Heartbreak of First Man
The movie opened with the camera shaking. Not the subtle kind of shaking you do when you’re very clearly an amateur and not accustomed to the weight of the gimbal + DSLR, but the shaking of an aircraft, sustained only by the art of engineering and materials science battling against Bernouli’s Laws. In short, you knew from the opening scene that this would be a movie about flying and space. Also note that if you are susceptible to epilepsy and other attacks, this movie is NOT for you.
In First Man, Ryan Gosling plays Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon (see where the title comes from), but the story isn’t centered around the science and ambition of him getting to the moon. It’s about the tens of funerals he attended trying to get the rocket off the ground and about the daughter that he lost and never quite let go.
For the most part, acting and scripting were pretty good, but there wasn’t a lot of complex language and the other characters felt a bit hollow. Other than Buzz Aldrin of course, which we find out is a self-absorbed prick. The love between the characters is ultimately very evident, so no points off for that.
But without a doubt, the best part of First Man was the cinematography. It was just filmed so well because each scene perfectly captured the feelings, naked, raw, sometimes ugly (although how could it be when Ryan Gosling was the star of the movie).
From the starting scene, the exhilaration of taking flight and breathtaking moments of seeing the blue glow of the horizon are beautifully woven in to the movie without a single line of dialogue (although there is plenting of shaking and screws creaking against each other). Then the feelings of loss, numbness, and stages of sadness are displayed through closeups, sudden motions, and trances where you thought about what you would do in the same situation. And finally, the anticipation and anxiety. They captured this so well and it’s a huge selling point for the movie if you’re into experiencing those things.
The film did drag for a bit, lasting a full 2 hours and 21 minutes, which is the problem with many historical tributes. Since viewers already know the outcome of events, we know what is coming. We dread the unmentionable and we wait in anticipation as the film focuses on specific screws and flaws, even though we know that everything will be ok in the end. That said, most films would have made the moment Neil Armstrong says his famous quote about a step for man vs mankind a climax of the film, but this quote was heavily trivialized in the movie. Yes, it made the cut, and yes there were scenes that looked exactly like the photo of the first man on the moon that made you realize the exact scope of such a project — such a picture even, that took your breath away. But the true climax was the heartbreak.
I don’t want to spoil too much of a story, but you can basically read all of it up on Wikipedia, so Armstrong had a daughter who died in early childhood due to a brain tumor. And throughout the movie, he always saw her when things weren’t going so well and at one point, the film indicates that it is the last the he says to a buddy before shutting him out and then he dies. I thought this was pretty indicative that he was still stuck on her and it hindered his life. And one of the main reasons for this was that he was an engineer. Maybe one of the best engineers in the world at the time and he spent months poring over how to cure his daughter with radiation technology, etc. but he just couldn’t.
He could do rocket science but he couldn’t cure his own daughter and the realization of that fact killed him and he couldn’t let go. That exact feeling of desperation and heartbreak dominated the movie and let the audience understand why Armstrong whatever he needs to do.
Armstrong even mentions earlier in the movie when asked why he thought it was important we travel to space that we get to see things that we ought to have seen a long time ago from another vantage point. To him, it was a reflective view of himself and things he needed to come to terms with.
In the end, it becomes clear that Armstrong’s personal trip to the moon was less for science and more of coming to terms with himself the reality of what happened. So he goes to the moon. Because that was the only thing he could do for his daughter and the portrayal of that scene, tied tightly together with flash backs and all is so well done. We see that Armstrong would trade all of it, the fame, the history, the adventure just for another day with his daughter.
Traveling to the moon was the only thing crazy enough that would make him feel closer to his daughter. And in the end, we find out with him that she was there with him as she always was and always will be.
