Contact (1997)

 

Contact (1997)

 

I think everyone who loves SF started with loving Spaceships. As we grew, we might’ve been drawn to other narrative Sub-Genres more, Near-Future, Post-Apocalyptic, Time-Travel, etc, but in the English-speaking world it was almost always about the Spaceships, and there are Historical reasons for this.

 

Between 1937 and 1949, there was virtually no SF cinema in the English-speaking World except Children’s Serials, and the most beloved of these was the Space Opera “Flash Gordon” (Serial Film Franchise began in 1936, continued to 1940, and there were many imitators that followed). Film Serials, brought into a new media, became the cornerstone of SF on TV when that technology first became culturally important in the USA (around 1948) and the first regularly broadcast, original to TV, SF program in the USA was “Captain Video” (first aired 1949) which was one of those “Flash Gordon” imitators.

 

SF would return triumphantly to cinema with the surprisingly Realistic Space film “Destination Moon” (1950), and though through the immediate decade the more mature SF films were more likely to be Earth-bound in their stories (an intersection of Humankind’s most immediate Societal/Political concerns and Budgetary Limitations), the Real-World Space Program was on the near horizon (the first man in Space was Russian Yuri Gagarin in 1961, and NASA’s great achievements were only steps behind that). These realities, combined with the media we grew-up with, shaped our Dreams as the years piled upon us. Even before 1968 (the year of the release of “2001: A Space Odessey”) more-and-more of the most ambitious SF in cinema was about Spaceships.

 

There is a problem with those Dreams though, the Stars are likely denied to us.

 

There’s thing called the Speed of Light (SoL), 186,000 miles-per-second, an absolute Speed-Limit that we can’t exceed no matter how Supped-Up your Muscle Car might be. Our most advanced Communication, which seems instantaneous on Earth, is delayed by SoL by almost 1.5 seconds (one-way) between the Earth and the Moon, 20 minutes between Earth and Mars, 5 hours between Earth and Pluto, and 4 ½ years between Earth and the closest Stars beyond our Solar System. This was blighty ignored by the foundational figures in Space Opera prose like Author E.E. “Doc” Smith, a Chemist who wrote SF, whose popular fictions started appearing in 1928, which was not very long after Physicist Albert Einstein set the SoL Speed Limit in 1905. Smith’s indifference to Physics became harder to ignore in the post-WWII period (so after 1945) when there was a push for greater Science Literacy among the General Public and the once enormously popular Smith encountered difficulty getting published in the 1950s as the expectations placed on SF writers changed. Since then, SF writers, and not a few working Scientists, have struggled to find loop-holes in the SoL Rules that Govern the Universe, because what we really want is to reclaim the Stars that we never really touched except within our Dreams.

 

By 1978, Astronomer Carl Sagan was the world’s most famous Scientist because of his accomplishments in bringing Science to the General Public (already popular, his book of that year, “The Dragons of Eden” won the Pulitzer Prize for Best Non-Fiction). He wrote beautifully of his childhood Dreams of the Stars, particularly his love of the “John Carter” novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs (first in the series published 1917). The Fictional Carter transported himself to Mars by looking into the sky and wishing really hard, and Sagan admitted he did the same, but he never departed the grass that he lay upon. Finally, already an Author of multiple Best Selling non-Fiction books and creating the Landmark Science Educational TV Series, “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage” (1980), he tackled a SF novel with his long-time collaborator Ann Duryan, whom he would soon marry, and set out to reclaim the Stars that his idol Einstein seemed to have denied him. (Duryan didn’t get cover-credit on the book, Sagan later admitted she should’ve.)

 

The novel had a complicated history. It started as a never-completed screenplay, part of a deal cut in 1975 with American Zoetrope and the Children's Television Workshop, and another deal in 1979 with Casablanca Film Works, but when those deals went nowhere, the novel was published in 1985, became a best-seller, and was finally realized as this film in 1997, by a yet another Studio, Warner Bros. Of course there was a Law Suit, there’s always a Law Suit, but Sagan Estate and Warner Bros won.

