I don’t think I’m giving away any spoilers by letting you know that ‘First Man’ is a film biography, a filmography of the life of Neil Armstrong, the ‘First Man’ to set foot on the Moon. The creative team of director Damien Chazelle and actor Ryan Gosling, who worked together on the film ‘La La Land’, now bring us a portrait of Armstrong as man who is more comfortable in his relationships with machines than he is with other people. The image below shows Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong.
By all accounts this portrayal is uncomfortably accurate. Astronauts as a group are not overly emotional, preferring to “maintain an even strain” as Tom Wolfe put it in his book ‘The Right Stuff’. Armstrong however was in a class by himself, escaping from almost certain death with a ‘well that’s my job’ attitude while preferring solitude at times of emotional crisis when most of us would seek the company of our family and friends. At times this solitary nature even led to an emotional gulf with his wife Janet, played by actress Clair Foy.
The movie begins with Armstrong in the experimental X-15 spacecraft, attached to the underneath of a B-52 bomber and ready to begin a flight. This is the first in a series of incidents when Armstrong could easily have been killed but where his calm ability to choose the best option when there is absolutely no good option prevented disaster.
The centerpiece of Armstrong’s talent for saving the mission against the odds is the flight of Gemini 8 where Armstrong, as commander and David Scott as co-pilot succeeded in making the first docking in orbit of two spacecraft. A few hours after the docking however the combined spacecraft began an anomalous roll. Thinking, hoping that the problem was in their Agena target vehicle Armstrong undocked only to have the roll get much worse. The roll got so bad that Scott blacked out and everyone agrees that Armstrong should have as well, a situation that would have meant death for them both. Armstrong got the wayward Gemini under control however, long enough to make an emergency re-entry, saving both the mission and their lives.
It was Armstrong’s cool headedness in Gemini 8 that led to his being selected as commander for Apollo 11. In the movie the scene where Deke Slaton tells Neil that he is scheduled to be the first man on the Moon the response is typical Armstrong, ‘O’k’ is all he says.
The movie’s the special effects are simple perfect; the attention to detail is exquisite and not just for the spacecraft. Everything has a real 1960s feel to it right down to the haircuts and clothing. There are more actual sets than CGI, which I prefer but the scenes that do employ CGI are some of the best I’ve seen. I’d like to mention one other thing, flying in an experimental aircraft or a spacecraft is a lot bumpier than a normal domestic airline flight and ‘First Man’ gives you enough shaking and rolling to make you feel as if you’re really in the cabin with Neil.
The climax of the film is of course the landing on the Moon and again Armstrong’s calm determination saves the day when the Lunar Module’s autopilot is about to land them in a crater full of boulders. Seeing the disaster approaching Neil takes control and pilot’s the lander to a save area with only two seconds of fuel remaining. Once they are safely on the Moon, the first men to ever reach our nearest cosmic neighbor, Neil and Buzz Aldrin merely shake hands and get back to work.
There’s been a bit of controversy over the fact that the movie does not show Armstrong and Aldrin planting the American Flag on the Moon. The flag is shown several times but since it did required both men to secure it in the ground, and this movie is about Neil the actual erection isn’t shown. Instead we get a poignant scene where Armstrong takes a necklace that had belonged to his little daughter, dead now seven years, and drops it into a Lunar crater. It wasn’t that he didn’t have emotions; he just preferred to keep them private.
That’s a real change from our current herd of heroes; high-fiveing each other while bellowing like a bull. Or spiking the ball and doing a dance in the end zone. I think we could use a few more Neil Armstrongs, you know the type. The kind who, when you ask them how it felt to be the first man on the Moon reply, “It was my Job”.
