Contact(1997 American film)

Contact
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Robert Zemeckis
Screenplay by	James V. Hart Michael Goldenberg
Story by	Carl Sagan Ann Druyan
Based on	Contact by Carl Sagan
Produced by	Robert Zemeckis Steve Starkey
Starring	Jodie Foster Matthew McConaughey James Woods John Hurt Tom Skerritt Angela Bassett
Cinematography	Don Burgess
Edited by	Arthur Schmidt
Music by	Alan Silvestri
Production company	South Side Amusement Company
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date	July 11, 1997(1997-07-11)
Running time	150 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$90 million
Box office	$171.1 million

Contactis a 1997 Americanscience fiction drama filmdirected byRobert Zemeckis,based on the1985 novel of the same namebyCarl Sagan.Sagan and his wifeAnn Druyanwrote the story outline for the film. It starsJodie Fosteras Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway, aSETIscientist who finds evidence ofextraterrestrial lifeand is chosen to makefirst contact.It also starsMatthew McConaughey,James Woods,Tom Skerritt,William Fichtner,John Hurt,Angela Bassett,Rob Lowe,Jake Busey,andDavid Morse.It features theVery Large ArrayinNew Mexico,theArecibo ObservatoryinPuerto Rico,theMirspace station, and theSpace CoastsurroundingCape Canaveral.

Sagan and Druyan began working onContactin 1979. They wrote afilm treatmentover 100 pages long and set up the project atWarner Bros.withPeter GuberandLynda Obstas producers. Whendevelopmentstalled, Sagan publishedContactas a novel in 1985, and the film reentered development in 1989.Roland JofféandGeorge Millerhad planned to direct, but Joffé dropped out in 1993, and Warner Bros. fired Miller in 1995. With Zemeckis as director, filming ran from September 1996 to February 1997.Sony Pictures Imageworkshandled most of the visual effects.

Contactwas released on July 11, 1997, and received positive reviews from critics. The film grossed over $171 million worldwide. It won theHugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentationand severalSaturn Awards.

Plot

Dr. Ellie Arroway works for theSETI programat theArecibo ObservatoryinPuerto Rico.She was inspired to pursue a career in science, starting withamateur radio,by her father, who died in her youth. Her work involves listening toradio emissionsfrom space in the hopes of finding signs ofintelligent extraterrestrial life.The program loses funding after David Drumlin, thePresident'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 theVery Large ArrayinNew Mexico.

Four years later, when Drumlin is about to terminate the SETI program at the VLA, Arroway discovers a signal containing a sequence ofprime numbersthat appears to have originated from the starVega.This announcement leads Drumlin and theNational Security Council,headed by Michael Kitz, to attempt to seize control of the facility. Upon further investigation, Arroway's team discovers a video hidden within the signal:Adolf Hitler's opening address at the1936 Summer OlympicsinBerlin,Germany. Arroway and her team believe this transmission would have been the first to have been strong enough to penetrate the Earth'sionosphere,travel to Vega, and then be sent back to Earth.

The project is put under tight security, and its progress is monitored around the world. Arroway discovers the signal contains over 63,000 pages of encoded data. Hadden meets with Arroway and provides her with the means to decode the pages. The decoded data reveals schematics for a Machine that may be a form of transportation for a single individual. Multiple nations provide funding for the construction of the Machine, which is built at theKennedy Space CenterinCape Canaveral.An international panel will select a candidate to travel in the Machine. Arroway is a leading candidate until 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. This makes the panel select Drumlin, for supposedly being a better representation of humanity (despite having never professed any faith). During the first tests, a religious terrorist, named Joseph, destroys the Machine with a suicide bomb, killing himself, Drumlin, and several others.

Hadden, now residing on theMirspace stationand dying of cancer, reveals to Arroway that the U.S. government had secretly contracted his company to build a second Machine in Japan. Arroway, the only American remaining among the candidate pool, will be the one to go. Equipped with multiple recording devices, Arroway enters a pod, which is dropped into the Machine and seemingly travels through variouswormholes.Arroway observes a radio array-like structure at Vega, signs of civilization on an alien planet, and a celestial event that makes her ecstatic. She then finds herself on a beach, similar to a childhood drawing she made ofPensacola,Florida. A figure approaches, taking on the appearance of her deceased father, whom Arroway recognizes as an alien. Humanity contacted his people through our radio emissions and were judged a species worthy of being shown a first step into the cosmos.