 

Conquering SoL was not the only thing the novel and film were concerned with. Sagan strongly believed there was Life Elsewhere in the Universe (most Scientists do). To quote one of the film’s earliest scenes:

 

9-year-old Elanor “Ellie” Arroway (Jena Malone): "Do you think there are people on other planets?" 

Her father, Ted (David Morse): "I don't know. But if it's just us, it would be an awful waste of space."

 

But that Faith is stymied by SoL. Sagan was a big supporter of Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI, and as an organized Scientific Endeavor, it goes back to 1955). It tracks the Radio Emissions from Stars, one at a time, and there a more Stars in the Sky than any Human can count. Then it tries to Identify a Signal that demonstrates patterns that are clearly not naturally occurring but instead represent some Intelligent Communication. SETI’s Desperate Prayer of Contact with other Advanced Civilizations raised questions about what kind of conversations we could have. It takes years, centuries, millennia, for a “Hello” to arrive, and then years, centuries, or millennia for, “Hello yourself. How’s your day going?” to return. BUT! on the other hand, our Radio and TV Communications have been traveling across the Universe ever since we invented them, and back then, there was no real interest in talking to Aliens. It is not impossible that Aliens living on a Planet orbiting the Star V775 Herculis are watching “I Love Lucy” (TV show first aired 1951) but they will have to wait till the end of the year “The Honeymooners” (TV show first aired 1956). Very likely, if SETI pays off, were not going to get a message actually intended for us.

 

Sagan himself helped design the “Golden Record” which was attached to the two Voyager Probes (1977) which explored our Solar System and then flew off, aimed at Deep Space. The Golden Records presented a bit of Earth Culture and invited any Aliens that found the Voyagers in the Abyss to come and visit. (Among my Readers, how many of you are old enough to remember Comedian Steve Martin’s joke “Send more Chuck Berry” (1978)?). Currently, the Voyagers are 13 and 15.5 billion miles from Earth, which is still one hellofva lot less than a single Light Year (which how far you’d get traveling at SoL in a single calendar year) 5.88 trillion miles.

 

Sagan hated admitting, “I Want to Believe,” that famous line from the TV series “X-Files” (first aired 1993); he never wanted to turn into something like the Fictional Character Fox Mulder. Instead, when challenged, he said, “The key word in that question is 'believe.' And in my view, you believe only on the basis of compelling evidence. But I think it would be fantastic, not just a major scientific discovery, but a transforming experience in human history." Yes, Sagan Believed, but he wouldn’t Commit; instead, he was figuring how to secure the Evidence before publicly Committing. Yes, Character Mulder was also pursuing the Evidence, but I think we can all agree that Sagan pursued it in a more Rational and Disciplined manner.

 

When this story was first conceived by Sagan, back in the 1970s, SETI was under attack. One of our great Federal Senators was William Proxmire, and he was an odd-mix, a ferocious Political Liberal and hard-core Fiscal Conservative, at the same time. He’s most famous for four things:

1.) Always being on the job. The Congressional Responsibilities of a Legislator, either House, require actually be in Washington DC as a part-time job, yet many Representatives and Senators have appalling Attendance records. Proxmire exceeded all others’ Attendance records.

2.) Early opposition to the Vietnam War (1963-1975).

3.) Thirty-years of daily activism on the Senate Floor to get the USA to accept the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.” It was Ratified by the UN in 1948, but Proxmire had to fight from 1967-1986 before it was finally Ratified by Proxmire’s Ideological Opponent, Ronald Reagan, then President of the USA (POTUS) and Reagan was the fifth POTUS during this long Campaign.

4.) His annual publication of the Golden Fleece Award (1975-1988), attacking Pork-Barrel and Department of Defense Spending that was eating up the Federal Budget and wasting Tax-Payer money.

