Film vs Book #1

I have long been one of those people who loves books, has many books, buys new books often, but doesn't actually get around to reading them that often. The Japanese even have a term for people like me: tsundoku. Short attention span, hand aches from holding book, easily distracted - these are all reasons/excuses for my idiotic behaviour, but I have been improving of late. I also realised I have a lot of books that were adapted into films or were inspired by or related to films, so I've concentrated on these in order to make a few posts here. In pretty much all cases I will have seen the film before reading the book so the emphasis will be on the former. First up is the book that accompanies one of my favourite films, and it had an unusual start.

Contact (1985 - book, 1997 - film)

Book By: Carl Sagan Film Directed By: Robert Zemeckis Starring: Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, John Hurt, Tom Skerritt, Angela Bassett

Certificate: PG Length: 144 Minutes / 429 pages

Tagline: "A message from deep space. Who will be the first to go? A journey to the heart of the universe" (film) "We are not alone" (book)

I'm usually slow to adopt new technologies - I fear change, I guess, to paraphrase Garth from Wayne's World - but one notable exception was DVDs. I forget the year now. It must've been 1997 or 1998, but whenever it was, I was almost immediately taken by the new movie format and spent a fortune (credit card, of course) on what was probably the best player available at the time, the Sony DVP-S715. At the time there were only about 20 films available on the format and not too many interested me, but the shop where I bought the player had three titles that looked acceptable - Face/Off, Assassins and... yes, that's right, Contact! I didn't know much about it prior to buying it, I just wanted a few new films to play on my shiny new player and a sci-fi selection is usually a safe bet for me. Plus, you can rarely go wrong with Jodie Foster, right?

Despite already being a bit of a fan of Carl Sagan due to my astronomical interests, however, it wasn't until later I discovered that this fine film was not only based on a book, but a Carl Sagan book, and that's where the aforementioned floopiness comes into it. I believe the short version of the story is along the lines of: Sagan originally had the idea in 1979 and wrote it, along with his wife, Ann Druyan, as a film.

Unfortunately, those involved with the production of the film spent so long faffing around that he got fed up waiting and wrote it as a novel. Then, when the film producers finally got their arses in gear, they based the film on Sagan's book! Sadly, this faffing around came at a price - Sagan passed away before filming was complete so he never got to see it on screen. Sad smiley. One would expect him to have been pleased with the results though, as the usual changes between page and screen were not so overwhelming that his story was lost along the way, as is sometimes the case with so-called 'adaptations'. That's not to say there weren't any changes though, of course. But what were they? First, a reminder of that story as it was told in Robert Zemeckis' superb film adaptation which, as mentioned earlier will be the focus of this post since I've seen it about a billion times but only read the book once.

The Film (with spoilers):

Ellie Arroway (Foster) shows an interest in academia, particularly astronomy as a child. Her father (Morse), a single parent, encourages these interests until he passes away, leaving her an orphan. She nonetheless excels academically and grows up to become an astrophysicist focusing on SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) work. It's a field that many of her contemporaries don't take seriously and she is warned by Dr. David Drumlin (Skerritt), the President's science advisor, that she risks becoming a laughing stock. She remains committed, however, and when Drumlin cuts the funding for her SETI work at the Arecibo Observatory, she sets about securing funding to continue her work at the VLA facility in New Mexico.

Naturally, she's having no luck until at the last minute she receives the necessary funds from S.R. Hadden (Hurt), a reclusive billionaire who has taken an interest in her. Four years later and she's still there but Drumlin again arranges for her and her team to be kicked out. BUT THEN!! She discovers a signal of extra-solar origin consisting of a sequence of prime numbers which confirms that an intelligence was responsible for sending it. Of course, Dumlin then tries to take over the suddenly-chaotic scene which has seen a government and military presence descend on the VLA complex, not to mention a startling number of UFO enthusiasts and religious nut-jobs. It is soon discovered that the message includes over 63,000 pages of encoded data which, after some help from good old S.R. Hadden again in decoding them, end up being diagrams and blueprints for a machine of some sort.

Before long the 'International Machine Consortium' has been created with the aim of building the machine which is designed to house one occupant. To what end? Neither they nor we know. The selection process to determine 'who will go', to use the film's tagline, includes Ellie, but naturally that pesky Drumlin is ultimately selected. With the machine finally built, Drumlin is personally overseeing a full systems test when... it's blown up by a crazy-eyed religious zealot (Jake Busey)!

Startlingly, however, it transpires that a second machine was built in secret in Japan and this time Ellie is selected to go. Upon activation, it seems the machine generates a wormhole, or indeed a succession of them, which carry the small one-person pod to... who can say? To another place for sure, perhaps another time. It's a spectacular journey for sure. The eventual stop is an approximation of a beach in Pensacola, Florida which Ellie drew as a child, and she is soon joined by what appears to be her father. Of course, as Ellie soon realises, it's not really her father but an alien in the form of her father to 'make things more comfortable' for her. You could call it a cop out to save them from having to design an alien, but it works well enough. After what seems like a short chinwag, she is sent back home where, to everyone else, only seconds have passed as her pod just fell straight through the machine.