Arroway loses consciousness, and upon regaining it finds herself lying in the pod, while the mission control team repeatedly tries to contact her. She learns that from the outside, the Machine only appears to have dropped the pod into a safety net. Arroway insists that she was gone for about 18 hours, but her recording devices show only static noise. ACongressional Committeeheaded by Kitz is convened, who speculates that the signal and machine were a hoax designed by Hadden, who has since passed away. Arroway requests that the committee accept the truth of her testimony on faith, declaring that while her testimony cannot be proven scientifically, it has impacted her humanity. In a private conversation, Kitz andWhite Houseofficial Rachel Constantine discuss the confidential information that although Arroway's recording device only recorded static, it recorded approximately 18 hours of it. Arroway reunites with Joss, who professes faith in her story, and she receives ongoing financial support for the SETI program at the VLA.

Cast

• Jodie Fosteras Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Ann Arroway
  • Jena Maloneas young Ellie
• Matthew McConaugheyas Palmer Joss
• David Morseas Theodore Arroway
• Tom Skerrittas Dr. David Drumlin
• James Woodsas Michael Kitz
• John Hurtas S. R. Hadden
• William Fichtneras Kent Clarke, a character derived fromKent Cullers
• Angela Bassettas Rachel Constantine
• Jake Buseyas Joseph
• Rob Loweas Richard Rank
• Geoffrey Blakeas Fisher
• Max Martinias Willie
• Steven Fordas Major John Russell
• Jay Lenoas himself
• Larry Kingas himself
• Ann Druyanas herself

Production

Development

Carl Saganconceived the idea forContactin 1979. That year,Lynda Obst,one of his closest friends, was hired by film producerPeter Guberas astudio executivefor hisproduction company,Casablanca FilmWorks. ShepitchedGuber the idea forContact,and he commissioned a development deal.

Sagan and Ann Druyan (who were later married) finished their film treatment in November 1980.Druyan explained:

Carl's and my dream was to write something that would be a fictional representation of what contact would actually be like, that would convey something of the true grandeur of the universe.

They added the science and religion analogies as a metaphor of philosophical and intellectual interest in searching for the truth of both humanity and alien contact.

Sagan incorporatedKip Thorne's study ofwormholespace travel into the screenplay.The characterization of Ellie Arroway was inspired byJill Tarter,head ofProject Phoenixof theSETI Institute;Jodie Foster researched the lead role by meeting her.The name Ellie was short for Eleanor, which was taken fromEleanor Rooseveltwhom both Sagan and Druyan adored; Arroway was selected based on bothVoltaire's real name (Arouet), and that Ellie "was going to travel like an arrow through the cosmos", according to Druyan.Tarter served as a consultant on the story, realistically portraying career struggles of women scientists from the 1950s to 1970s. The writers debated whether Arroway should have a baby at the film's end.Although Guber was impressed with Sagan and Druyan's treatment, he hired various screenwriters to rewrite the script. New characters were added, one of them a Native Americanpark rangerturned astronaut.Guber suggested that Arroway have an estranged teenage son, whom he believed would add depth to the storyline. Guber said:

Here was a woman consumed with the idea that there was something out there worth listening to, but the one thing she could never make contact with was her own child. To me, that's what the film had to be about.

Sagan and Druyan disagreed with Guber's idea, and it was not incorporated into the storyline. In 1982, Guber tookContacttoWarner Bros. Pictures,and with the film'sdevelopmentstalled, Sagan started to turn his original idea into anovel,which was published bySimon and Schusterin September 1985. The film adaptation remained in development, and Guber eventually vacated his position atWarner Bros.in 1989.