 

It’s the last of those Noble Efforts that comes into play here. Proxmire was suspicious of many Scientific Research Projects, sometimes displaying little understanding of what the Research could mean in the Future. He was especially hostile to NASA, focusing on Manned Space Flight programs and SETI. He targeted SETI in 1978 (a year before the failed deal between Sagan and Casablanca Film Works) and succeeded in strangling SETI during the 1980s. SETI then had to rely on Private Funding and de-centralizing the research to Amateur Scientists. With Proxmire’s retirement in 1989, NASA did shift funding back to SETI in the early 1990s, but that was significantly curtailed again in 1993. (There’s a SF film that that amusingly blames this on a Conspiracy launched by Alien Invaders, “The Arrival” (1996).) I can’t help but think “Contact” finally getting made in 1997 was a reaction to SETI’s financial woes. Finally, in 2023 (by this time both Sagan and Proxmire were dead) SETI was saved by a $200 million donation from the estate Franklin Antonio, co-Founder of the High-Tech Firm Qualcomm. Antonio had long-supported SETI, and I can’t help but think he inspired the Character S. R. Haddenin the novel and film.

 

Also, Sagan was an Agnostic, clearly leaning towards Atheism, and was public about it. Being famous, he was constantly challenged about that. As the novel and film was about our First Contact with an Advanced Civilization, he didn’t ignore the Religious implications. The following is a compression of some of Sagan’s public statements from 1979 to 1995:

 

Some people think God is an outsized, light-skinned male with a long white beard, sitting on a throne somewhere up there in the sky, busily tallying the fall of every sparrow. Others … considered God to be essentially the sum total of the physical laws which describe the universe. I do not know of any compelling evidence for anthropomorphic patriarchs controlling human destiny from some hidden celestial vantage point, but it would be madness to deny the existence of physical laws …. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists … ‘Spirit' comes from the Latin word 'to breathe'. What we breathe is air, which is certainly matter, however thin. Despite usage to the contrary, there is no necessary implication in the word 'spiritual' that we are talking of anything other than matter (including the matter of which the brain is made), or anything outside the realm of science. On occasion, I will feel free to use the word. Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our feelings in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage, such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.”

 

He also had some interesting things to say about the Longing for an Afterlife, but I’ll get to that later.

 

Getting back to the movie, this was not Director Roger Zemeckis’ first SF. Among other things, he’d already made the “Back to the Future” Trilogy (first film 1985), and he was experienced with both Big Budgets and Cutting-Edge FX, but oddly the film on his resume that most informed his visual style here had no SF or Fantasy elements, though it did have a Fairy Tale feel. “Forrest Gump” (1994) featured a Wise-Fool who walked through the third-quarter of the 20^th c, influencing Historical Events far more than he realized. Zemeckis’ used cutting-edge FX to place the Title Character (played by Tom Hanks) in the center of History in a manner that they didn’t seem like FX. “Contact” is loaded with extra-ordinary FX, but the three sequences that most impressed me were early all in the film and two-of-the-three sequences are compelling because the Audience most likely didn’t realize they are watching FX at all.

 

The very first scene is legitimately spectacular, and there’s no mistaking the FX. It starts with Earth viewed from Space, then pulls back at an ever-accelerating pace, passing beyond Planets, then out of the Solar System, beyond the Oort cloud, Interstellar Space, the Local Bubble, the Milky Way, other Galaxies of the Local Group, and eventually into Deep Space so far removed it is almost unimaginable. This sequence extends for a remarkable three minutes, and will immediately remind many Audience Members of Writers/Directors Charles and Ray Eames “The Powers of Ten” (two short Documentary films, 1968 & then revised in 1977, the latter being the more famous), which conveyed near-equal grandeur even though the FX were obviously more primitive. There are two important differences from the original: In “The Powers of …” we only pulled back 100 million Light Years (GOD! Did I just use the word “only”?) while “Contact” goes even farther. Also, “Contact’s” soundtrack is filled with Earth-originating Radio Signals, so important to the film’s plot, and as the PoV draws backwards, the sounds of our media move backward in time, reflecting what signals had managed to travel that far, measured by SoL. Finally, the Human voices disappear entirely, because in this scene, the camera moves back even farther from Earth than the story does (Sound Designer Randy Thom, who collaborated with Zemeckis of “Forrest Grump”). It’s remarkable, up-to-that-point the longest continuous use of CGI in a film that was primarily Live-Action. Finally, all is revealed to have in the mind’s eye of the child Ellie (symbolized by a close-up of her pupil and cornea) while she plays with her ham-radio set. (I would give you the name for someone for the FX, but in this film, the FX crossed so many disciplines, the list would be too long.)

