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TheLiteraryBrain
TheLiteraryBrain
The release in 2018 of the first biopic about Neil Armstrong, NASA's most iconic astronaut, coincided with two anniversaries: that year marked sixty years since the creation of the space agency and, in addition, fifty years since the circumlunar navigation of Apollo 8. After six decades, however, the milestones of space exploration had only been recreated in two major film productions, The Right Stuff and Apollo 13, and in the television series From the Earth to the Moon.
The absence of the astronaut in film or television portrayals was in keeping with Armstrong's introverted and discreet personality, in contrast to other NASA mission protagonists such as Jim Lovell, Thomas Mattingly, Gordon Cooper and John Glenn, or even test pilots such as Chuck Yeager. Immediately after the Apollo 11 mission, Armstrong left the agency and went into university teaching. After his death in 2009, the official statement issued by his relatives referred to the astronaut as a "shy American hero" and "an example to the young people of the world who work hard to realise their dreams, eager to explore, to push the limits and to selflessly serve a cause greater than themselves". In this portrait, one can appreciate, in a synthetic way, the traditional keys of the American dream and the space dream, oriented towards the use of one's talents in the achievement of arduous goals, related to heroic service to a community.
The film's eponymous title underlined the uniqueness of the lunar feat and, specifically, acknowledged the individual, specifically, it recognised the individual as a protagonist systematically rejected during his lifetime.
Damien Chazelle and First Man screenwriter John Singer take a different approach to the lunar adventure than Kaufman and Howard's films. In these productions, the individual stories of the Mercury and Apollo astronauts play a notable dramatic role, but they are nonetheless subordinated to the space enterprises, so that collective action remains the dominant note in the narrative as a whole. In contrast, the biopic about Armstrong poses from the first sequences the permanent struggle between space adventure and personal drama.
The opening episode (one) seems to recreate Chuck Yeager's fast-paced opening sequence in X-1 of The Right Stuff (two), as it shows Neil Armstrong (Ryan Goslin) in 1961 during an eventful flight as a test pilot aboard an X-15 over the Mojave Desert. Despite Armstrong's skill in regaining control of the X-15, the sequence reveals that the incident was due to one of the repeated distractions the pilot committed in the early 1960s during several test flights. Then, somewhat abruptly, the action shifts to the hospital facility where Karen Armstrong, the two-year-old daughter of Jan (Claire Foy) and Neil, is undergoing radiotherapy treatment for the brain tumour she is suffering from (one).
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This opening block of the script also situates the viewer before the genre of First Man, which departs from the quest and melodrama dominant in the films of Kaufman and Howard to place itself in an emphatically dramatic category, while retaining the essential references of adventure. If in The Right Stuff the character of John Glenn gently established the domestication of the test pilot, of the individualistic pioneer, Chazelle transfers to the character of Neil Armstrong the painful schizophrenia of the new archetype and the difficulties of reconciling action with family life. After Karen's death, which occurs a few scenes later, the presence of death becomes a silent constant that marks the inner conflict of the character, shy and reserved by nature, the antithesis of the individualistic and worldly American cliché. Rooney notes in his Venice Film Festival chronicle, "his taciturn manner frustrating to the press, eager for bombastic headlines. This makes his characterisation almost the antithesis of the Hollywood template for a figure of this stature".
For the protagonist couple, the new professional stage and the change of home are perceived as an opportunity to recover from the recent loss: "we'll start again", assures Neil; "it will be an adventure", replies Jan. However, Karen will revisit her parents in every episode that reminds her of the deadly risk Neil has taken in his career. The script sets up four sequences that build to a crescendo of dramatic tension: the emergency landing sequence during the Gemini 8 flight (three), in particular, begins with the launch of Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott. Through the montage, the visual and emotional tension of the moment is transferred to the Armstrong home, where Jan follows the manoeuvres of the mission through the intercom provided by NASA.
The tension between the husband and wife erupts in July 1969, when Neil is about to leave home for Cape Kennedy to board Apollo 11. Jan reminds him that Pat's children will never see their father again, and confronts Neil to at least say goodbye to his children (four) and explain that this could be their last conversation. Armstrong cannot avoid a cold press conference tone when talking to the children, as he briefly explains the dangers of the mission.
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The final scene of First Man shows the reunion of Jan and Neil. A pane of glass separates the two characters, as the astronaut is confined to the Houston space centre for the duration of the 21-day quarantine. Neither of them utters a word. After a few moments, Neil kisses his fingers and touches the glass, his wife's hand extended on the other side (five). The closing image sums up their silent suffering but also their effort to find each other, despite the emotional barrier surrounding Neil.
On the other hand, Chazelle devotes the other half of the script to Jan's sacrifice, initiated by her decision to face the move to Houston as "an adventure". In the female character is condensed the whole previous tradition of sacrificing astronauts' wives. In this sense, First Man is a milestone in the treatment of the bittersweet, and sometimes tragic, role played by women in the American space dream (six).
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Once the Apollo programme has reached its culminating missions, protest demonstrations increase in the vicinity of Cape Canaveral. In one scene, a black singer performs Gil Scott-Heron's "Whitey on the Moon" (seven) with the image of a Saturn V in the background. On the other hand, the banners also refer to the exorbitant budget of the space programme, one of the arguments put forward by the agency's detractors in Congress. In this way, Damien Chazelle offsets the lights and shadows of the space dream in his film, within the context of the second crisis of the American dream. This approach is closer to the social and historical vision of America expressed by Norman Mailer to the readers of Life in the series Of a Fire on the Moon, in which he placed the Apollo achievement in the national context of the time.
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In this sense, it could be said that The Right Stuff is to Tom Wolfe's masterpiece as First Man is to Norman Mailer's. "I can't pay no doctor bill / but Whitey's on the Moon / Ten years from now I'll be payin' still / While Whitey's on the Moon".
In Damien Chazelle's film, the struggle between domestic home and national home takes on a powerful tone, never before used in the genre, through the story of the estrangement and reunion of two spouses who have faced the loss of a child together. From this point of view, one can understand the absence of the space and patriotic iconography used in the previous biopics, The Right Stuff and Apollo 13, from which Chazelle departs in order to highlight the inner experience of the astronaut. The moonwalk becomes more of an individual liberation than a national achievement. Certainly, the film does not include the climactic moment of the dream conveyed by Kennedy, as Chazelle does not go so far as to show how the Eagle astronauts plant "Old Glory" in the Sea of Tranquility. The image would have detracted from the real object that was meant to remain forever on the lunar surface: Karen's bracelet (eight).
Translations: Italian - Spanish
Translations: Italian - Spanish
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