Guber became the new president ofSony Pictures Entertainmentand tried to purchase thefilm rightsofContactfrom Warner, but the studio refused. Coincidentally, in 1989, Obst was hired as a new executive at Warner and began to fast-track the film by hiring more writers.Roland Jofféwas eventually hired to direct,using a screenplay byJames V. Hart.Joffé almost commencedpre-productionbefore he dropped out,and Obst then hiredMichael Goldenbergto rewrite the script, who finished his second draftin late 1993. Goldenberg's second draft rekindled Warner Bros. interest inContact,andRobert Zemeckiswas offered the chance to direct, but he turned down the opportunityin favor of making a film based on the life ofHarry Houdini.Zemeckis recalled:

The first script [forContact] I saw was great until the last page and a half... and then it had the sky open up and these angelic aliens putting on a light show and I said, 'That's just not going to work.'

In December 1993, Warner Bros. hiredGeorge Millerto direct,andContactcommenced pre-production. Miller castJodie Fosterin the lead role, approachedRalph Fiennesto play Palmer Joss and also considered castingLinda Huntas the President of the United States. In addition to having aliens put on alaser lighting displayaround Earth, another version of the Goldenberg scripts had an alien wormhole swallow up the planet, transporting Earth to the center of the galaxy. Miller also asked Goldenberg to rewriteContactin an attempt to portray the Pope as a key supporting character. Warner Bros. was hoping to have the film ready for release by Christmas 1996, but under Miller's direction pre-production lasted longer than expected.The studio fired the director, blaming pushed-back start dates, budget concerns, and Miller's insistence that the script needed five more weeks of rewriting. Robert Zemeckis, who previously turned down the director's position, decided to accept the offer. Warner Bros. granted Zemeckis totalartistic controland the right offinal cut privilege.Zemeckis cast Matthew McConaughey as Palmer Joss; McConaughey dropped out of the lead role inThe Jackalto take the role inContact.Despite being diagnosed withmyelodysplasiain 1994, Sagan continued to be involved in the production of the film. For the cast and main crew members, he conducted anacademic conferencethat depicted a detailed history ofastronomy.

During the development ofContact,the production crew watchedStanley Kubrick's2001: A Space Odyssey(1968) for inspiration.

Filming

Concept drawing of early NASA site idea

Location filming began in September 1996 at theVery Large Arrayin New Mexico

Principal photographybegan on September 24, 1996, and ended on February 28, 1997. The first shooting took place at theVery Large Array(VLA) nearSocorro, New Mexico."Shooting at the VLA was, of course, spectacular but also one of the most difficult aspects of our filming", producerSteve Starkeysaid. "It is a working facility, so in order for us to accomplish shots for the movie, we had to negotiate with theNational Science Foundationfor 'dish control' in order to move the dishes in the direction we needed to effect the most dramatic shot for the story. "After arduous first weeks oflocation shootingin New Mexico andArizona,production forContactreturned to Los Angeles for five months' worth of location andsound stageshooting that used a total of nine soundstages atWarner Hollywood StudiosinWest Hollywood,andCulver Studios.All together, theart departmentcreated more than 25sets.

In an attempt to create a sense of realism for the storyline, principalCNNnews outlet commentators were scripted intoContact.More than 25 news reporters from CNN had roles in the film, and the CNN programsLarry King LiveandCrossfirewere also included.Ann Druyanmakes acameo appearanceas herself, debating with Rob Lowe's character, Richard Rank, onCrossfire.In January 1997,second unitfilming, directed by producerSteve Starkeytook place for one week at theArecibo ObservatoryinPuerto Rico.

Other second unit work took place in Fiji,Saint John, US Virgin IslandsandNewfoundland,Canada.Also essential to the production were a host of technical consultants from theSETI Institute,theCalifornia Institute of Technology,the VLA and a formerWhite House staff memberto consult on Washington, D.C., and government protocol issues.Sagan visited the set a number of times, where he also helped with last-minute rewrites. Filming was briefly delayed with the news of his death on December 20, 1996.Contactwas dedicated to Sagan: "For Carl" appears on the screen at the fade.

CinematographerDon Burgessshot the film inanamorphic formatusingPanavisioncameras, as well as using large-format 65 mm andVistaVisionfor special effects shots. Thesound designersusedPro Toolssoftware for theaudio mi xing,which was done atSkywalker Sound.

