"For as long as I can remember, I've been searching for some reason why we're here — what are we doing here, who are we? If this is a chance to find out even just a little part of that answer, I think it's worth a human life, don't you?" — Ellie Arroway
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Millions of viewers of America's CBS-TV on
Wednesday evening, April 25, 2001 watched the television premiere of the anti-Christian
film 'Contact,' based on the novel of the same name by the late astronomer
and skeptic Carl Sagan.
From the outset, the movie (and book) is as much an attack on Christianity and supernaturalism — and conversely, a glorification of naturalism — as it is about an attempt to 'contact' intelligent extra-terrestrial life somewhere in the universe. As just one example of this anti-Christian sentiment, the chestnut 'Where did Cain find his wife?' jumped from the pages of the book right on to the screen. The scientist looking for extraterrestrial life, played by Oscar-winner Jodie Foster, dismisses Christianity as a logically defensible faith when she recalls that in Sunday school, she asked a lot of 'annoying questions' — such as a sarcastically posed 'Who was Mrs Cain?' — without receiving answers. She therefore rejects Christianity because it is not capable of being defended. |
Ellie
Arroway (JODIE FOSTER) has been looking for answers all of her life.
As a young girl, she would leave her bed at night to sit at her short-wave radio, seeking other voices to answer her own. Following the death of her father, Ellie devoted herself to science, the one thing in her life she thought could bring her the absolute explanations she longed for.
In college, her unanswered questions drove her to look for voices from
even more distant sources, and she chose the search for intelligent
extraterrestrial messages as her discipline. Her ambition propelled her to the
top of her class and ignited a promising career. Despite scorn from most of the
scientific community and overwhelming odds to the contrary, she fought for just
a few hours of satellite time a week to sweep distant space for evidence of
other intelligent life. Through it all, Ellie maintained an unswerving
conviction that there is something more in the universe.
Then, one morning in the
desert, something arrives to vindicate Ellie's belief.
From the distant star Vega, a radio message comes to Earth and Ellie
receives it. As the countries of the world unite in an effort to decode the
transmission, the planet faces the message with equal parts hope and fear, for
contained within it are blueprints for a machine of intergalactic travel capable
of transporting its passenger to deep space. It could mean the dawning of an
astounding new era — or certain Armageddon.
Amid the worldwide tumult,
Ellie becomes a lightning rod of controversy. Fighting for her rightful place as
leader of the scientific investigation, she turns to her one potential ally
among those wielding influence on the world stage: Palmer Joss
(MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY), ("A Time to Kill") and
("Larger than Life")
a respected religious scholar and top-level government advisor.
As the world wrestles with the
questions raised by the message, and humanity warily approaches the brink of a
new millennium, Ellie vies to be selected as the single representative who will
leave the Earth to explore the galaxies, seeking the unknown extraterrestrial
source — and becoming the first person to make contact.
But her personal voyage will take her beyond theory, beyond knowledge, beyond experience, to the realization that true vision is ultimately the union of fact and faith.
Arroway, as she gets a tough grilling by a skeptical Congressional investigating committee, cannot present the "evidence of things not seen" by the 43 cameras that were looking at her 'space-craft'.
It is only her word, based upon her very human experience .. until it is discovered that she has 18 hours of taped static, matching her "missing time" report of being away for 18 hours, although, according to scientific observation, she was not gone at all.
Jodie Foster, whose poignant work in "The Accused" and riveting performance in "The Silence of the Lambs" earned her two Best Actress Academy Awards, stars as the headstrong visionary astronomer in "Contact," a drama of discovery, based on the best-selling 1985 novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author and noted astronomer CARL SAGAN and directed by Academy Award-winner ROBERT ZEMECKIS.