 

The second is a Dramatic scene, the tragedy of the day Ellie loses her beloved farther, Ted. Her mother died during childbirth, her father was physically fragile, and went he has a Medical Crisis, Ellie must rush up the stairs to a second-floor bathroom where his medicine is, the camera locked on her face as she does. By the time she reaches the second floor, it shifts into Slow-Mo, making the medicine cabinet seem farther-and-farther away, which itself was a technical challenge in 90s cinema, but the FX went well-beyond that. It required a Steadicam Operator running backwards up the same stairs, ahead of Ellie, down the hall, into the bathroom, and then (here’s the magic) when Ellie grabs the handle for the mirrored medicine cabinet door, the image of her tilts, as if the whole thing was shot from the perspective of that mirror, which it wasn’t. This continuous shot, simply wasn’t, but he wanted to fool you that it is was. The mirror on the medicine cabinet was a Blue Screen, two cameras meticulously synchronized were used, and the cut between the two is invisible in a way I can’t begin to explain. He used the most up-to-date FX not to create Epic Spectacle or Spaceships, but to hold you in the moment, and I didn’t see it until second watching.

 

To get to the third I’ll have to skip a few scenes for a moment. Ellie is now grown-up (played now by Jodie Foster). She works at the Real-World Very Large Array (VLA), an impressive collection of Radio Telescopes in New Mexico, among the World’s most Poetic demonstrations of Human Technology on a Massive Scale. She sits in the middle of the breath-takingly beautiful landscape of the Future and Primeval Past, absorbed with her laptop, wearing ear phones. She finally gets what appears to be the signal she so-long searched for (note: This is a film of exceptional Scientific Fidelity, but the image of her catching it on her lunch break, listening to ear-phones, well … let’s just say it’s a little Romanticized). Excited Ellie gets up and drives to the office. Most of this sequence is done with traditional quick-cuts, Ellie is on a walkie talkie with her co-Workers so that was how that conversation was handled. But there’s a short bit, as Ellie gets out of her car, the VLA is in the background, and she runs into the building, again a Steadicam shot, this time focused on the back of her head. She goes through the door, corridors, multiple rooms, to the Control Center, all seemingly seamless, but actually, not. The scene was shot on location at the VLA, Actress Foster’s first step out of the car was in New Mexico, but her last step was in a Studio Lot in California, hundreds of miles away and filmed months later. In the Control Room, we see the VLA again, but this time through a window, and that was Blue Screen. And I did not see this even in second viewing, it was spelled out in the research I did for this essay.

 

Almost no one except Zemeckis would’ve put the effort into creating the illusion of the latter two (fake) continuous shots, but Zemeckis has always pursuing unusual dynamism in the smallest scenes. Later in the film, as he moved to the biggest scenes, where the FX was more in-your-face FX, he wanted a smooth transition between the two story-telling modes. Before this film is over, much Chaos will erupt in the World, but Ellie is always kept at the center, it is through her Characters eyes we see the changing world. This is the opposite of Director Michael Bay, where the FX are excellent, but often don’t look like they don’t belong the same film with the Character interaction.

 

Now, to fill in the blanks between the second and third scene described above.

 

Character Ellie evolves as an interesting reflection of Author Sagan’s Public Persona. Her first name reflects Author Duryan’s admiration of Former First Lady Elenor Roosevelt, her last name is from the actual sur-name of Philosopher Voltaire, “Arouet.” Working into her on-screen Character is Real-World SETI Scientist Jill Tarter, who consulted on the film and whom Actress Foster spent time with to get a feel for the role.