Visual effects

The film's (second) Machine in operation atHokkaidō,Japan

DesigningContact's visual effects sequences was a joint effort by eight VFX companies, includingSony Pictures Imageworks,Peter Jackson'sWeta Digital,George Lucas'Industrial Light & Magic,andEffects Associates,withPixar'sRenderManused for CGI rendering. Weta Digital, in particular, was responsible for designing thewormholesequence.Jodie Foster admitted that she had difficulty withblue screentechnology because it was a first for her. "It was a blue room. Blue walls, blue roof. It was just blue, blue, blue", Foster explained. "And I was rotated on aLazy Susanwith the camera moving on a computerized arm. It was really tough. "

News footage of then-PresidentBill Clintonwas digitally altered to make it appear as if he is speaking about alien contact. This was not the original plan for the film;Zemeckis had initially approachedSidney Poitierto play the president, but the actor turned the role down in favor ofThe Jackal.Shortly after Poitier's refusal, Zemeckis saw aNASAannouncement in August 1996. "Clinton gave hisMars rockspeech ", the director explained," and I swear to God it was like it was scripted for this movie. When he said the line 'We will continue to listen closely to what it has to say', I almost died. I stood there with my mouth hanging open. "

One notable feature ofContactis its use of digitalcolor correction.This approach helped solvecontinuityerrors during the location shooting at theVery Large Arrayin New Mexico. "The weather killed us, so we were going back in and changing it enough so that the skies and colors and times of day all seem roughly the same", commentedvisual effects supervisorKen Ralston.

The opening scene is a three-minutecomputer-generatedsequence, beginning with a view of Earth from high in the exosphere and listening in on numerous radio broadcasts emitting from the planet. The camera starts zooming backward, passing the Moon, Mars, and other features of the solar system, then to theOort cloud,interstellar space,theLocal Bubble,theMilky Way,other galaxies of theLocal Group,and eventually into deep space. As this occurs, the radio signals start to drop out and reflect older programming, representing the distance these signals would have traveled at the speed of light, eventually becoming silent as the distance becomes much greater. The sequence eventually resolves into the iris of young Ellie's eye as she is listening on heramateur radiobase station. The scale-view shot of the entire universe was inspired by the short documentary filmPowers of Ten(1977). At the time, it was the longest continuous computer-generated sequence in a live-action film, eventually surpassed by the opening ofThe Day After Tomorrow(2004).

One sequence, with young Ellie running upstairs to try to retrieve her father's medicine, appears to have Ellie running just behind a camera as they move into the bathroom, but the shot resolves to show that this was part of the medicine cabinet mirror's reflection, pulling back to have Ellie open it. It is noted as one of the film's most impressive visual effects due to the seamlessness of the transition. According to Carin-Anne Strohmaier, first assistant film editor, the shot was created through three differentplatesand digitally manipulated in CGI to create the effect: one plate was from the cameraman leading Ellie, the second of Ellie opening the cabinet door (which was a blue screen instead of a mirror), and the third of the reflection of the photograph of Ellie and her dad when the door closes.

In the sequence with the death of Ellie's father, they planned to use an effect similar tobullet timefromThe Matrixto show him stopped in time as he died. As the movie was filmed, they found the approach didn't fit the casting or the direction the film was going. They decided it would be most effective to create something distressing but with Ellie's dad absent from the shot, leading to the development of the mirror sequence.

The decoding of the extraterrestrial message, with its architectural drawings of the machine, was created by Ken Ralston and Sony Pictures Imageworks. It was Zemeckis's and Ralston's sixth film collaboration. Imageworks created more than 350 visual effect shots, using a combination of model and miniature shots and digital graphics. On designing the Machine, Zemeckis said, "The Machine in Sagan's novel was somewhat vague, which is fine for a book. In a movie, though, if you're going to build a giant physical structure of alien design, you have to make it believable... It had to be huge, so that the audience would feel like it was bigger than man should be tinkering with. It had to look absolutely real."The machine was then designed by concept artist Steve Burg, reusing a design he created as a "time-displacement device" for an unused scene inTerminator 2.

