There is little doubt that the Apollo space programme
was humankind’s boldest endeavour, in particular the Apollo 11 mission, which
put men on the moon. The fact that we so quickly tired of this magnificent accomplishment
speaks poorly of us as a society. Now, on the 50th anniversary of
this extraordinary event, those of us who were here first time round get a
chance to appreciate just how remarkable it was.
Of course those of the generation seeing it for the
first time may marvel for different reasons; for example that this outstanding
achievement was accomplished with pen and paper, slide rules, pocket
protectors, crisp white shirts, sober looking men in crew cuts, and less
computer power than there is in the average schoolchild’s calculator. This is
old school space exploration.
Apollo 11
is a superb documentary which transcends the form and takes us where few
documentary makers have gone before. Editor and director Todd Douglas Miller
has created an adventure that unfolds not quite in real time – the mission took
eight days – but certainly as if it were happening in front of us.
There are no contemporary interviews, no
nostalgia, and no reminiscences. This is simply archive footage presented, some
of it for the first time, to tell a breathtakingly daring and present story. Where
graphics are needed they are the satisfyingly low-fi graphics of the period;
clunky black and white images which make the trip to the moon seem like a game
of Pong.
One of the strengths of the film is its
soundscape, the voices of the astronauts – Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and
Michael Collins – are mixed with the sonorous tones of Walter Cronkite, and the
calm reassurance of fellow astronauts Jim Lovell and Deke Slayton at Mission
Control, as our greatest adventure develops.
It is not a film that dwells on the scale or the
improbability of the mission or indeed of the geopolitics of the Space Race.
The only context provided is President Kennedy’s 1962 statement that they would
put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. The rest is the story of a
challenge accepted and ultimately fulfilled.
The real key to the success of the film lies in it
unseen footage. NASA had planned to make a huge, widescreen feature documentary
of the mission but it was scrapped for commercial reasons. Much of the footage
has never been seen until now and it is breath-taking. This is high quality,
65mm wide-screen footage shot in the style of those sci-fi blockbusters of the period
such as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
so this has the look and feel of a movie epic. It goes without saying that you
should see it on the biggest screen you can.
The devil however is in the detail and it is those
things that were known but not revealed at the time that make Apollo 11 genuinely gripping. The moment,
for example, when the astronauts go quiet and then come back on radio to reveal
they had taken manual control because the computers were about to put them down
in a deep crater. Or the fuel gauge which goes into the red and then some so
they are effectively running on fumes when they finally touch down. This is
heart-stopping stuff.
Throughout all of this great achievement there is
remarkably little fuss. These are men going about a job; Armstrong and Aldrin
get all the glory but the film also encourages us to feel a little sympathy for
Collins as he keeps his lonely vigil in lunar orbit.
Like 2001
its fictional predecessor, Apollo 11 is a piece of visual poetry. A stirring
saga of human endeavour and a reminder in these incredibly venal and
self-serving times of what we are truly capable when we put our minds to it.
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