Next comes what amounts to her debriefing where she details what she experienced. Naturally, after the time, effort and unimaginable expense of the 'Machine Project', not to mention the rigorous process to select the best occupant, no one believes her and, upon being grilled by a Congressional Committee spearheaded by Michael Kitz (Woods) who has been a pain in the arse for the whole film, she is deemed to have been the victim of an elaborate hoax. The only person who seems to believe her is the deeply spiritual Palmer Joss (McConnaughey), her on/off love interest through the film who has served as the counterpoint to its science vs creationism theme - a theme which eventually puts her in the position of those she normally argues against. She had a profound, life-changing experience which she believes with complete certainly, and yet she cannot prove it to anyone who views her claims, essentially her beliefs, with scepticism. A private conversation between Kitz and White House official Rachel Constantine (Bassett) after the hearing suggests there is at least a hint of evidence, but it also seems clear they intend to bury it. Poor old Ellie...

The Book (with spoilers):

Considering how much I love the film, it's strange that it took me so long to read the novel on which it is based - over 20 years, in fact. The basic plot is the same so I won't go through it all again, but there are unsurprisingly a good few differences which I started noticing right from the start. Firstly, Ellie is not an orphan as she was in the film. Here, her father is indeed still dead but her mother isn't and has remarried, with Ellie not getting on particularly well with either of them. The first difference I noticed with the adult Ellie is that she is not scratching around for funding to buy telescope time here. She is actually the director of Project Argus - a fictional radio telescope facility, substantially larger than the VLA where she discovers the message in the film. Argus consists of 131 linked telescopes (compared to the VLA's 28) which automatically sweep the sky looking for signals.

The facility isn't only used for SETI work (a mere 75%, in fact) but she still faces regular opposition from Drumlin who still thinks she and Argus could be put to much better use. It's at Argus that the message is discovered, but aside from this different-but-similar setting, events here proceed more or less as they do in the film; just with several more characters including Kenneth Der Heer, the recently-appointed science adviser. He is among the throng of people who descend upon the facility on discovery of the message, and it is with him that Ellie starts a relationship rather than Palmer Joss who is in the book, but as a lesser character who is a full-on preacher who, along with the more belligerent Reverend Billy Jo Rankin, form the book's main religious contingent. Another small difference with the book is down to the time at which it was written - while the Cold War was still going on.

Accordingly, the Soviets decide to build their own Machine which, inevitably, suffers many technical issues (chortle!), but the US one (or the World Machine Consortium one, which is located in the US) is still sabotaged, Drumlin still dies, and there is still a secret third machine in Japan which is the one Ellie is selected to take Drumlin's place in. That brings us to what is probably the biggest change between book and film. With the latter, the Machine, or rather the manned capsule of the Machine, is designed for a single occupant. Here, it is designed to transport five people.

Naturally there is competition for places and the final choices are representative of both genders and numerous ethnicities. Once the 'trip' has begun, which they all accept could be one-way, each of them ends up having an experience similar to Ellie's. The narrative only follows her encounter but there is a great deal more conversation between her and the spooky alien representative which was excellent and definitely my favourite thing about the book. It helps give some background to explain their methods and gives a great deal more scale to their 'work' in the galaxy, and also answers a few questions I and I'm sure others had after watching the film (such as - if no one believe Ellie, why not just send someone else?). Despite all five 'travellers' sharing similar stories, however, they all face the same sort of incredulity faced by Ellie whose grilling is at least private here, but still conducted by Kitz.

But Which is Best?

Now that I think about it, astronomy must have been one of my earliest interests, predating my first experiences with videogame and movies alike, so it's no surprise that sci-fi has always been my favourite genre. Since I first encountered Contact in the late 90s, it became and has remained one of my favourite film examples which I've now watched more times than I can count.

From my perspective at least, it's a truly wonderful story that's just as relevant today as ever, and it never gets old for me. It's told by a top director and skilled crew, a superb screenplay, great special effects, and outstanding actors, each of whom was perfectly cast. Even to this day, when I see Jodie Foster in something, my mind immediately connects her with Ellie Arroway, and for all the nonsense it predicts if such a signal were ever detected (attempted militarisation, mass hysteria amongst the general public, crazed religious cults, sabotage), all of which seems worrying believable, it continues to inspire hope that we might actually not destroy ourselves, and wonder that perhaps one day we may become part of a larger, intelligent and (crucially) peaceful community. It's safe to say that I like the film then, but having two versions of the story to enjoy can only be a good thing too, right?

I was looking forward to reading the book once I finally had the idea to buy it (no idea why it didn't occur to me earlier) and, while it did take me a fair while to get through (I usually only read a handful of pages per day), I did enjoy it. However, I must admit to being a little disappointed with it overall. The story is still fantastic, and the main difference between the book and film - five Machine occupants rather than one - isn't one that lessens enjoyment of the book; quite the opposite, in fact - there is some great dialogue between them that you obviously don't get in the film. It's more that there doesn't seem to be such a sense of enthusiasm about the events that occur, especially when it comes to the message itself. It just seems like another day at work when it's discovered. I suppose the writing is just a bit dry at times.

That's not to say the book isn't good or not worth reading. It's still Carl Sagan at the very least, but that's far from the only positive. The additional background and longer timescale do add to the overall story and, as mentioned, the encounter between Ellie and the alien were the highlight. So, in what I suspect will be a familiar theme with these posts, I do still prefer the film. Both book and film are fascinating, thought-provoking, and cover issues and themes that are as relevant today as they were then, but the advantage of having visual effects and talented actors makes the film so much more moving, and having read the book now also gives me additional insight when watching it on future occasions. I will of course continue to do that too, since... well, it's great in so many ways, and still inspires as much as it ever did.