Early conceptual designs of the Pod were based, as in the novel, on one of the primary shapes in geometry: adodecahedron,or a twelve-sided body. Eventually it was modified to a spherical capsule that encased the traveler, with a dodecahedron surrounding the sphere. Zemeckis and the production crew also made several visits to theKennedy Space CenteratMerritt Islandadjacent toCape Canaveral,where officials gave them access to sites off-limits to most visitors. Filmmakers were also brought ontoLaunch Complex 39before the launch of the Space Shuttle,where they studied the mechanics of the elevator, gantry area and loading arm for the design of the Machine's surrounding supports and gantry. Once the concept met with the filmmakers' approval, physical construction began on the sets for the Pod, elevator interior and gantry, which took almost four months. The rest of the effects were compiled digitally by Imageworks.

The climactic scene depicting the mysterious beach near the galactic core where Arroway makes contact, in particular, called for major visual innovations. The goal was an idyllic seashore with a sky blazing with stars that might exist near the core of the galaxy. Ralston said that "the thought was that this beach would have a heightened reality. One that might make the everyday world seem like a vague daydream."To keep the question alive whether any of it was real in Arroway's mind, elements such as ocean waves running in reverse and palm tree shadows swaying with sped-up motion were applied.

The Hitler newsreel also required digital manipulation.

Music

Contact: Music from the Motion Picture
Soundtrack albumby Alan Silvestri
Released	August 19, 1997(1997-08-19)
Label	Warner Bros. Records

Theoriginal scorewas composed byAlan Silvestri,most of which was released on August 19, 1997, byWarner Bros. Records.The full score is approximately an hour long, 44 minutes of which is on the CD, including every major cue. The CD track entitled "Good to Go" features a slightly different opening—a brief brass motif that is not in the film—but all other cues are identical in orchestration to the mix in the film.

The Region 2 Special Edition DVD release contains a 5.1 isolated score track,which presents the complete score (this feature, as with many isolated scores, is not mentioned in most product descriptions of the DVD).

Themes

Contactoften suggests that cultural conflicts between religion and science would be brought to the fore by the apparent contact with aliens that occurs in the film. A point of discussion is theexistence of God,with several different positions being portrayed.A description of an emotionally intenseexperienceby Palmer Joss, which he describes as seeing God, is met by Arroway's suggestion that "some part of [him] needed to have it" —that it was a significant personal experience but indicative of nothing greater. Joss compares his certainty that God exists to Arroway's certainty that she loved her deceased father, despite her being unable to prove it.

Contactdepicts intense debate occurring as a result of the apparent contact with aliens. Many clips of well-known debate shows such asCrossfireandLarry King Liveare shown, with participants discussing the implications of the message, asking whether it is proof of the existence of alien life or of God, and whether science is encroaching upon religious ground by, as one believer puts it, "talking to your god for you".The head of a religious organization casts doubt on the morality of building the machine, noting: "We don't even know whether [the aliens] believe in God." The first machine is ultimately destroyed by a religious extremist, in the belief that building it was detrimental to humankind.

Although the revelation at the end of the film that Arroway's recording device recorded approximately 18 hours of noise is arguably conclusive proof of the fact of—if not the experience of—her "journey", several coincidences and indications throughout the film cast doubt on its authenticity. Director Robert Zemeckis indicated: "The point of the movie is for there always to be a certain amount of doubt [as to whether the aliens were real]."These indications consist mostly of visual cues during the "journey" that echo Ellie's experiences earlier in the film (which Ellie believed to be the result of the aliens "downloading [her] thoughts and memories" ), but the timing of the message's arrival and its eventual decoding are also highly coincidental: the message was first received shortly before Arroway and her team were to be ejected from the VLA facility and was successfully decoded only by S. R. Hadden (Arroway's only sponsor, who was close to death from cancer) after weeks of failed attempts by the team at the VLA.

At the end of the film, Arroway is put into a position that she had traditionally viewed with skepticism and contempt: that of believing something with complete certainty, despite being unable to prove it in the face of not only widespread incredulity and skepticism (which she admits that as a scientist she would normally share) but also evidence apparently to the contrary.

Zemeckis stated that he intended the message of the film to be that science and religion can coexist rather than being opposing camps,as shown by the coupling of scientist Arroway with the religious Joss, as well as his acceptance that the "journey" indeed took place. This, and scattered references throughout the film, posit that science and religion are not nominally incompatible: one interviewer, after asking Arroway whether the construction of the machine—despite not knowing what will happen when it is activated—is too dangerous, suggests that it is being built on the "faith" that the alien designers, as Arroway puts it, "know what they're doing".