 

Ellie’s an Unapologetic Atheist, denies Belief not grounded in Evidence, but clearly Longs (not “Wants” but “Longs”) to Believe. Before VLA, she was working at Puerto Rico’s Real-World Arecibo Observatory, which was better suited for SETI work than the VLA. She has a brief affair with a Preacher man, Palmer Ross (Matthew McConaughey). Ellie and Palmer seem to fascinate each other because they are equally Intellectually Fierce but of Opposing Beliefs. This affair is tender, but it ends because her Superior, Dr. David Drumlin (Tom Skerritt), pulls her funding, mocked her, "Hi, Ellie. Still waiting for E.T. to call?" (a reference to the film “E.T. The Extraterrestrial” (1982)). Important here though David is hostile he is to Ellie, he also admires her, saying she’s "brilliant, driven, a major pain in the ass . . . obsessed with a field that's considered professional suicide."

 

The above scene at VLA comes soon after Puerto Rico. The fact that this film holds to a rigorous Chronology, not starting with Ellie receiving the message, no flashbacks, reflects Zemeckis’ commitment to Characterization. He recognized this film was as much about Ellie’s Biography as it was about Touching the Stars, because what the film is really about it the Human Consequences about touching the Stars. It’s a realistic Drama about the next-step in Human Evolution, and Humans are really about our Personal Pasts. Ellie is our Path to Infinity, and for us to understand what she Sees, we need to understand what shapes her Seeing.

 

Zemeckis seemed to have learned his current consciousness regarding the role of FX when he made “Forrest Gump.” There was remarkable FX work in the “Back to the …” and virtually every frame of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” (1988) was a groundbreaking Technical Achievement, but those films used FX the way everyone else did, for the Spectacle of the Spectacular. Here, Zemeckis wanted to sell a Grand Epic to work as Realism, two things that were often at odds with each other. And taking a similar attitude, and some Computer Chicanery, Zemeckis managed to get POTUS Bill Clinton to star in is film.

 

In the novel, and the early drafts of the script, a fictional POTUS was a Character. Actors Linda Hunt and Sidney Poitier were under consideration; but then, in the Real-World, something incredibly Weird happened: Scientists Discovered Life on Mars. Or thought they did. And POTUS Clinton held a Press Conference. Sagan had nothing to do with any of this, but he was excited, calling it "a possible turning point in human history." NASA’s Everett Gibson wisely cautioned, "We'll know for sure in two years or so." 

 

This is a wild story but I won’t go into much detail because it would take too long, but you should look it up. Shortest version: The Press Conference was premature, the findings hadn’t been Peer-Reviewed yet, but there was no choice. Some Skanky Little Whore got hold of the story and sold it before any of the proper Review could be done, so the maybe most important Revelation in Human History was about to be a Scoop in the National Enquirer. Someone had to do something fast. Eventually, the Scientists who did the initial Research were demonstrated to have found something interesting, but not what they had thought they found. We still don’t have definitive proof of Alien Life yet; but we do have a lot of hard feelings in the Scientific Community.

 

Anyway, armed with a Computer with Cutting-Edge Digital Editing, Zemeckis turned Clinton’s speech regarding the Mars sorta-Discovery, with a couple lines from another Press Conference regarding a now-forgotten Crisis in Iraq, and made it about Fictional Ellie’s Fictional Discovery that Aliens from Vega were trying to talk with us.

 

The Real-World White House was not amused.

 

Zemeckis also used a lot of Real-World CNN Anchors, Hosts, and Reporters, as Actors reading from Fictional Script (reportedly, more than 25 of them). This helped ground the film’s Realism, but perhaps Zemeckis over-indulged. In the wake of this film’s release, CNN felt the need to make some Policy Changes regarding this kinda thing.

