Contact is a 1997 American science fiction drama film directed by Robert Zemeckis. It is a film adaptation of Carl Sagan's 1985 novel of the same name; Sagan and his wife Ann Druyan wrote the story outline for the film.
Jodie Foster portrays the film's protagonist, Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway, a SETI scientist who finds strong evidence of extraterrestrial life and is chosen to make first contact. The film also stars Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, Tom Skerritt, William Fichtner, John Hurt, Angela Bassett, Jake Busey, and David Morse.
Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan began working on the film in 1979. Together, they wrote a 100+ page film treatment and set up Contact at Warner Bros. with Peter Guber and Lynda Obst as producers. When development stalled on the film, Sagan published Contact as a novel in 1985 and the film adaptation was rejuvenated in 1989. Roland Joffé and George Miller had planned to direct it, but Joffé dropped out in 1993 and Warner Bros. fired Miller in 1995. Robert Zemeckis was eventually hired to direct, and filming for Contact lasted from September 1996 to February 1997. Sony Pictures Imageworks handled most of the visual effects sequences.
The film was released on July 11, 1997, to mostly positive reviews. Contact grossed approximately $171 million in worldwide box officetotals. The film won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and received multiple awards and nominations at the Saturn Awards.
Plot[]
Dr. Ellie Arroway works for the SETI program at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. She was inspired to pursue a career in science, starting with amateur radio, by her father, who died in her youth. Her work involves listening to radio emissions from space in the hopes of finding signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life. The program loses funding after David Drumlin, the President's science advisor, deems it futile. However, Arroway receives financial support from S. R. Hadden, the secretive billionaire industrialist who runs Hadden Industries, which enables her to keep working at the Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico.
Four years later, when Drumlin is about to terminate the SETI program at the VLA, Arroway discovers a signal containing a sequence of prime numbers originating from the star Vega. Drumlin and the National Security Council, headed by Michael Kitz, attempt to seize control of the facility. Arroway's team discovers a video hidden within the signal: Adolf Hitler's opening address at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. The Hitler transmission was the first to penetrate the Earth's ionosphere and reach Vega.
The project is put under security and its progress is monitored around the world. Arroway discovers the signal contains over 63,000 pages of encoded data, and Hadden provides her with the means to decode it. The decoded data reveals schematics for a machine that may be a form of transportation for a single person. Multiple nations provide funding for the construction of the machine, at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.
An international panel will select a candidate to travel in the machine. Arroway is a leading candidate until the Christian philosopher Palmer Joss, a member of the panel with whom she briefly had a romantic relationship in Puerto Rico, draws attention to her atheism. The panel selects Drumlin. During the first tests, a religious terrorist destroys the machine with a suicide bomb, killing himself, Drumlin, and several others. Hadden, now residing on the Mir space station and dying of cancer, reveals to Arroway the U.S. government and his company have used a secret contract to build a second machine in Hokkaido, Japan. Arroway, the only American remaining among the candidate pool, will use it.
Equipped with multiple recording devices, Arroway enters a pod which is dropped into the machine, and seemingly travels through wormholes. She observes a radio array-like structure at Vega, signs of civilization on an alien planet, and a celestial event that makes her ecstatic. She finds herself on a beach similar to a childhood drawing she made of Pensacola, Florida. An alien approaches, taking on the appearance of her deceased father. He explains that the aliens detected humanity's radio emissions and judged them worthy of being shown a first step into the cosmos.
Arroway regains consciousness in the pod. The mission control team tell her that the pod fell through the machine into a safety net and that the experiment achieved nothing. Arroway insists she was gone for about 18 hours, but her recording devices show only static. A Congressional Committee headed by Kitz speculates the signal and machine were a hoax designed by Hadden, who has since died. Arroway requests the committee accept the truth of her testimony on faith, saying that, while her testimony cannot be proven scientifically, it has affected her humanity. Arroway reunites with Joss, who says he believes her. Kitz and the White House official Rachel Constantine discuss the confidential information, and observe that Arroway's device recorded 18 hours of static. Arroway receives ongoing financial support for the SETI program at the VLA.
Cast[]
- Jodie Foster as Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Ann Arroway
- Jena Malone as young Ellie
- Matthew McConaughey as Palmer Joss
- David Morse as Theodore Arroway
- Tom Skerritt as Dr. David Drumlin
- James Woods as Michael Kitz
- John Hurt as S. R. Hadden
- William Fichtner as Kent Clarke, a character derived from Kent Cullers
- Angela Bassett as Rachel Constantine
- Jake Busey as Joseph
- Rob Lowe as Richard Rank
- Geoffrey Blake as Fisher
- Max Martini as Willie
- Steven Ford as Major John Russell
- Jay Leno as himself
- Larry King as himself
- Ann Druyan as herself
Theatrical Trailer[]
"Contact" Theatrical Trailer (1997)-0