Release and reception

Uniforms from the film atStockholm International Fairs2011

Contact's release in July 1997 rekindled public interest in Sagan's 1985novel.The book remained onThe New York TimesBest Seller listfrom July 27 to September 21, 1997.

Box office

Contactpremieredon July 1, 1997, at theVillage Theaterin Los Angeles, California.It was released in the United States and Canada on July 11, 1997, in 1,923 theaters, earning $20,584,908 in its opening weekend, ranking in second place behindMen in Black.It eventually grossed $100,920,329 in North America and $70,200,000 in foreign countries, reaching a worldwide total of $171,120,329.

Home video

Contactwas released onLaserDisc,VHSand the (then new)DVDformat in December 1997. Among the special features are threeaudio commentaries:by director Zemeckis and producer Starkey, by visual effects supervisors Ken Ralston and Stephen Rosenbaum, and by star Jodie Foster.Contactwas released onBlu-ray Discon October 6, 2009.

Critical reception

On the basis of 68 reviews collected byRotten Tomatoes,68% of critics gave positive reviews, with an average score of 6.9/10. The critical consensus reads, "Contactelucidates stirring scientific concepts and theological inquiry at the expense of satisfying storytelling, making for a brainy blockbuster that engages with its ideas, if not its characters. "Metacriticcalculated an average score of 62 out of 100, based on 23 reviews, denoting "generally favorable reviews".Audiences polled byCinemaScoregave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert,who gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, said that "Sagan's novelContactprovides the inspiration for Robert Zemeckis' new film, which tells the smartest and most absorbing story about extraterrestrial intelligence sinceClose Encounters of the Third Kind(1977). "Movies likeContacthelp explain why movies likeIndependence Dayleave me feeling empty and unsatisfied ", Ebert commented.On December 21, 2011, Ebert addedContactto his "Great Movies" collection.

Kenneth Turanof theLos Angeles Timessaid that the film carried a more philosophical portrait of the science fiction genre than did other films, but still managed "to satisfy the cravings of the general public who simply want to be entertained".Internet reviewerJames Berardinellisaid thatContactis "one of 1997's finest motion pictures, and is a forceful reminder that Hollywood is still capable of making magic". Berardinelli likened its awe and spectacle toStanley Kubrick's2001: A Space Odyssey,while adding that "IfContactfalls short in any area, it's an inability to fully develop all of its many subplots... "Mick LaSalleof theSan Francisco Chroniclelargely enjoyed the first 90 minutes ofContactbut felt that director Robert Zemeckis was too obsessed with visual effects rather than cohesive storytelling for the pivotalclimax.

Rita Kempley, writing inThe Washington Post,did not like the film's main premise, which she described as "a preachy debate between sanctity and science".

