First Man is a very personal, quiet and contemplative movie about Neil Armstrong’s journey through the 1960’s in NASA’s Gemini and Apollo mission, culminating with Armstrong being the first man to set foot on the moon. The 1996 movie Apollo 13 and the 1998 miniseries From the Earth to the Moon have previously chronicled NASA’s Apollo and Gemini missions, but those productions focused on the ensemble efforts of not only the crews in space but also the analysts, engineers and flight directors back at mission control.These productions in particular have established what we have come to expect from movies about NASA, highlighting optimism, team work, problem solving and featuring triumphant orchestral scores.
First Man greatly deviates from what we have come to expect from a movie about NASA like this. Instead of focusing on a larger team working together as an ensemble, First Man is laser focused on Neil Armstrong’s personal experiences from just before he was selected into NASA’s astronaut program in the early 1960’s up until shortly after his historical moon landing in 1969. The movie begins with the tragic loss of his daughter, which deeply affects him throughout the course of the movie. The movie suggests that he threw himself into his work at NASA as a way to distract himself from her tragic passing. Armstrong is also affected by the loss of colleagues in a test flight and the Apollo 1 fire. Ryan Gosling portrays Armstrong as a strong, somber, quiet and determined man, who does not open up about his feelings of loss to either his wife or his colleagues at NASA.
The entire movie is experienced from Armstrong’s perspective, from working at NASA, at home playing with his family, out socializing with other astronauts and their wives, we as the audience never leave his side. this is the most striking during the course of the Gemini 8 and Apollo 11 missions in the movie. As mentioned earlier, in previous historical dramas about NASA, the ensemble would be the focus of the mission, inter cutting scenes in the spacecraft with scenes back in Houston at Mission Control, but in First Man all the audience ever sees or hears from Mission Control during the missions are the radio transmissions Neil and his crew mates hear up in their capsule. Noticeably absent are scenes of men in short sleeves and ties at their consoles communicating with the astronauts and taking directions from the flight director in that famous room we are all so familiar with. This really serves to place the audience into Armstrong’s shoes and we really feeling like we are experiencing his personal life and his NASA missions right along side him.
The lack of the grand triumphant orchestral score in the movie really helps to ground the movie and place us in the capsule with Armstrong. Instead of an orchestral score giving the audience the cue about how we should be feeling during various scenes in the movie, we hear what Armstrong hears in the scenes. During the emergency on the Gemini 8 mission, where Armstrong’s and Scott’s capsule rotates uncontrollably due to a thruster malfunction, we don’t hear music speeding up and gaining intensity in volume to help represent the growing tension of the the emergency in the scene. We hear what the astronauts are hearing in the capsule, which is intermittent radio communication with NASA, which adds a very unique and personal feeling to the emergency. Similarly, when Armstrong first steps out onto the surface of the moon, the triumph of the moment isn’t represented with a glorious score featuring a blaring brass section. We are left to experience the very quiet, powerful and contemplative achievement of stepping foot on the moon with Armstrong himself, pondering what this moment means for both mankind and for Armstrong himself, with whom we have been on this long personal journey. We experience the quite of Armstrong’s space helmet. Armstrong standing with his daughters bracelet in his hand on the surface of the moon really drives home how personal the whole journey has been for him and how the tragic loss of his daughter stayed with him the whole way.
First Man is really Neil Armstrong’s movie and is really driven by his personal experiences throughout the course of NASA’s Gemini and Apollo missions throughout the course of the 1960’s. The movies great strength is that it strives to give the audience insight into Armstrong’s experiences throughout the course of the 1960’s without trying to explain him. It presents us with a very personal portrait of a man who seemingly threw himself into his work to escape the great pain of the tragic loss of his daughter and to an extent some of his colleagues. The movie achieves such an intimate and personal level by narrowing its focus directly on the experiences of Armstrong himself and not the ensemble or team of people at NASA. The exclusion of the big orchestral score and instead opting to focus on what the astronauts in the capsule or on the surface of the moon hear, serves to ground the movie and allow the audience a closer approximation of what it might have been like to be there with Armstrong.