 

“Contact’s” Cinematographer was Don Burgess, he had a history with Zemeckis, he’d done Second Until Work on the “Back to the …” films and then picked up numerous Awards as Lead Cinematographer for “Forest Gump.” Of the complex relationship between FX and Primary Shooting, the faux-Real Elements and the more conventional fictions, he said, "In all of Bob's movies and 'Contact' in particular, there are so many elements you're dealing with in just one shot. First of course, and most importantly, is the performance. Bob will always make the technology fit the creative vision before compromising the creative vision. But you are often adding to the story the technical elements of blue screen, several different angles being shot at once, computer screens, glass reflections and then the visual-effects needs. Needless to say, there are always exciting days on a Zemeckis movie and rarely easy ones."

 

Back to the story. Character Ellie had landed at the VLA because she’d received surprise Funding from the reclusive and Super-Rich Hadden (played by John Hurt, and I suggested he was inspired by Real-World Antonio, but most other Critics compare him to Real-World Howard Hughes or Armand Hammer). Soon after Ellie’s triumph, her Supervisor David steps in and smoothly takes the credit for Ellie’s work that he’d earlier belittled. Another key theme of this ambitiously complex film is how Politics is a constant barrier to the Purity of Reason that Science is supposed to represent, and that is made all the worse by the next revelation.

 

The message was complex, it opens with a series of Prime Numbers, a signal that said the rest of it was worth the time of decoding. This wasn’t “I Love Lucy” reruns, we were being spoken to directly. When decoded, the first image we see is, well …

 

Adolf Hitler. Everyone is horribly embarrassed.

 

The message was traced back to the Star Vega, the fifth brightest Star in the Night Sky and about 25 Light-Years away. So, 25 years from Earth to Vega, then 25 years back, we were being sent back a message we unknowingly sent out about 50 years ago, specifically the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. It would’ve been stronger than any other video message transmitted in its day. Hitler’s speech that day might have been pompous, but it wasn’t crazy.

 

And there’s one more thing part of the message, which took a little longer to translate. Blueprints to build a Machine, a Stargate, that would allow a Human to cross the Abyss, defeating SoL, and allowing face-to-face First Contact with an Advanced Alien Species.

 

In SF, defeat of SoL generally follows one of three paths:

 

Warp Drives (think “Dune” (novel 1965 and multiple film and TV adaptions)) also used in “Star Trek” (TV show, first aired in 1966, but “Star Trek” almost never tries to explain a Warp Drive is). With a Warp Drive, you don’t move, you bend Space Time towards you, you make the Stars greet you because of your Immense Power.

 

Hyperspace (used in “Star Wars” (1977) without explanation, nicely explained it “Event Horizon” (1997)) where you punch a hole in our Universe, enter another Universe which has different Rules, fewer restrictions, and then come back into our Universe wherever the heck you want.

 

Stargates (think “2001 …”) require two Machines, presumably far distant from each other, but linked in such a manner that there is no distance between them no matter where they are, even if they are Light Years apart. That’s the one this film uses, and since the novel and this film, it seems like every SF Writer’s favorite.

 

The Stargate idea, at least here, is rooted in a Hypothetical, Sub-Atomic, thingamajig, called a Wormhole. Without pretending to know more about Theoretical Physics than I actually do, I will explain this way: Space Time Bends and Warps, this was definitively established by an Eddington Experiment done in 1919 (very cool, look it up), which was the first Experimental Proof of Physicist Einstein’s weirdest ideas within the Theory of Relativity (really, two Theories, published 1905 and 1915). Next question is, how much can you, personally, bend Space Time? Can you bend it so much that two radically distant points are actually touch each other, can a five-hundred-mile walk become as easy as stepping through a doorway? If Stargates can touch, that’s a great short-cut, and SoL ceases to be a consideration. Among the problems, above-and-beyond the fact that Wormholes have never been proven, is that Wormholes are supposed to be Sub-Atomic, so you can’t fit through one. In this film, the Aliens from Vega (it’s suggested they are really from somewhere farther than Vega) sent us Blueprints for a Machine that would create a Wormhole that some Human would fit through.