Awards

Association	Category	Recipient	Results
20/20 Awards	Best Actress	Jodie Foster	Nominated
	Best Adapted Screenplay	James V. Hart&Michael Goldenberg	Nominated
	Best Visual Effects		Nominated
Academy Awards	Best Sound	Randy Thom Tom Johnson Dennis S. Sands William B. Kaplan	Nominated
Annie Awards	Best Individual Achievement: Effects Animation	Jay Redd	Nominated
ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards	Top Box Office Films	Alan Silvestri	Won
Blockbuster Entertainment Awards	Favorite Actor – Drama	Matthew McConaughey	Nominated
	Favorite Actress – Drama	Jodie Foster	Nominated
	Favorite Supporting Actor – Drama	Tom Skerritt	Nominated
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards	Best Actress	Jodie Foster	Nominated
Cinema Audio Society Awards	Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mi xing for Feature Films	Randy Thom Tom Johnson Dennis S. Sands William B. Kaplan	Nominated
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards	Best Picture	—	Nominated
Golden Globe Awards	Best Lead Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama	Jodie Foster	Nominated
Hugo Awards	Best Dramatic Presentation	Robert Zemeckis James V. Hart Michael Goldenberg Carl Sagan Ann Druyan	Won
Humanitas Prize Awards	Feature Film Category	James V. Hart&Michael Goldenberg	Nominated
International Monitor Awards	Theatrical Releases – Electronic Visual Effects	Ken Ralston Stephen Rosenbaum Jerome Chen Jay Redd Sheena Duggal David Jones Debbie Denise	Won
Jupiter Awards	Best International Actress	Jodie Foster	Won
Motion Picture Sound Editors Awards	Best Sound Editing – Sound Effects & Foley	—	Nominated
NAACP Image Awards	Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture	Angela Bassett	Nominated
Online Film Critics Society Awards	Top Ten Films of the Year	—	Won
Rembrandt Awards	Best Actress	Jodie Foster	Won
Santa Barbara International Film Festival Awards	Modern Master Award		Won
Satellite Awards	Best Visual Effects	Ken Ralston	Won
	Best Cinematography	Don Burgess	Nominated
Saturn Awards	Best Science Fiction Film	Phil Benson &Randy Thom	Nominated
	Best Director	Robert Zemeckis	Nominated
	Best Writer	James V. Hart&Michael Goldenberg	Nominated
	Best Actress	Jodie Foster	Won
	Best Performance by a Younger Actor/Actress	Jena Malone	Won
	Best Music	Alan Silverstri	Nominated
	Best Special Effects	Ken Ralston Stephen Rosenbaum Jerome Chen Mark Holmes	Nominated
World Animation Celebration Awards	Best Use of Animation as a Special FX in a Theatrical	—	Won

Controversies

Bill Clinton

In 1984, a meteorite calledAllan Hills 84001,thought to be fromMars,was found in Antarctica. Twelve years later, an article by NASA scientistDavid S. McKaywas published in the journalScience,proposing that the meteorite might contain evidence for microscopic fossils of Martian bacteria (later, a disputed interpretation).The announcement made headlines around the world, and the following day, on August 7, 1996, during a press conference about the news, the President of the United States,Bill Clinton,made remarks that were in places sufficiently generic in nature to allow fragments of his videotaped statement to be included inContact,implying that Clinton was ostensibly speaking about contact with extraterrestrial life, congruent with the film's story:

Good afternoon. I'm glad to be joined by my science and technology adviser...[words cut by film editors]... This is the product of years of exploration...[words cut]... by some of the world's most distinguished scientists. Like all discoveries, this one will and should continue to be reviewed, examined, and scrutinized. It must be confirmed by other scientists. But clearly, the fact that something of this magnitude is being explored is another vindication...[film scene performed over recording, with dialogue obscuring Clinton's remarks and creating a gap]... If this discovery is confirmed, it will surely be one of the most stunning insights into our universe that science has ever uncovered. 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. We will continue to listen closely to what it has to say as we continue the search for answers and for knowledge that is as old as humanity itself but essential to our people's future. Thank you.

Later in the film, a separate fragment of generic remarks by President Clinton, speaking aboutSaddam Husseinand Iraq at a different press conference in October 1994, was lifted out of context and inserted intoContact:

I would encourage you not to inflame this situation beyond the facts. Let us deal with this on the facts. We are monitoring what has actually happened.

On July 14, 1997, three days after the film opened in the United States, Warner Bros. received a letter fromWhite House CounselCharles Ruffprotesting against the use of Clinton's digitally-composited appearance. The letter made no demands, but called the duration and manner of Clinton's appearance "inappropriate". No legal action was planned; the White House Counsel simply wanted to send a message to Hollywood to avoid unauthorized uses of the President's image. Zemeckis was reminded that official White House policy "prohibits the use of the President in any way... (that) implies a direct... connection between the President and a commercial product or service".

A Warner Bros. spokeswoman explained: "We feel we have been completely frank and upfront with the White House on this issue. They saw scripts, they were notified when the film was completed, they were sent a print well in advance of the film's July 11 opening, and we have confirmation that a print was received there July 2." However, Warner Bros. did concede that they never pursued or received formal release from the White House for the use of Clinton's image. While the Counsel commented that parody and satire are protected under theFirst Amendment,press secretaryMike McCurrybelieved that "there is a difference when the President's image, which is his alone to control, is used in a way that would lead the viewer to believe he has said something he really didn't say".

