of projects, including the Oscar-winning Happy Feet and "Babe" family films.Miller is the older brother...
, who had developed Contact with Warner Bros. before Zemeckis' hiring, unsuccessfully sued the studio over
breach of contractBreach of contract is a legal cause of action in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other party's performance....
policies.
During the filming of Contact on December 28, 1996, filmmaker
Francis Ford CoppolaFrancis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
filed a posthumous lawsuit against Carl Sagan and Warner Bros. Pictures. Sagan had died that December 20, six days before Coppola filed his lawsuit.
Ann DruyanAnn Druyan is an American author and producer specializing in productions about cosmology and popular science. She made substantial contributions to the PBS documentary series, Cosmos, and was the wife of late scientist and educator, Carl Sagan.-Film career:Along with Carl Sagan and Steven Soter,...
, widow of Sagan, stated, "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, and then waits for him to die so he can file it - it's outrageous." Producer
Lynda ObstLynda Rosen Obst is a feature film producer. She was born in New York and is a graduate of Pomona College in Claremont, CA. She worked as an editor at The New York Times before moving to Los Angeles with her then-husband David 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 specialA television special is a television program which interrupts or temporarily replaces programming normally scheduled for a given time slot. Sometimes, however, the term is given to a telecast of a theatrical film, such as The Wizard of Oz or The Ten Commandments, which is not part of a regular...
back in 1975, titled First Contact. Under their development agreement, Coppola and Sagan were to split proceeds from the project with
American ZoetropeAmerican Zoetrope is a studio founded by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas. Founded on December 12, 1969, American Zoetrope was an early adopter of digital filmmaking, including some of the earliest uses of HDTV...
and
Children's Television Workshop ProductionsSesame Workshop, formerly known as the Children's Television Workshop , is a Worldwide American non-profit organization behind the production of several educational children's programs that have run on public broadcasting around the world...
, as well as any novel Sagan would write. The TV program was never produced, but in 1985,
Simon & SchusterSimon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
published Contact and Warner Bros. moved forward with development of a film adaptation. Coppola sought 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
appealAn appeal is a petition for review of a case that has been decided by a court of law. The petition is made to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision....
ed 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 that the filmmaker thought about suing over Contact.
Cyanide
The scene where the NASA scientists give Arroway the "
cyanide pillA Cyanide pill is a pill, capsule, ampoule or tablet containing a fatally poisonous substance that a person ingests deliberately in order to quickly cause his/her own life to end...
" caused some controversy during production and also when the film came out.
Gerald D. GriffinGerald D. "Gerry" Griffin is a former a NASA flight director and director of Johnson Space Center.Born in Athens, Texas, Griffin attended Texas A&M University, where he studied aeronautical engineering. He joined NASA in 1960 and became a flight controller, specializing in guidance and navigation...
, the film's NASA advisor, insisted that NASA has never given any astronaut a cyanide pill "just in case," and that if an astronaut truly wished to commit
suicideSuicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
in space, all he or she would have to do is cut off their oxygen supply. However, Carl Sagan insisted that NASA did indeed give out cyanide pills and they did it for every mission an astronaut has ever flown. Zemeckis said that because of the two radically different assertions, the truth is unknown, but he left the suicide pill scene in the movie as it seemed more suspenseful that way and it was also in line with Sagan's beliefs and vision of the film.
External links