CONTACT
Jeffery Chen
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Distributed by Warner Brothers
Screenplay by: James V. Hart Michael Goldenberg
Based on a novel by: Carl Sagan
Director of Photography: Don Burgess
Cast: Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, John Hurt, Tom Skerritt, William Fichtner, Angela Bassett, Rob Lowe
A Very Long Synopsis
Skip ahead to the Very Long ReviewAs a young girl, Ellie Arroway would sit at her short-wave radio to search for voices to answer her own. After the tragic death of her father, Ellie channels all her energy into the study of the sciences in her search for truth. She becones an astronomer and chooses the search for intelligent extraterresterial beings as her discipline. She uses giant radio satelites to survey distant space for evidence of other intelligent life, and manages to secure funding and the opportunity to use the VLA (Very Large Array), a group of 27 linked radio telescopes to continue her search.
One morning, Ellie receives the message she has been waiting all her life for from the star Vega. The whole scientific world as well as the government are alerted and Ellie finds that her project is slowly being taken away from her. With the help of ecce ntric industrialist S.R. Hadden, Ellie decodes the message -- a building plan for a transportation machine which will send one passenger to the star Vega.
The government, with the help of Hadden Industries, builds the machine. A selection committee is set up to choose one person who will represent Earth in the crucial expedition. Palmer Joss, a respected religious scholar and top-level government advisor, h ad a short but passionate affair with Ellie many years earlier. He loves Ellie and in an attempt to stop her from going, he uses his position as a member of the committee to reveal Ellie's atheism. David Drumlin, a past mentor and rival of Ellie's, is cho sen instead.
During the final test of the machine, Drumlin is killed by a radical cultist, Richard Rank, and the machine is totally destroyed in an explosion. But Hadden has secretly used his tremendous financial power and industrial backing to build an exact copy of the machine. Although the launch is successful, the cabin which Ellie was in was not propelled into space as expected. Instead, it falls right though the sophisticated machinery.
Intelligent Science Fiction
From the same creative team that brought you the tiresome, multi-Oscar winning FORREST GUMP, comes CONTACT, a shining example of how commercial Hollywood can sometimes surprise with intelligence and insight when they really want to. CONTACT is really a ca se where all the special effects resources of Hollywood are put to worthier use. It is a well-balanced film which succeeds in keeping you entertained while provoking thought in some really difficult and giant questions in human existence. The film, which is based on the popular novel of the same title by the late, highly respected scholar, Carl Sagan, reminds one of the great Andrei Tarkovsky's SOLARIS (1972) which was also based on a science fiction novel by Stanislaw Lem. Both films utilises the genre o f science fiction to dive deep into the human soul to seek out answers to our existence.
The well-executed opening sequence of a gradually distancing perspective from the planet Earth to outer space immediately introduces the audience to the tools which will be used for the exposition of the film's narrative and thesis. We hear a cornocupia o f sounds emitted from the many radio equipments of Earth and as we draw further and further away it becomes increasingly quiet. The almost ringing silence at the end of the sequence, in outer space, immediately puts forth the question: Are we really alone?...This is indeed an excellent example of how sound design can make meaning.
Despite all its attempts to be intelligent, the film is afterall one which is concerned primarily in telling a story in the Hollywood narrative which always seeks to give cliched cause and effect relationships to people's lives. Dr. Arroway is so determin ed in her search for extraterresterial life to answer all her questions because she is very affected by her father's death; and of course, because of this she is also afraid to be committed to her one-night lover, Joss as deep down she is really scared th at she will lose him in the future. Hollywood always seeks to simplify the complex human experience to the most common denominator. The dynamics in the interaction of the other characters are just as cliched and I shall refrain from tiring everyone here. But as usual, the single protagonist centred story succeeds in keeping the audience intrigued.
The theme of religion is brought up in the film as the selection committee rejects Arroway on the basis of her atheism. For a rare moment, the science fiction genre which usually exudes atheism seeks to explore spiritual issues. The crux of the film is in the scenes when Arroway's space capsule is launched and she is propelled into time tunnels to the star Vega. Her father greets her there but only tells her that they are all part of a system. For a while it seems that the film is trying to put forth the idea that the spirits of the dead goes to live in outer space. But from Ted Arroway's reluctance to answer all of Ellie's questions and the revelation that she has only taken a very tiny step towards the Truth, the film provides a hypotheses which provoke s even more profound and complex questions. It also seems that the Truth which Ellie's been seeking cannot be found thousands of light years away from Earth. Rather it has always been inside her and perhaps inside all of us.
The well-designed film contains some really magnificent digitally rendered spacescapes. Jodie Foster is well-casted as Arroway and is supported by an excellent ensemble cast which includes the fascinating John Hurt as the eccentric industrialist, S.R. Had den. Look out for Rob Lowe (Yes, that one from ST. ELMO'S FIRE and MASQUERADE) who is totally unrecognisable though convincing as the radical cultist, Richard Rank.
* Wait for the TV2 broadcast.
** A little creaky, but still better than staying at home with Gotcha!
*** Pretty good, bring a friend.
**** Amazing, potent stuff.
***** Perfection. See it twice.
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From: ALAN (falcon@tudogs.net.au)
I have watched this movie over and over again...I think that the actors in this movie played a superb role in creating realism and the special effects are breathtaking...i give this movie a 9 out of 10...excellent picture..
From: Lisa Yarrington (Elizabitch@earthling.net)
I feel that this movie (which I have seen several times) is, beyond any personal or social inferences, about science and "truth", and should be considered in this context. S.E.T.I. (worth checking out on the Web at seti.org) is actually making huge advances in this field, and the author of CONTACT, Carl Segan, was extremely qualified in this case. It is impractical to assume that "Hollywood" could only recreate a senario which would prove realistically inadequate reguarding the possibilities of science and its persuit. Ellie struggled with big issues, I agree, but I consider her reactions appropriate and inspiring. I think the movie also reflects a signifigant reflection on human beings and our will to constantly strive for meaning (wether through religion or science) as individuals, and as part of life as a whole.
From: JUAN SALVADOR FLORES VAZQUEZ (JUANSAGAVIOT@YAHOO.COM)
I LIKE MORE IMAGES OF THIS FILM
