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Chazelle does this in part by the way he uses the camera: First man is filmed in close-ups aggressive and agitated, filling the frame with the faces of people and shuddering, even during rudimentary scenes of dialogue and exposure. The Kubrickian brand of space films filled with large and majestic shots is ignored (at least until the last movie sequence). From the very first moment, Chazelle wants things to feel thin and stressful; the Apollo program, after all, was not sure. It was literally a wild moon shot, invoked by President John F. Kennedy as something that the country did not do because it was easy, but precisely because it was difficult.
The director also sows the tension by trusting his lead singer, Ryan Gosling, who portrays Armstrong as a walking emblem of the silent generation. The film is inspired by the only authorized biography of Armstrong (written by James R. Hansen and published in 2005), but there is always something intensely unrecognizable in its subject: an Ohioan and a veteran of the Korean War, engineer turned test pilot. for nasaThe progenitor, NACAin 1955.
Armstrong was, on paper, an American model, married to Janet (played with nervous and magnetic intensity by Claire Foy) and with three children. But her daughter, Karen, died at the age of 2 after being diagnosed with a malignant tumor, a tragedy that weighs heavily on First man and turn a man already taciturn more interior. As Armstrong climbs the ladder NASA and becomes part of the Apollo program, even his wife has trouble communicating with him. Gosling, who can certainly be a great actor if necessary, is scrapped beyond the average. Armstrong is not as placid as he is dormant, his emotions go back so many miles that they barely register.
The work to get to the moon is tedious, it's a ram of incessant failures, dead and tearing piloting, to which many members of the crew who practice crew cuts are addressed. The set includes Corey Stoll in Buzz Aldrin, Kyle Chandler in the role of NASA Chief Deke Slayton and Jason Clarke as pioneering astronaut Ed White, who was the closest thing that Armstrong had for a confidant. They are all struck by the many mistakes made by the Apollo team in the 1960s, while the US government suffered the repeated triumphs of the Soviet space program.
As Kennedy said, they do it because it's hard – but Chazelle wants the viewer to know exactly how difficult it was. Some scenes, such as the reconstruction of the Apollo 1 disaster, are truly heartbreaking. Others, such as the dramatization of Armstrong's first space mission on Gemini 8, are almost unbearable to watch, thanks to Chazelle's commitment to portray all the details (Gemini 8 involved many very fast spinning mills). A launch sequence is fully shot in the cockpit while Armstrong and another astronaut are tied into a metal coffin. Part of me desperately wanted Chazelle to cut the rocket on the outside and give some relief to extreme claustrophobia, but the camera still stays with Armstrong.
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