What if? the scientist asks, and the search to prove or disprove the hypothesis leads to -- more questions. In "Contact," Carl Sagan, the renowned astronomer, Pulitzer Prize winning author and media personality, poses what some think is the ultimate question: What if an intelligence from elsewhere in the Universe communicated with us?
The novel he wrote as his hypothetical answer began as a proposal for a film, which may explain why the book spins out its story in cinematic style. Quickly-drawn characters arrive on the scene and move the story forward. There are jumpcuts, flashbacks, and bursts of snappy dialogue, for Sagan, who died in 1995, was witty and worldly.
All these ingredients are stirred together to make an entertaining yarn, but it is merely Sagan's device to get the reader thinking about what he devoted his life to. For in fact, there are only two fully developed characters in "Contact," the independent-minded astronomer Eleanor Arroway and the Message, which might also be called the Universe. And there is really only one meaningful event, which is the climax of the book and film.
In the film, one of the best science fiction epics in many years, Jodie Foster plays the scientist brilliantly and true to the book. The world's response to the Message, especially by the reactionary religious element and the petty politicians, has the ring of realism in both the book and the film. Sagan assumed the Cold War would continue, but he disdainfully shows the absurdity of national rivalries on our tiny planet.
An important part of the book, which the film does not include, is the science that underlies the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. Here, Sagan is back on his own "Cosmos," discussing mathematics and physics in a way that even avowed unscientists like this reviewer found intriguing. He makes the riddle of the Universe seem as easy as "pi."
Sagan also puts in the young Eleanor's mind the observation we movie-and-book-lovers often make: "The book ['Pinocchio'] was better than the movie. For one thing, there was a lot more in it."
Devoted astronomer Dr. Ellie Arroway undertakes an emotional and spiritual journey after receiving the message she's waited for all her life--a myster...More at Family Video
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