First Man
Directed by: Damien Chazelle
Written by: Josh Singer - Based on the book "First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong" by James R. Hansen
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Kyle Chandler, Ciarán Hinds, Jason Clarke, Patrick Fugit, Corey Stoll, Christopher Abbott, Olivia Hamilton, Lukas Haas, Ethan Embry, Pablo Schreiber, Shea Whigham, Cory Michael Smith, Leon Bridges, Lucy Stafford
Biography/Drama/History - 141 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 11 Oct 2018
Written by: Josh Singer - Based on the book "First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong" by James R. Hansen
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Kyle Chandler, Ciarán Hinds, Jason Clarke, Patrick Fugit, Corey Stoll, Christopher Abbott, Olivia Hamilton, Lukas Haas, Ethan Embry, Pablo Schreiber, Shea Whigham, Cory Michael Smith, Leon Bridges, Lucy Stafford
Biography/Drama/History - 141 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 11 Oct 2018
Late at night during last minute preparations before the Apollo 11 capsule blasted off toward the moon and infamy, the two directors of NASA’s space program polished a press release for the conceivable event whereby Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon, but could not take off again, ensuring a painful death. The words would provide meaning and a bittersweet ending to an audacious plunge into the unknown. Teams of scientists can triple check the math, physics, and orbital mechanics of it all, but until a human actually touches down and sets foot on the moon, the entire process from the Mercury flights, Gemini program, and Apollo run-throughs were all exhibitions to a hypothetical ending. Nearing 50 years after Apollo 11, schools do not teach there were those in the 1960s who did not believe the endeavor was worth the fiscal nor the physical cost. Boys were dying in Vietnam. Protests divided America down the middle. Urban decay started to take root and rot cities from the inside out, and as Gil Scott-Heron preached, “…and whitey’s on the moon.”
First Man is not a documentary-style, chronological map from President Kennedy’s speech daring America to put a man on the moon until the fulfillment of that boastful vision. It is more interested in Neil Armstrong, the human being. We observe what makes him tick, how he responds to challenges, and confronts risk and tragedy. Director Damien Chazelle doesn’t take us inside Armstrong’s head; Neil doesn’t talk to us in voiceover about his thoughts and feelings. Instead, the camera hovers close studying the stoic face we’re going to stare at for the next 140 minutes. According to James R. Hansen’s biography, “First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong,” the book Josh Singer adapts for the screenplay, Neil Armstrong was quiet and reserved. He could be funny and animated with his family and close friends, but at work and most assuredly in public, Armstrong was all business. NASA selected pilots from the military services and test pilot communities, but most of them were not TopGun narcissists - they were family men who wanted to water the grass on the weekend and ride a rocket into space come Monday.
First Man is not a documentary-style, chronological map from President Kennedy’s speech daring America to put a man on the moon until the fulfillment of that boastful vision. It is more interested in Neil Armstrong, the human being. We observe what makes him tick, how he responds to challenges, and confronts risk and tragedy. Director Damien Chazelle doesn’t take us inside Armstrong’s head; Neil doesn’t talk to us in voiceover about his thoughts and feelings. Instead, the camera hovers close studying the stoic face we’re going to stare at for the next 140 minutes. According to James R. Hansen’s biography, “First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong,” the book Josh Singer adapts for the screenplay, Neil Armstrong was quiet and reserved. He could be funny and animated with his family and close friends, but at work and most assuredly in public, Armstrong was all business. NASA selected pilots from the military services and test pilot communities, but most of them were not TopGun narcissists - they were family men who wanted to water the grass on the weekend and ride a rocket into space come Monday.
NASA and its Gemini program provided the fresh start Neil (Ryan Gosling, Blade Runner 2049) and his wife, Janet (Claire Foy, Breathe), were looking for. Their little girl just died from a brain tumor and something as outlandish as astronaut training would provide a welcome distraction. Armstrong’s overseers, including Deke Slayton (Kyle Chandler, Game Night), worried from the opposing point of view, would their pilot’s internal sadness and pain distract him from the mission at hand? Hansen emphasized how these astronauts were humble, regular guys. When Gosling speaks as Neil, which is less often than you expect, it’s in short, simple sentences. Instead, we watch him patiently chart his daughter’s reactions to radiation treatments and later slow dance with Janet in their living room. He is a methodical man far more comfortable hanging out in his own head than out at the bar or in front of TV cameras.
Janet tells another astronaut’s wife she “married Neil because I wanted a normal life.” On one hand, she experiences the stereotypical life of a ‘60s wife and mother. She stays at home tending to their two boys, playing the disciplinarian, and checking homework. However, there is also a speaker in the living room hooked up to Neil’s space capsule as he and Houston update each other on situation reports and near death experiences. Apollo 13, Ron Howard’s 1995 close cousin to First Man, also sets up a back-and-forth capsule to kitchen sequence, but that earlier film was more concerned with engineering and ad hoc problem solving. We watch Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell execute tasks; we never got to know Jim Lovell.
Apollo 13 also seems more contemporary than First Man through a technological lens. Chazelle and production designer Nathan Crowley remind us how utilitarian and claustrophobic those early capsules were. When Armstrong and Dave Scott (Christopher Abbott, It Comes at Night) take off on Gemini VIII, the twisting sounds of jittery bolts and screws is unnerving. We imagine NASA infrastructure today as a sterile environment employing precision instruments guided by sleek, modern processors. In the 1960s, analog switches ruled the day and any aids along the lines of artificial intelligence helping you achieve tasks seemed as far fetched as well…walking on the moon.
Armstrong’s contemporaries, names we recognize from the history books and TV specials, get lost in the shuffle in Singer’s script. We get to know his close friends, Elliott See (Patrick Fugit, Gone Girl) and Ed White (Jason Clarke, Terminator Genisys); however, I notice Jim Lovell, Gordon Cooper, and John Glenn are all characters in the cast list, but I have no idea where or when they appear in the film. The most oddball character is Buzz Aldrin (Corey Stoll, The Seagull). Is Aldrin in real life a guy who can’t read the room and comes off as an asshole? He is here; Armstrong appears to tolerate Aldrin rather than respect him and enjoy his company. Armstrong was an internal stakeholder to the space program and desired all the funding and perks the government would send NASA’s way, but the physical and emotional costs of the dangers of what they were doing affected him as much as anyone else. Elliott See and Ed White were his closest friends and neither of them lived to see whether or not man would reach the moon.
To get there, Neil Armstrong didn’t need friends to chat with, he needed nerves of steel and an intense focus few men ever realize they are capable of achieving. When his X-15 test aircraft bounces off the atmosphere into the near reaches of space, when the Gemini VIII capsule enters an uncontrolled spin, and when the lunar lander is on 3% fuel over a moon crater, Neil shuts it all out - the radio cackling, thoughts of his wife and children, and the fear of death to recover the situation and continue the mission. He’s cold and calculating. Gosling’s demeanor in these situations may leave some audience members cold and with a feeling like Chazelle was never able to crack Neil’s exterior shell. But this is who he was - calm when the rest of us would panic. We may believe we know all there is to know about Apollo 11, but Justin Hurwitz’s spellbinding score will remind you of the awe, the use of 65mm IMAX lenses to film the lunar scenes will transport you out of the grainy 16mm footage from just a few minutes before, and Chazelle’s exploration of the humble man behind the mission will make you miss the image of another age’s quiet hero compared to today’s in-your-face humble braggers.
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