In 1997, director Robert Zemeckis's adaptation of Carl Sagan's novel Contact offered a literate, low-key approach to science fiction, deemphasizing the bombast usually associated with plots focusing on the likelihood of life on other planets. The film's sedate pacing and development of multiple characterizations build to an open-ended conclusion that, while bringing the viewer full circle from its opening scene, finally resolves little and leaves us unsure about that extraterrestrial reality it depicts. Although the film met with varying critical response, it proved a box-office success with the filmgoing public. But beyond any popular success, Contact represents a significant marker in film history, as another milestone in the utilization of animation and computerized special effects in telling a cinematic story. In Contact, Zemeckis incorporates computer-generated images throughout the film in ways both obvious and subtle to help suspend audience disbelief, provide a sense of contemporary reality, and enhance the mise-enscène and content, thereby constructing his vision of both the desire for and ultimate uncertainty about knowledge, indeed, about the very nature of reality. © 2001 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
