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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you want a touch of sentimentality from Forrest Gump and a short burst of brilliant Alan Silvestri action in one early cue. Avoid it... if you expect a thoughtfully creative score to rival the intellectual nature of Carl Sagan's ideas. Original Review, by Christian Clemmensen
It is because of the title theme's relatively weak impact on the score that Contact becomes a potentially dissatisfying listening experience. It's a bookend theme, one meant to represent the dreams of a little girl at the start of the film and then those dreams realized at the end. Without that good-natured string theme in the middle portions, however, Contact relies on the strength of its individual cues to pull its own weight. In some cases, Silvestri succeeds, such as "Ellie's Bogey," a frantic, rhythmic piece for strings that may very well be the highlight of the score. Aided in its latter half by an electronic bass, this cue is top-notch Silvestri action. Unfortunately, the only other notable action cue in Contact is "Good to Go," a cue with many of the same elements, but slowed to a more professional pace. When you look back at the film, Silvestri misses an opportunity to pull at the emotions of the audience by creating a false positive for the first, bombed attempt to travel through space. Aside from the faintly patriotic string and brass crescendos in "Media Event" and "Button Me Up," the remainder of the score is a bland backdrop for conversational accompaniment. The interaction with the alien species is served by some truly cerebral meanderings of a slight synthesizer in the high ranges, and the moments of contemplation by the primary characters are often underscored by themeless, though harmonious sound. The "End Credits" are the major exception to all of this, of course. Providing a taste of Forrest Gump with its piano performance of the tender title theme at the outset, the full-ensemble rendition of the themes throughout the track feature the same pleasant piano rolling that every upbeat Silvestri score seems to have. It's almost as though Silvestri throws a bone to the contingent of the audience the needed this swelling of positive attitude to be satisfied with the score and film; it certainly wasn't necessary, and the ideas in the film are awe-inspiring enough to perhaps merit something less innocuous. It defeats the complexity of Sagan's concepts for some listeners, and that's entirely understandable. On the whole, though, the score is basically sufficient and has two or three standout tracks. That lingering feeling of a missed opportunity still exists, though. ***
Review #2, by Todd China
Contact: (Alan Silvestri) I knew I wanted the soundtrack at the moment when Ellie hears the alien signal for the first time and Alan Silvestri's music cuts a jagged figure with frenetic violins. The score contains a handful of terrific, enjoyable moments that remind me why I admire Silvestri so much. Listening to this score can be a frustrating experience, however; it is an uneven effort that almost achieves greatness but falls short because of a weak main theme. The main theme for Contact bears similarities to Forrest Gump, and it is neither as striking nor memorable as anything in that film. Evidently, Contact received the main theme it deserved, since the director, Robert Zemeckis, aims for the heart in order to evoke sympathy for Ellie Arroway's character. As an adult, she is cold, driven, and almost obsessed in her quest, but the scenes of Ellie's childhood are designed to make her more human. Accordingly, Silvestri responds by supplying an innocuous, saccharine, and very sentimental theme for Ellie Arroway's character. This score is at its best when Silvestri's music roots itself in dramatic ideas rather than simple emotions. "Ellie's Bogey" and "Good to Go" are the two outstanding examples, with a few snippets of interesting music to be heard in other parts of the score. "Ellie's Bogey" conveys a sense of urgency, and the rapidly repeated string passages represent the musical equivalent of the alien signal. Silvestri makes wonderful use of the brass section as the music carries with it a shade of darkness and a possible menace associated with the unknown. "The Primer," as Silvestri himself noted, contains a duality of sorts; near the end of the piece, the strings briefly state Ellie's theme while the synths play an appropriately mysterious, alien motif. Here, Silvestri fuses the film's intellectual quality with its emotional core. Together, tracks 7, 8, and 9 ("Media Event," "Button Me Up," and "Good to Go") form a solid, entertaining block of music. "Media Event" is a short but soaring piece reminiscent of Judge Dredd, "Button Me Up," with its swelling string theme, nearly approaches, but doesn't reach the glorious climax of, the musical heights of "Bud on the Ledge" from The Abyss, and "Good to Go" is an exciting cue that accompanies Ellie's launch; "Good to Go" is one of the best things Silvestri has written in years, and it effectively underscores the idea of the alien signal once more, with the use of a simple triplet theme that rises and falls, over and over, throughout the piece. I like the way Silvestri, early in the cue, begins with the string bass playing a rapid sixteenth note passage, which is passed on to the upper strings until the brass finally makes a bold and hard-edged entrance. The cue rises in intensity that nicely matches the dramatic intensity onscreen as the countdown to launch winds down to zero. Unfortunately, the final third of the score is not nearly as good as all the music came before. The cues for Ellie's arrival and her conversation with the alien are underscored with quiet and thin atmospheric synths, as well as the main theme, making for an anticlimactic and dull finale. All in all, Contact is a good score that contains a handful of interesting ideas and two brilliant moments ("Ellie's Bogey" and "Good to Go"), but with a better main theme, it could have been much more dramatically interesting and cohesive. ***
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