Visceral

Rating: 9/10 (17 October 2018)

I'm a sucker for a good space movie. ClichÃ© as it may be, they're awe inspiring and the stuff that stirs the imagination. That always traces back to the Apollo 11 Moon landing, and no cinematic reenactment, regardless of IMAX high-resolution, will ever capture the magic of the grainy images of the actual event broadcast on televisions around the world. To the credit of the makers of "First Man," this wasn't their primary mission. The use of TV here is interesting, though; rather than trying to recapture that event, these clips add context--the sort that one might've thought would've averted some of the ridiculous controversies thrust upon the movie--to what is a narrowly-focused biopic of Neil Armstrong. The wonder still derives from the Moon, including the self-reflexive reveal of the camera that captured those first steps, but following the first man to walk on it through selected moments culminating with that astronomical body foster a visceral portrait of the man and his subjective experience on the lunar surface. "First Man" features the giant leap for mankind, but its focus is on the one small step for a man.
Say what you will about Ryan Gosling's career repetition of long takes of his seemingly blank gazes, from "Drive" (2001) to "Blade Runner 2049" (2017), but he's perfectly cast as Armstrong, perhaps history's most famous introvert. Understated by default, when his Armstrong does display overt emotion, it's all the more effective because of this. The rest of the cast is fine, too, including Kyle Chandler's drawing the Moon shot on a chalkboard reminding me he was the coach in the TV version of "Friday Night Lights." This is so focused on Neil, however, that the only other vital part here is his wife, Janet, as played by Claire Foy, who marks the right balance between expressing what her husband won't, or compelling him to, and without being reduced to a stereotypically tempestuous housewife. There's a reason this movie ends where it does, not in outer space.
This inner look at Neil also filters and limits depictions of NASA's achievements through his experiences. From the tragedy of the death of his daughter to his ultimate lunar triumph is why those parts of his work that are selected between are the near-death ones (and, indeed, deadly for some of his fellow astronauts) and those that were failures or qualified successes. Even when not tumbling in rattling aircraft and rocket ships through the sky and space, the scenes on Earth tend to be captured by a shaking camera. Only on the Moon does the style, like Neil, find some reprieve. It's a wonderful sequence and quite a feat--managing to be the most insightful of the character while he says nothing and his face is hidden by the helmet visor and when the scenery in IMAX is the most overpowering.
The character-driven focus within the monumental historical event, however, seems to be the cause of some laughable, if not depressing, sociopolitical objections to the movie. The flag dispute is especially unfortunate, including the current President of the United States rebuking a movie he hasn't seen--and for what? To capitalize on an imaginary controversy over a movie that celebrates a defining achievement in American history? For those who wanted a critique of current politics in a historical biopic (yes, some do--Kate Gardner's review, e.g.), there it is: look at President Trump's comments and compare them to the speech in the movie by President Kennedy. The flag being planted on the Moon isn't shown because this film isn't chiefly about the American achievement, although it's there--inescapable even had the filmmakers wanted to avoid it, which they obviously didn't. There are flags, allusions to Cold War geopolitics, JFK and more. Regardless of what the Canadian lead actor says, it's not about the human achievement, either, although that's there, too, including TV reactions from around the globe, plus the "one giant leap."
Conversely, critic Richard Brody calls it "an accidental right-wing fetish object." Much of this line of criticism is borne from the protagonist's personality and the role of TV here. The "lack of expression" that Brody calls "a character flaw," a lack of "consciousness" and a detachment from humanity and what critic Matt Zoller Seitz calls "a tragedy of American machismo" and "emotional constipation" restate the usual attacks of supposed coldness, repression and lack of emotion leveled against introverts, as if quiet reflection and even a cry in private, as opposed to airing one's emotions publicly, were a vice. More to the point, Gardner criticizes the movie as "a tale of the exceptional white man," and plenty of others have questioned the movie's lack of gender and racial diversity--often citing the prior NASA movie "Hidden Figures" (2016). Never mind that the focus isn't on people behind the scenes, even the likes of Wernher von Braun absent, and that the Houston control center is downplayed, especially compared to a film such as "Apollo 13" (1995), with their input coming in as babble while the camera focuses on Neil and crew hurtling through space. Of course, there was segregation and institutional racism in the 1960s, too, and such context is TV's role here.
From "Whitey on the Moon" to coverage of the Vietnam War, one may interpret the juxtaposition within the film how they wish, but I think it's as much as anything to placate and avoid offense (failing in Brody's case), as well as appearing too unbound from the world, for what is intended as a mainstream, all-pleasing product. Anymore focus on ancillary and contextual aspects surrounding Neil's life would've detracted from the inward examination of the man, just as further depictions of his outward accomplishments would've been irrelevant to the picture's purpose. Moreover, I find it more intriguing how the use of TV here inverts its historical role of presenting the Moon to us earthlings by, instead, doing the opposite for Earth in a film focused in space. I also want to see "First Man" again to examine the style, how its camerawork and look may do for space movies what "Saving Private Ryan" (1998) did for war ones, whether it is, indeed, too darkly-lit, and just for the pure exhilaration of the scenes from Armstrong bouncing off the atmosphere to walking on the Moon.