Subject: Review: Contact (1997)

From: [email-masked] (Mark R Leeper)
Date: 8 Jul 1997 16:20:27 GMT

CONTACT
                    A film review by Mark R. Leeper

               Capsule: The first contact with an alien race
          has a huge impact on society.  We see that impact
          through the eyes of one woman who devoted her life
          to the search for extraterrestrial life.  The film
          adaptation of Carl Sagan's CONTACT is in some ways
          a betrayal of Sagan's philosophy and has some hefty
          revisions to the book.  Knowing that I would like
          to down-rate CONTACT, but I have to admit what
          remains is a substantial and intelligent film.
          CONTACT was produced by Sagan and his wife, Ann
          Druyan, and that may be why so much of the film was
          on-track.  While not perfect, it is the best
          science fiction film we have gotten in a good long
          time.  Rating: low +3 (-4 to +4) 8 (0 to 10)
          Spoiler warning: there are minor spoilers in the
          main body and larger ones in the afterward.

     Jodi Foster has obviously gotten a little more sanguine on science
for gifted children since she directed and starred in LITTLE MAN TATE.
That was the film in which she had a budding scientific prodigy saying
"I am working on an experiment involving sulfuric acid, lasers, and
butterflies."  In CONTACT she plays one of those prodigies grown up in
a film considerably more positive on science.  This is the story of the
career of the fictional Dr. Eleanor Arroway (Foster) who at an early
age was bitten by the astronomy bug.  Her mother died giving birth to
her and her father, Ted (David Morse of THE CROSSING GUARD) instilled
in her the love of science to devote her career to SETI, the search for
extra-terrestrial life.  The SETI project turns out to be professional
suicide in the field of astronomy.  But she feels compelled to listen
to the sky and to search for signs of intelligent life.  The career
choice earns her no respect from her colleagues, and it makes life a
constant set of battles for even minimal funding.  Her chief nemesis
and occasional boss David Drumlin (Tom Skerritt), National Science
Advisor to the President, who one way or another betrays her at every
opportunity.  A one-time lover and sometimes adversary is Palmer Joss
(Matthew McConaughey), a failed priest who becomes a sort of Billy
Graham figure.  When funding has run out and Drumlin is forcing her off
the Very Large Array, the huge radio telescope made of twenty-three
dish antennae, in the desert of New Mexico, suddenly she hears a signal
that can mean only an intelligent alien broadcast.  This is a scene we
have seen recently in INDEPENDENCE DAY and THE ARRIVAL, but never with
the scientific verisimilitude that we have here.  Arroway announces to
the world that contact has been made and nothing is ever the same
again.

     And now the film takes off and continues as a high pace until the
end.  We start with a very believable picture of just what would happen
if such an announcement were made.  The National Security Advisor
Michael Kitz (James Woods) struggles to take control of any information
received from the aliens, so does Drumlin, each trying to get the ear
of the President.  (My credits list has Sidney Portier playing the
President, but apparently in a last minute substitution they have
William Clinton in the role.  The film is, after all, directed by
Robert Zemeckis who had several Presidents appearing in FORREST GUMP.
It is sure to be a controversial piece of casting, but I think Clinton
does a fine job as the President.)  CONTACT is not just a political
drama about the after-effects of contacting alien life in space.  This
is a long film that keeps going and going--almost three hours long--and
if you have seen the trailer you will find that the science fiction
content is certainly there if you wait for it.  If you have read the
book, you may be a bit disappointed, since there is far more science
fiction content in the original story, but the film does not exactly
remain earthbound either.

     The opening sequence demonstrating for us how far into the galaxy
our radio broadcasts have reached is both breath-taking and
scientifically informative.  The film is almost worth seeing just for
that sequence.  Other scenes are technically impressive, but a little
nonsensical.  In one tracking shot the camera leads Arroway running up
a flight of stairs and into a bathroom and in the end we see we are
seeing her in the medicine cabinet mirror and have been through the
scene.  There is enough good in CONTACT to make a film I would give
very high marks to, and enough that is irritating for me to really
down-rate it.  Generally when that happens I try to excuse the faults.
So while I thought there was much that was dishonest about CONTACT,
overall I would have to give it a low +3 on the -4 to +4 scale.

     SPOILER WARNING

     Visually you could not ask for a lot more from the film, with one
major exception.  While it is not chock full of special effects and the
mattes of the Transporter seen from a distance are not convincing, the
design of the Transporter is just about as believable as an
interstellar transporter could be.  The scenes of the Transporter
running were stunning, and the journey was terrific though perhaps a
little derivative of 2001:  A SPACE ODYSSEY.  Then she plops down at
the far end and it is the "Oh, shoot!" experience.  What a failure of
imagination!  It was like watching THE BLACK HOLE II.

     There is so much that is right with this film and so much that is
wrong, it is hard to know where to begin to evaluate the ideas.  The
film I would have liked to see is the one this would have been if Carl
Sagan had not died during the production.  I cannot be positive it
would be different, but aspects of this film seem to run very counter
to what I understand as Sagan's philosophy.  Places where the book took
chances and had some engaging thoughts about religion and faith have
been reframed to change their meaning.  Certainly false information
would never have been added to the arguments in the film.  (The film
claims that 95% of the world's population believes in a Supreme Being.
Actually about 21% of the world is atheist or non- religious and while
there may be some who believe in a Supreme Being among the non-
religious, there are certainly also atheists and agnostics who at least
nominally belong to religions.  This also makes the dubious assumption
that Confucians and Shintoists believe in a Supreme Being.  The 95%
figure used in the film is wildly inaccurate.)

     What I did find surprising was people in the audience getting
angry because the "hero" of the film implied that she was either an
atheist or an agnostic.  She never tries to convince anyone to agree
with her, she simply explains why she believes what she does.  Other
people punish her for her belief and nobody in the audience got
(audibly) upset about that.  Apparently with everything else this film
does, it gets people agitated at its ideas.  The novel actually had a
nice piece looking at what could be a proof of the existence of God,
while the film turns into an affirmation of religious faith in its
final scenes.  And Arroway complains that Drumlin tells the people what
they want to hear about his views on religion!

					Mark R. Leeper
					[email-masked]
					Copyright 1997 Mark R. Leeper