 

In SF, Science appears in three forms, Accurate, Imaginary, and Just Plain Wrong. The film shows extraordinary fidelity to the Accurate, there is nothing that is Just Plain Wrong, but the plot eventually hinges on the Imaginary, best described as, “It looks impossible now, but just wait until we discover the next thing.” All defeats of Sol, as well as Time Travel into the Past, Teleportation, etc, count as Imaginary. In the novel, Sagan leaned heavily on the work of Astrophysicist Kip Thorn, and the film similarly shows great fidelity to Thorn’s Imaginary Science. (Note: Thorn would eventually Win a Nobel Prize for his more Real Science.) This is Logical Imaginary Science, we can still Dream it might work, or as Einstein, himself, said, "The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."

 

Grounding the film so carefully in the Real, almost Real, and maybe Real eventually, was essential, because this film is not just about the Contact, it’s about the Consequences. Most Scientists, most of the General Public, the Religiously Devotional, Agnostic, and Atheist, assume we’re not totally alone in this Universe, but we also know we can’t talk to the “I Love Lucy” fans orbiting V775 Herculis, so it’s never in the forefront of our minds. A definitive proof that “We Are Not Alone” (tagline from SF film “Close Encounter of a Third Kind” (1977)) would change everything, it would be a Global Earthquake through all Belief Systems, it would be bigger than the publication of the Wycliffe's Bible (somewhere between 1382 and 1395, and a very big deal, at least in England). This film grounded itself carefully because its ultimate goal was to address the Earthquakes, Political, Cultural, and Religious. Through TV sets, that appear in the background of many scenes, we see a turmoil, with Nazis, Religious Fanatics, and far more reasonable people, not knowing how to process this New Information. We see people trying to take control of if, trying to protect their most cherished belief. People’s jobs are on the line and think only of that. For the most part, we see this suddenly Mutating World through Character’s Ellie’s eyes, among the most legitimately Intelligent and Admirable Heroes in recent cinema, but also, obviously, way in over her head.

 

The Collision between Science and Faith comes to a head during Congressional Hearings. This film features two intense sets of Congressional Hearings, one before and another after the actual trip. This first one that will affect the decision of who will be the first Astronaut who goes through the Wormhole.

 

Character Palmer’s career has advanced as fast as Ellie’s, now an Advisor to the POTUS, he gets to improbably ask a question to Ellie on camera. At that vital moment, he betrays her with to the heart of one of this film’s arguments, “Do you believe in God, Dr. Arroway?” Ellie reasonably challenges the relevance of the question, but her fair answer to the unfair question is completely unacceptable, derailing her career (well, for a little while).

 

Important here is the Palmer’s Betrayal has no Dishonesty in it, he Believes, and he is defending his Beliefs with all the Integrity he can muster. In fact, no one in this film lies very much; collectively, they’re all way more Honest than people in the Real-World. Palmer is never treated as Villain, not even with this moment of betrayal. This film does offer some slimy Villains among Minor Characters: Nazis, Religious Fanatics, and a scene with Character Richard Rank (Rob Lowe) saying very stupid things. But among the Central Characters, it offers us two Villains who really aren't truly Villainous.

 

The above-mentioned David is Self-Serving, but it soon becomes clear he understands how to negotiate the corridors of Power better than Elie. Late in the film he even tries to attempt a Reproachment towards Ellie, because he knows he’s acted badly toward her.  David Honestly (and Falsely) believed that polishing his own Rep was protecting her.

 

OK, before getting to the second Villain, I have to say, a lot of stuff happens, including the really big FX scenes including the building of the Machine (really Machines plural), a Terrorist Attack, and finally the trip through the Wormhole. The travel through the Wormhole looks terrific, deliberately evoking “2001 …” (Why not? Both were about Stargates). Then Zemeckis pulled his weirdest trick, how he handled the face-to-face with the Aliens. 

