Movie: Contact (1997)
I watched Contact for the first time in a long time last night, since it’s a favourite movie of mine I’m unsure why I haven’t revisited sooner. I’m really glad I did.
The movie still moves me on deep emotional, philosophical, and cosmological levels. I find it at once enlivening, resoundingly hopeful, and with an incredible far-reaching vision, promise of human potential. Additionally, it is also a reminder of crushing realism and confronts massively with the obstructions that institutions of society pose, that we face as human beings, and that we perpetuate as human beings.
Jodie Foster is absolutely breathtaking as Dr Ellie Arroway. Her performance is deeply moving and passionate; I’m awestruck and am struggling for words around how incredible the portrayal was. This is an amazing experience of a character and actress in an alignment where they demonstrate the sheer power involved in their talents, and as a feminist I’m deeply grateful for the duality of this experience captured by the movie.
I remembered the film as the character of Dr Arroway being unique; she was a scientist and got to make an incredible discovery. I didn’t absorb at the time I last watched it, (sometime before 2001, after 1997 I believe) that it also depicts so specifically how very often she’s screwed over. How often her work is attributed to others and how often she is relegated to background and supporting roles, despite her critical involvement. It was so enraging and saddening to watch it, knowing it mirrors the experience of many others, and not just in the field of science (and related fields), but other fields too.
I remembered from my early viewing how profoundly amazing I found that the world would create the machine, that it brought people together, concentrating on the delight and the joy rather than the protesting and fear. Now as a cultural theorist almost-graduated, I appreciate the role of the ‘people of the world’ narrative so much more. I can see the shape of the institutions they’re informed by, that they perpetuate. I also saw the raw promise of humanity and the incredible diversity and breadth that we carry within each of us - so very different and yet, so alike.
The exploration and commentary on power dynamics was very powerful for me this time around. I noticed it within the scientific research hierarchy the privileging of viewpoints according to power structures. I recognised the shape of ‘now’ in whose views mattered most, who made what decisions, who approved things and understood why to the end Dr Arroway was vilified for her discoveries and experiences. Even though the premise of the investigation following Ellie’s experience in Vega was pursuit of truth, it’s very clear that the only truth being preserved is a constructed one around maintaining the existing power structures based on a planet in a universe in isolation. We’d rather slam the door and maintain what we currently know and are attached to rather than exploring outwards and having to grow into new shoes.
This film presents in tandem a vision of idealism that is heady and hopeful, but grounded by the realism within which the idealism operates. I can’t recommend this film highly enough as a science-fiction exploration into first contact where… it’s not about annihilation or horror. Instead, it is about humanity and imagining and growing as a species, pointing out the obvious, which is essentially that there is so very much we don’t know - that we recognise not knowing and more still that we can’t even begin to comprehend as something we don’t know.
This entry was originally posted at http://transcendancing.dreamwidth.org/851814.html
The movie still moves me on deep emotional, philosophical, and cosmological levels. I find it at once enlivening, resoundingly hopeful, and with an incredible far-reaching vision, promise of human potential. Additionally, it is also a reminder of crushing realism and confronts massively with the obstructions that institutions of society pose, that we face as human beings, and that we perpetuate as human beings.
Jodie Foster is absolutely breathtaking as Dr Ellie Arroway. Her performance is deeply moving and passionate; I’m awestruck and am struggling for words around how incredible the portrayal was. This is an amazing experience of a character and actress in an alignment where they demonstrate the sheer power involved in their talents, and as a feminist I’m deeply grateful for the duality of this experience captured by the movie.
I remembered the film as the character of Dr Arroway being unique; she was a scientist and got to make an incredible discovery. I didn’t absorb at the time I last watched it, (sometime before 2001, after 1997 I believe) that it also depicts so specifically how very often she’s screwed over. How often her work is attributed to others and how often she is relegated to background and supporting roles, despite her critical involvement. It was so enraging and saddening to watch it, knowing it mirrors the experience of many others, and not just in the field of science (and related fields), but other fields too.
I remembered from my early viewing how profoundly amazing I found that the world would create the machine, that it brought people together, concentrating on the delight and the joy rather than the protesting and fear. Now as a cultural theorist almost-graduated, I appreciate the role of the ‘people of the world’ narrative so much more. I can see the shape of the institutions they’re informed by, that they perpetuate. I also saw the raw promise of humanity and the incredible diversity and breadth that we carry within each of us - so very different and yet, so alike.
The exploration and commentary on power dynamics was very powerful for me this time around. I noticed it within the scientific research hierarchy the privileging of viewpoints according to power structures. I recognised the shape of ‘now’ in whose views mattered most, who made what decisions, who approved things and understood why to the end Dr Arroway was vilified for her discoveries and experiences. Even though the premise of the investigation following Ellie’s experience in Vega was pursuit of truth, it’s very clear that the only truth being preserved is a constructed one around maintaining the existing power structures based on a planet in a universe in isolation. We’d rather slam the door and maintain what we currently know and are attached to rather than exploring outwards and having to grow into new shoes.
This film presents in tandem a vision of idealism that is heady and hopeful, but grounded by the realism within which the idealism operates. I can’t recommend this film highly enough as a science-fiction exploration into first contact where… it’s not about annihilation or horror. Instead, it is about humanity and imagining and growing as a species, pointing out the obvious, which is essentially that there is so very much we don’t know - that we recognise not knowing and more still that we can’t even begin to comprehend as something we don’t know.
This entry was originally posted at http://transcendancing.dreamwidth.org/851814.html