Days after the movie Contact was released in 1997, it received a complaint from the Clinton White House…
The issue was footage used in the film of President Clinton at a news conferences back in August 1996.
Robert Zemeckis took the material, and edited it intoContact.
In the film, it was used to talk about the messages that had seemingly come from alien sources.
Its implications are as far reaching and awe inspiring as can be imagined.
Even as it promises answers to some of our oldest questions, it poses still others even more fundamental.
Which all fitted the context of the filmContactrather well.
The filmmakers apparently hadnt asked permission to use Clintons remarks.
Warner Bros. did concede that it had no formal sign-off on using the footage.
Furthermore, the White House did not seek to pull the film, or have it re-edited.
The scene remains in all copies of the film.
And Clintons image has never been used in a movie this way since.
