Customer Reviews

Contact

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Alan Silvestri's beautiful score for "Contact" moves me to tears every time I listen to it... as a deep believer in the existence of life beyond the Earth, "Contact" stirs emotions and ideas within me that no other film does, and Silvestri's score is the perfect accompaniment to those emotions and ideas! Where most film composers might have chosen to utilize a more bombastic orchestral score for certain parts of the movie, Silvestri instead takes an unexpected tug at your heart by using a few light piano notes, and the effect is magical. For its emotional content alone, "Contact" is easily one of the best soundtracks I have ever bought, and is also a beautiful tribute to the memory of Carl Sagan and his limitless sense of wonder about the universe.

After watching the movie Contact and then listening to the soundtrack, I was delighted to hear just how much the music added to the entire film. Contact, which spoke to contact on so many levels from father-daughter, science-religion, man-woman, terrestrial-extraterrestrial, also spoke to the new contact between film and music. The soundtrack was as essential to the complete enjoyment of the movie as was the acting of Jodie Foster or the plot by Carl Sagan.

Definitely a must for any Contact lover.

Silvestri's score for Contact is an understated, introspective meditation on the primary themes of the eponymous film. Silvestri's music lacks the grand aural declamations of a John Williams' soundtrack, but his approach is in this case equally effective and entirely appropriate. The brief but poignant statement of the main theme in track one sets the tone for the succeeding movements. Track 2 is frenetic and thrilling, while track 3 conveys a sense of mystery and suspense. Tracks 9-13 should really be listened to in one setting in order to experience the full emotional impact. Overall, the lush strings and the evocative musical themes fully won over this reviewer! The last scene of the movie alludes to William Blake's immortal words, which I think best sum up both the film and the sountrack: "To see a world in a grain of sand // and a heaven in a wildflower, // hold infinity in the palm of your hand, // and eternity in an hour..."

The first 30 seconds of this soundtrack are its best. They help illustrate the unknown, vastness of space, the bonds which tie humans to one another, and our sense of adventure. "Good To Go" is one of the most exciting and dramatic scoreing works in years. This is a must have. I also recommend the coundtracks to 2001, 2010, Baraka, and Tron.

First off, Contact is one of my favorite movies of all time. I remember while watching it that the soundtrack was amazing as well. But after actually buying the soundtrack CD I realized that without the movie, its basically an ok soundtrack. The first track and the end credits are suitably haunting but the rest of it sounds rather average. The best I can say about it is that certain tracks bring back scenes of the movie to mind and it might be worth buying for that reason.

The main theme from Contact is very similar to what Silvestri came up with for Forrest Gump. It is a very light, gorgeous, and meaningful melody played on piano and strings found in several tracks. "The Primer" begins tense and finishes with a powerful statement of the main theme. A tiny bit of action music is found in this score. "Ellie's Bogey" contains rapid string rhythms played in an exciting fashion. "Good to Go" is a typical Silvestri action cue with lots of strings characteristic percussion. The rest of the music is calm, laid back, and atmospheric in nature with mainly strings and a piano carrying most of the melody. "Contact - End Credits" is an 8 minute suite of the main theme played in a wonderful fashion to finish off the score. If you like Silvestri and/or the score to Forrest Gump, then this will be a thrill to you. Great music!

Silvestri brilliantly composes a soundtrack that enhances the profound thoughts of the film adaption of Carl Sagan's novel Contact. I felt that each movement was in synch with what Zemeckis was trying to show on the screen: fromt epic, resounding notes for our first glimpses of the massive Machine to a wonderfully heartfelt main theme that delicately brought me closer to the frustrations and drama of Jodie Foster's character, Ellie Arroway. I am a big fan of the book and the movie, and there is no other movie/soundtrack that makes me cry for joy with Ellie and feel better about myself when the ending credits come. This soundtrack is an absolute must for anyone looking for music that uplifts the soul. Everything about the emotions of this music and movie is splendid.

I love the movie "Contact." It almost perfectly reproduced the feelings of the book by Carl Sagan, and was overall a wonderful production. But I found that one of the best parts of the movie was the music! Alan Silvestri did an excellent job capturing the same feelings of mystery and wonderment and humility that the movie expressed perfectly. And he also perfectly complimented the exciting and almost scary parts of the movie ("Good to Go"). Essentially, he joined every scene in the film with just the right music. Beautiful music, exciting music, powerful music. Absolutely wonderful. Not "just good" as some have said, but absolutely wonderful. This is one of the most underrated movie soundtracks I have heard, yet it has no reason to be. It is simplistic sometimes, but it is meant to be, and it works; just like the film.

Here we have a score that is sweet and warmly affecting without being cloying and which is also adventurous and grandiloquent, but on an individual human scale - this is mainly Ellie's personal adventure - which also leaves enough space (pun not intended) for mystery. Thank the gods for a director like Zemeckis and a composer like Silvestri, who both like to keep things on a human dramatic scale, not giving in to spectacle for its own sake like many other directors and music-composers might do. There is enough suspense and adrenaline here, when needed, with some pounding percussion (like a nervous, apprehensive heartbeat) and soaring and quivering violin melodies, mainly in the scene when Ellie is receiving her long-awaited Message ('Ellie's Bogey' - a marvelous scene in the movie) and scenes about the Machine and its workings ('Test Run Bomber' and 'Good To Go'). But in moments of greatest human drama and mystery, Silvestri holds back with some of the most touchingly beautiful music one could imagine (essentially mirroring Ellie's state of mind, with all of her nobility, deep love, hope, anticipation ...), finding its pinnacle in, for example, 'No Words' (when Ellie beholds a celestial event), 'Small Moves' (when she comes into direct contact with the benevolent alien), and 'I Believe Her' (when Ellie and father Josh come to find out that actually, as human souls, they are set out on the same quest - the quest for ultimate truth).
I love the motion picture, because in my view it perfecly conveys Carl Sagan's own love for humanity and its destiny on earth as well as in space and the universe at large. This has often been wrongly understood as vague New Age mysticism, which Carl Sagan hated more than anything! No, if there are mysticism and fantasy in this film, then they originate from a genuine awe and wonder for the infinite beauties of the universe and of the humans in it. Carl Sagan's universe is the opposite of Arthur C. Clarke's bleak vision in that it is filled first and foremost with corageous and noble but at the same time humble human spirit. Humans (especially in the disconnected Modern world) start out on discovery first and foremost to find mirrors for themselves (who am I? Who are we? Why are we here?), but this voyage of discovery is taking place on more than one level of course, which Zemeckis and Silvestri have understood brilliantly.
Carl Sagan's hope and belief in a good future for all humans - albeit a maybe somewhat one-sided view (there always are other possibilities) based on the firm belief of the ultimate enlightening and redeeming quality of science (not technology perse!) for all mankind - is given a very convincing argument in this film, and the music completely fits this humanistic view of mankind. As such, this film and its fantastically fitting music-soundtrack must IMHO be seen as a complete success. This is all deeply moving stuff, voicing some of the deepest thoughts about the destiny of humanity - but ultimately about how we humans should make the world a better place for everyone to live in here and now - like Ellie saying, with a combination of disappointment, conviction and sincere hope, to David Drumlin: "Funny, I've always believed that the world is what we make of it."

the music makes you feel that as if a sence brings you to the deep space, so don't surprise if you're lost in the space. Thank you Amazon.com, I also rated you 5 stars!