"You're A Bunch Of Boys Making Models Out Of Balsa Wood! You Don't Have Anything Under Control..."
With a career so far which features two modern masterpieces and a well deserved Academy Award win, Whiplash and La La Land director, Damien Chazelle, returns to cinemas this week with First Man, a biographical drama based on the true story of renowned astronaut, Neil Armstrong, and his involvement within the troublesome quest throughout the 1960's to land on the surface of the Moon. Featuring a screenplay from Spotlight and The Post screenwriter, Josh Singer, the Academy Award winning American uses James R. Hansen's 2005 biographical novel, First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, as the primary basis for the depiction of events on screen, and whilst Chazelle does indeed focus heavily on the spectacle of space exploration with terrifying precision and accuracy, the real examination within the film is Armstrong himself as played by Ryan Gosling (Blade Runner 2049) who reunites with Chazelle after their successful partnership together on last year's La La Land. With contemplations on the effect of grief and discussions regarding whether particular sacrifices fail to be justified in the discovery of the secrets of the universe, Chazelle's latest is a thoroughly engaging and beautifully constructed work of cinema which although fails ever so slightly to maintain the American's flawless cinematic record, is a bold and brave addition to history's depiction of America's greatest contemporary achievement.
With Singer's screenplay choosing to primarily focus on the 1960's Armstrong household which acts as the central cornerstone of the narrative throughout the film's run-time, the audience becomes immediately privy to a broken and grief-stricken central relationship between Claire Foy's (Unsane) Janet Shearon, and Gosling's take on an American hero whose silence and introverted nature makes it hard to break the character down, a purposeful decision by Chazelle who utilises the performance of Foy to share the frustration of the audience in the failed attempts to crack the surface of a person tangling with not only the pressures of the grounded life around him but the wider purpose handed to him. Whilst Gosling is renowned for sombre, brooding performances in the likes of Blade Runner 2049 and Drive, Chazelle utilises the stern stare of the Canadian to create an ice-like template of a person attempting to nullify the pain of loss by succeeding at what he knows how to do best, and with the freedom offered to him in the emptiness and vastness of outer space, First Man chooses to view the Moon landings as an excuse for Armstrong to trade the loneliness and harshness of planet Earth for the the loneliness and harshness of the unexplored blackness waiting for him outside the atmosphere containing him on ground level.
With Chazelle once again utilising the now Academy Award winning skills of his movie-making team from both Whiplash and La La Land, composer Justin Hurwitz continues to impress upon the big screen with yet another impressive musical body of work, mixing classical strings with atmospheric snarls within a soundtrack which includes one particular track which clearly evoked Strauss' "The Blue Danube" from 2001: A Space Odyssey with a slight hint of La La Land-esque romantic sensibility, and with Linus Sandgren returning as Chazelle's cinematographer, the Swede chooses to shoot the grounded drama of the 1960's with a grainy, Battle of the Sexes-esque aesthetic, saving the power of the IMAX cameras for the concluding journey into outer space, where vast darkness and utter silence has never looked so utterly beautiful. Whilst the decision to focus more on the man rather than the expedition may indeed alienate some audiences heading into a screening of First Man eager to witness an abundance of space exploration, Chazelle's construction of the few shuttle set pieces when they do come are terrifying, evoking a maniacal sense of claustrophobia as the camera is literally shoved into a tin box alongside our daring heroes who come to realise that all that separates them from certain death is a couple of screws and some tightly woven, rather shaky metal. Choosing to focus on the emotional resonance of one man's story against the backdrop of the Apollo missions, Chazelle's latest is a lavish, visually stunning and perfectly acted character study which not only emphasises the young American's luscious talent for producing memorable cinematic experiences but also highlights the ease in which a difficult tale such as the one central to First Man can be handled with such maturity and effortlessness. See it in IMAX.
