Chiasmus cult cinema trailers - "Contact" (1997). *These will be ongoing posts, courtesy of the A.Glass DVD collection. As I offer via Chiasmus Cult trailers, my summarized overviews*

 

I can't really recall a movie, with a hard science fiction premise, that paints the picture of the human race as a bunch of primitive, prejudicial and anxiety ridden idiots as "Contact" (1997) did, loosely based off the late scientist Carl Sagan's 1985 novel of the same name.   We ask? Did the late Sagan attend it to be this way (panicky, annoying, over ambitious human beings discover an alien signal, and go bonkers) as an adaption of his novel. Of course not, as Sagan passed away in 1996, and his book offers a clever glimpse into the ramifications of alien contact on Earth, and how it would affect us spiritually and culturally.  And that a clash between what is believable and what is not, and how truth is defined by populaus reaction, even if it is subjective to the viewer, is philosophical rather than reactionary. 

"Contact" was Carl Sagan's attempt at addressing these points, when newer theories were being developing within the astrophysics community, in regards to Wormholes, Black Holes, and the vast distances that is the Universe.  And that we, as a 300 Thousand year old human species, are young compared to the 13 Billion year old stars, planets, other Galaxies, and any life out there would have to be more advanced, vastly more advanced. 

Despite the pre-production issues that "Contact" had, production began in 1996, in lieu of rewrite after rewrite of the treatment for the screenplay, which began via Carl Sagan himself in the late 1970s, with studios showing interest and the retracting, with its rumored breach of contract, that the concept was co written with Francis Ford Coppola as a 1975 television series, which never occurred.  Thus a lawsuit ensured, via Coppola in 1998 after the Contact 1997 release, and promptly dismissed.  Contact in its build up for Robert Zemeckis to direct, and also produce, yes, you'll feel the "Forrest Gump" (1994) - esque flow to Contact, particularly the younger Eleanor "Ellie" Ann Arroway character (later being the main character Dr "Ellie" Ann Arroway, played by Jodie Foster) and her relationship with her father, who has a heart attack and dies, to which she witnesses as a young girl.  It is Alan Silvestri's score, which assists in exasperating the innocence of Arroway, and her focused drive, as a rational scientist, to discover Extraterrestrial Life and/or a signal. 

And, of course, she does, and thus begins the tension between Faith and Science for over 2 hours, with a Billionaire industrialist, with a 'James Bond' supervillain persona,  "S.R Hadden" (played by the late John Hurt), in the middle, who decides to fund, support and look out for Arroway, as the weight of human fears, bureaucracy, ideology and hysteria bear down on her, after the signal is revealed to the public.  Which, in the context of the movie's dramatization and not so much in the book, everything does go South, from evalaiganal terrorists, Far Right conservatives, such as James Woods character "Michael Kitz", who is essentially playing James Woods, and the painfully irritating, yet horny and kinda sleazy "Palmer Joss", (played by Matthew McConaughey, and he does end up sleeping with Jodie Foster's character, and on a first date, within the first 30 minutes of the movie!) 'spiritual advisor' to the President.

After a Christian terrorist blows up the first 'wormhole' portal, built with ET's instructions which were embedded into the received signal, killing Arroway's boss, who snaked her and took all the credit, but fate being what it is, actually was a good thing (he snaked her again to ride on the wormhole portal seat, after her ex-lover, yes, the sleazy Palmer Joss, advised to a selection panel, that she was too atheist.  Essentially saving her life), this time Arroway is chosen to sit within the wormhole pod, built secretly by Billionaire industrialist S.R Hannen, and the American government on a secret Island base off the coast of Japan.   

And finally, with all the turmoil on Earth, "Ellie Arroway" is able to ride the Wormhole portal to be transported into an what appears to be an ET 'mind hack', at the Center of the Milky Way, where she is approached by a manifestation of her late father, on a Florida beach, which are all Arroway's childhood memories, in their dreamy, and trippy dynamics.  Told by her 'father', that humans have a way to go, before full contact can be made (you said it!), she is later transported back to Earth, with no prove of any contact, with Far Right Conservative  James Wood's character, claiming it was all a "hoax", set up by the now dead "S.R Hannen", who passed away from cancer in the movie, and later subtly pressured by sleazy "Palmer Joss", that she requires "faith" to be believed, to which she agrees.  Thus, he is redeemed, and Arroway succumbs.  And that's the movie in a nutshell.   

"Contact" is one of those cult movies, that offers you a frustrating antihuman ethos, that we are not just flawed, but a bungling, self destructive and fearful entity, according to the rewritten screenplay by James V. Hart and Michael Goldenbers of Carl Sagan's 1985 novel.

So, sit back, buckle up, and be frustrated that we may indeed not handle an Alien signal very well at all.

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(A.Glass 2025)

All CHIAMUS Cult Cinema trailers/commentary to date: chiasmusmagazine.blogspot.com/search/label/Chiasmus%20cult%20cinema