I watched CONTACT again last night. I absolutely love the bravery of the silent beginning and the worm-hole sequence. (BTW, am I the only one who thought CONTACT was better than FORREST GUMP, also directed by Robert Zemeckis? If this movie comes out earlier, doesn’t it get a Best Picture nomination? Yes it has that hokey compass that you just know will come back later, but Gump has dozens of gimmicks. Maybe I’m just bitter.)
Anyway, I’ve never read anything by Carl Sagan, but my understanding is that Sagan is a pretty famous Atheist, and I can only imagine that CONTACT reflects his position (voiced by Jodie Foster’s character, that Science revealed that God never existed in the first place). However, every time I watch the movie I’m struck by how much the film seems to affirm a greater power out there in the universe. Be it Aliens, God, or Aunt Jemimah, doesn’t CONTACT seem to argue there is something greater than us?
Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time Zemeckis has drastically changed the message of his adaptation. I’ve read Winston Bloom’s Forrest Gump, and its tone is completely negative and depressing. Actually, I think Zemeckis drastically improved the book by making it hopeful and optimistic, but then again, I saw the movie first, and you know the rule: you almost always like best what you see first.
But still, I have to wonder: did Zemeckis betray the vision of Sagan of a world without God?
2 comments:
I hate that movie. I think my tastes may be too plebeian.
If you enjoyed Contact but aren't really sure about its message (not that it's an absolute, just that it's possible for all of us to understand it better) you should start by checking out or buying Sagan's book Pale Blue Dot. I think it's the best introduction to his insightful and uplifting views...trust Zemeckis to deliver a good movie, but not important ideas.
Sagan's main idea as a planetary astronomer didn't really have so much to do with other planets as with the role that humans play on Earth. Sagan always argued that the human view of the Universe as being human-centered, created "just for us," et cetera is the thing that is holding us back from our full potential as living beings. Our traditional concepts of God, he said, are a big part of this, which is why he was a proponent of atheism over organized religion. Sagan believed that the way people think of God as being a doting father figure affects the way that we in turn treat our planet, and not for the better, in his opinion, with which I strongly agree.
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