This scene is drawn from the novel, and to a lesser extent, “2001 …” In both, the Encounters are with Aliens as powerful as the Gods like Homer would describe them in Ancient Greece (7^th c. BCE Gods are more like the false Gods who pop-up in “Star Trek” episodes than the Gods most of the Human Race worships today) but they claim no Godhood. These staggeringly powerful Aliens don’t want to freak us out during the first Encounter, so they pull images from Ellie’s memories and create a midway point between what they actually are and what she can process. In Ellie’s case, it’s a beach in Puerto Rico (actually filmed in Fiji), and her beloved, long dead, father, Ted. Zemeckis chose to make this vital scene look slightly fake, it was deliberate, but a choice not all Critics appreciated.

 

So, the Encounter was about the Afterlife, except it wasn’t. Here, I must quote Sagan addressing the Afterlife, from 1995:

 

"My parents died years ago. I was very close to them. I still miss them terribly. I know I always will. I long to believe that their essence, their personalities, what I loved so much about them, are — really and truly — still in existence somewhere. I wouldn't ask very much, just five or ten minutes a year, say, to tell them about their grandchildren, to catch them up on the latest news, to remind them that I love them. There's a part of me — no matter how childish it sounds — that wonders how they are. ‘Is everything all right?’ I want to ask. The last words I found myself saying to my father, at the moment of his death, were ‘Take care.’

Sometimes I dream that I'm talking to my parents, and suddenly — still immersed in the dreamwork — I'm seized by the overpowering realization that they didn't really die, that it's all been some kind of horrible mistake. Why, here they are, alive and well, my father making wry jokes, my mother earnestly advising me to wear a muffler because the weather is chilly. When I wake up I go through an abbreviated process of mourning all over again. Plainly, there's something within me that's ready to believe in life after death. And it's not the least bit interested in whether there's any sober evidence for it.

So, I don't guffaw at the woman who visits her husband's grave and chats him up every now and then, maybe on the anniversary of his death. It's not hard to understand. And if I have difficulties with the ontological status of who she's talking to, that's all right. That's not what this is about. This is about humans being human."

 

So, back to the second semi-Villain, Presidential National Security Advisor Michael Kitz (James Woods), who doesn’t believe a word of any of this and often came-off like Real-World Senator Joe McCarthy. In his first on-screen appearance (in the first-third of the film), his arrogance oozes through his pores, and Ellie earns a lot of cred by standing to him then, but she’ll pay a price for that in the end. But he’s also solidly grounded in legitimate concerns, which come into play during the second set of Congressional Hearings, after the trip, with Michael enraged that Ellie is describing a Mircale, but can’t provide Definitive Proof that it actually happened. His Abusive behavior towards Ellie is rooted in his long-standing distrust of Hadden and his suspicion of how the USA’s Power-Elite can Manipulate Perceivable Realities.

 

And Ellie can’t say that Michael is wrong. This forces her to, for the first time since the death of her father, admit she Believes in something she can’t prove. There’s an elegance in the kinda of storytelling, when the beginning, and the end, of the narrative touch each other.

 

Unfortunately, Sagan himself didn’t get to see this film. In 1994, so even before Principle-Shooting began, Sagan was diagnosed with Myelodysplasia, a rare Bone-Marrow Disease, and given six months to live. He lasted years through painful Bone-Marrow Transplants, participated in the project as shooting commenced in 1996, but he succumbed in late that year, the film still not-quite-finished. Zemeckis, “He had been on the set two weeks earlier. As sick as he was, he was sending us notes on last-minute rewrites. He worked until he died. I was so hoping he’d be down on the stage and working on the final cutting of the film. It’s so sad.”

 

But the film was a resounding success, inspiring a renewal of Major Studio commitment to more serious SF. A few of the people involve in this one, Producer Lynda Obst, Physicist Thorne, Actor McConaughey, would return to the screens with an almost equally ambitious project, “Interstellar” (2014) which was unrelated to “Contact” yet really felt like a follow-up.

 

Trailer:

Contact (1997) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers - YouTube