CNN

Shortly after the White House's complaint,CNNchairman, president, and CEOTom Johnsonannounced he believed that in hindsight it was a mistake to allow 13 members of CNN's on-air staff (includingJohn Holliman,Larry KingandBernard Shaw) to appear in the film, even though both CNN and Warner Bros. were owned byTime Warner.Johnson added that, forContact,the CNN presence "creates the impression that we're manipulated by Time Warner, and it blurs the line". CNN then changed their policies for future films, which now require potential appearances to be cleared through their ethics group.

Lawsuits

DirectorGeorge Miller,who had developedContactwith Warner Bros. before Zemeckis' hiring, unsuccessfully sued the studio overbreach of contractpolicies.

During filming on December 28, 1996, filmmakerFrancis Ford Coppolafiled a lawsuit against Warner Bros. and Sagan, who had died the previous week.Coppola claimed that Sagan's novel was based on a story the pair had developed for a television specialback in 1975,titledFirst Contact.Under their development agreement,Coppola and Sagan were to split proceeds from the project, as well as from any novel Sagan would write, withAmerican Zoetropeand theChildren's Television Workshop.The TV program was never produced, but in 1985, Simon and Schuster publishedContact,and Warner moved forward with development of a film adaptation. Coppola sought at least $250,000 in compensatory damages and an injunction against production or distribution of the film.

In February 1998, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ricardo Torres dismissed Coppola's claim. Although Torres agreed that Sagan violated some terms of the contract, he explained that Coppola waited too long to file his lawsuit, and that the contract might not be enforceable as it was written. Coppola then appealed his suit,taking it to theCalifornia Courts of Appeal(CCA). In April 2000, the CCA dismissed his suit, finding that Coppola's claims were barred because they were brought too late. The court noted that it was not until 1994 that the filmmaker thought about suing overContact.

NASA

The scene where theNASAscientists give Arroway the "cyanide pill"caused some controversy during production and when the film came out.Gerald D. Griffin,the film's NASA advisor, insisted that NASA has never given any astronaut a cyanide pill "just in case", and that if an astronaut truly wished to commit suicide in space, all they would have to do is cut off their oxygen supply.However, Carl Sagan insisted that NASA did indeed give out cyanide pills, and they did it for every mission an astronaut has ever flown. Zemeckis said that because of the two radically different assertions, the truth is unknown, but he left the suicide pill scene in the movie, as it seemed more suspenseful that way, and it was also in line with Sagan's beliefs and vision of the film.Along with being NASA Technical Consultant for the project, Griffin had acameoin the role of "Dynamics" in Mission Control. He was a technical advisor for Ron Howard's 1995 filmApollo 13.While working for NASA during theApollo Program,he was a flight director for that mission, among others, and in the 1980s was director of theJohnson Space Center.

SETI

SETI.org published a review of the film in 2011, where they gave a side-by-side chart of a few relevant details from the film, and how they differed from reality.One example being that, despite having 27 radio telescopes, the VLA is actually smaller and less sensitive than the Arecibo Observatory—making Arecibo a better location for SETI work, if possibly a less photogenic filming location than theVLA.Despite these small inconsistencies, they maintained that "Contactis indescribably more accurate in its depiction of SETI than any Hollywood film in history. "

See also

• "The Borderland"(The Outer Limitsepisode)
• List of films featuring space stations
• Wow! signal– 1977 narrowband radio signal from SETI
• List of films featuring extraterrestrials

Further reading

• Keay Davidson (1999).Carl Sagan: A Life.New York City: John Wiley & Sons.ISBN0-471-25286-7.
• Tibbetts, John C., and James M. Welsh, eds.The Encyclopedia of Novels Into Film(2nd ed. 2005) pp 69–72.

External links

• Official website
• ContactatIMDb
• ContactatBox Office Mojo
• ContactatRotten Tomatoes
• ContactatMetacritic
• Cinematography analysis
• Visual effects analysis
• September 8, 1995 screenplay
• In-depth analysis of the realism of the film and novel
• SETI Institute -Contactthe Movie
• On Location: RevisitingContact- a Tribute to Carl Sagan