It took over a decade for Carl Sagan’s Contact to become a film.
Some people likeMen In Blackmore than me.
That novel was published in 1985.
When George Miller was sacked, Zemeckis finally stepped in.
Sagan, meanwhile, died at the age of 62, eight months before the film was released.
Its hard to think he would be displeased with the end result, though.
For my money, it remains one of the most outright intelligent and ambitious summer movies of its time.
The Opening
The opening shot alone is cliche time worth the money alone.
The opening remains incredible.
Malones eyes were altered in post-production to match the colour of Jodie Fosters.
Ellie uses the science of computers, but doesnt necessarily trust the machines.
By the time the film ends, her initial insistence on science over faith will have been heavily challenged.
Naturally, everyone thinks shes nuts, and naturally again, the money all starts to run out.
The film doesnt have the room to explore this further, though).
This being a big Hollywood movie though, we know that the discovery moment is coming.
Fortunately, when it does, it feels genuinely exciting and important.
Look at his take onA Christmas Carol.
Appreciating its not a universally loved film, the way he chooses and places his silences is brilliant.
As such, we get tohearthe alien broadcast for the first time, rather thanseeit.
But its the sound that resonates.
Politics is always bubbling away in the background ofContact.
Furthermore, it seems everyone important has an ahead-of-its-time version of Powerpoint at hand.
Introducing John Hurt as The Mad Lord Of 90s Powerpoint
The next stage is where we get James Woods.
Its a small role, but one doing an important job.
Woods, of course, is great.
Palmer Joss has real moments of impact, too.
What doesnt quite work though, for me at least, is his romantic relationship with Ellie.
Im not sure why this matters so much to the film.
That thats the meeting point of religion and science, showing they co-exist.
Did they need to sleep together, split, and then come together again to best illustrate that?
Did they have to be romantically linked for the illustration of contact to come across?
I wasnt sure when I first saw the film, and Im not sure now.
And again, this feels scarily contemporary.
Now thats a shirt.
Like many of the arguments withinContact, the film covers this area, without choosing to dig too deep.
In truth, to a point it was always on something of a hiding to nothing here.
Zemeckis, bravely, goes small, rather than large when the eventual alien meeting happens.
Its something so small in the middle of a story thats been quite the opposite.
The alien life, we learn, is in a form Ellie will recognise.
I think its all the braver for that.
Real Or Not Real?
But then the question has to be asked: is it all real?
Or is it in Ellies mind?
There, she goes through the sequence where she meets the alien in the form of her father.
But is she seeing who she wanted to see?
But then, whats the spaceship she sees halfway through her journey?
Is that there to inject doubt in our minds, and lend her credence?
If you missed it, here it is…
So is that real?
Did she imagine that?
Its not like, unlike the book, she brought any notable physical evidence back with her?
And the film acknowledges that.
To a degree, it still does, but there is one thing aboutContactthough thats always bothered me.
Its where she reveals to Woods senate-wannabe that there were 18 hours of static on Ellies recorder.
For me, at that stage, the ambiguity has gone.
Because how else could it get there if Ellies story wasnt at least partly true?
We see from multiple angles the pod dropping through the machine in an instant.
Where does 18 hours of static come from in that time?
Some argue that the 18 hours line doesnt resolve things anywhere as much as it I feel it does.
But it feels just a little too definite and spoon-fed for me.
Few directors, in live action at least, balance the human and the technical quite so well.
It was signified in the moment where Palmer and Ellie join hands at the end.
It also deals with very big subjects, that big movies more often than not tend to avoid.
It remains as interesting a piece of cinema as it was on release, if not more so.
