First Man - Review Thread

Did you go imax?

I don't know that I'd say that, the movie is a biopic, if anything there's an overabundance of character growth and story, it's just kind of a dull character imo.  What there isn't is a whole lot of exposition about what's going on with every mission, which is probably where that comparison is coming from.  

I really liked it.

***.5/****

Feature film biopics have become such a norm that we're almost surprised there hasn't already been a movie made about the famous figure being portrayed. Every year we're invited to glimpse into the fictional representation of factual recounting of someone, often with mixed results. The problem I find with most biopics are the plodding nature of displaying the person's life events, where the filmmakers are trying to make uninteresting elements interesting when the moments they're actually famous for aren't being portrayed onscreen, or that they're too positively leaning toward the person, afraid to fairly attack their weaknesses in an effort to hold them to a notion of being truly larger than life, a messiah of their craft. Both are ingratiating viewing experiences, especially since a documentary or even a skim of their Wikipedia page often bear far more interesting truths that allow you to form a more concrete vision of who they were and whether their accomplishments justified the means to achieve them or not. It's almost startling to me that a biopic hadn't been made of Neil Armstrong to this point. Here we have a figure who's universally lauded for being the first man to set foot on the Moon, so not only is Armstrong ripe for appealing to a mainstream audience but the backdrop is more than enough for Hollywood to create a spectacle of. What took so long? Well after watching the film, it's probably because Armstrong really isn't a largely interesting person that would generally be awarded the honor of a fictional retelling of their life. Maybe dubbing Armstrong as uninteresting is hyperbolic; the man was a brilliant astronaut and engineer who was the first to accomplish one of humankind's greatest feats and is a poster child for American innovation. But it's also clear that distinguishing Armstrong beyond these labels probably made a lot of potential writers for a project about him wrack their brains. How do we keep Armstrong the strong but stoic figure he was, while also making his personality dramatically interesting? Well, I don't think you can, and apparently neither does director Damien Chazelle, who has taken this biopic in a different direction by focusing more on the intense technical aspects of Armstrong's accomplishments, placing the audience in the cockpit with him to organically heighten our fear at the danger this man is putting himself through and thus marveling at him, instead of his domestic life which really doesn't bear much dramatic fruit at all. It's an interesting strategy, but one that I found to largely pay off. Chazelle knows where the strength of Armstrong and his story lies and what the audience is craving, and he doesn't shy away from it. While some will undoubtedly and understandably be put off by First Man's emphasis more on how Armstrong got to the moon as opposed to who the man was, Chazelle has realized that the accomplishments of his subject aren't as interesting as the subject himself, and his decision results in a film that might not contain the emotional resonance one would want but will astound even the most seasoned filmgoers with its pragmatic, beautiful technical prowess.

The film begins with Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) piloting an X-15 into the stratosphere. This scene largely sets the tone for First Man throughout where we're right in the cockpit with Armstrong and the other astronauts, experiencing their flights into the unknown. Chazelle does not elect for the typical, glamorous wide-shots of aircraft gliding against beautiful backdrops, or even a diverse range of coverage at all. Instead the composition is almost always tightly framed on the subject, with "reverses" really only being offered in the reflections of Armstrong's helmet. This is another interesting choice by Chazelle, but one that I found largely works. I find it pointless to execute a scene where we're constantly cutting away from where the action is to wides, or inside the command centers, or other stock reaction shots from nameless bit parts. Why would we cut away from the person inside a dangerous, powerful, piece of innovation hurtling towards unprecedented depths to a control center of people mildly panicking? It's never interesting, has never been and never will be. It's the same technique I applauded Ryan Coogler for executing during his boxing sequences in Creed; stay tight on the action because that's where the impact is, not in generic crowd reactions. By keeping tight on Armstrong for these spectacular sequences, we're given a far greater sense of how nerve-racking operating one of these vessels is, thus heightening both our tension and admiration for the dangerous task he's undertaking. Films about space travel are almost always romantically shot, emphasizing the escapism from our world to places still steeped in mystery and even hope. First Man shies away from this almost entirely, save for the climactic Moon landing, and I applaud Chazelle for doing so when it would have been so easy to appease everyone and show the journey of Neil Armstrong to be an ethereal one. The pragmatic approach fits the subject, something I wish more biopics would try to embody instead of heavy-handed glorifications of the person.

The plot follows Armstrong as he goes through NASA's various testing procedures and his journey with the other astronauts as they attempt to beat the Soviet Union to space, most notably Ed White (Jason Clarke) and Buzz Aldrin (Corey Stoll). These interactions aren't the most interesting, but what they're doing is, so again we have Chazelle focusing on the latter and the intense training they're embroiled in while pushing their more intimate characterizations aside. This is yet another departure from the majority of astronaut films, which certainly make it a point to show the differing personalities (the straight shooter, the hot shot, the comedian, the temper, etc.) eventually being molded together to complete their mission. Aside from Stoll's performance as Buzz Aldrin, we don't get much personality from the other astronauts. This is a bit of an issue since our protagonist in Armstrong is so emotionally passive as well. His stoicism works well if more vibrant characters are around him, bouncing dialogue off him and forcing him to come out of his shell, but aside from some stern statements from Armstrong, who constantly reminds everyone of the gravitas of their goal, little from them provokes him one way or the other. In fact, while everyone gives good performances as their docile characters, the only actor who really gets to act with vigor is Claire Foy as Janet Armstrong. At home she challenges Neil to tell the children he might not survive his trip to the Moon, stalks tight-lipped NASA officials to let her in on information, and tries to provide emotional support for fellow astronaut wives who have now become widows. She's a nice contrast to Neil's quiet demeanor, though even she is only able to pry slightly past Neil's stone-faced exterior. Their domestic issues never feel all too important though, as Neil seems like his mind is always on the Moon and nothing else matters. This could've been a pretty interesting angle to explore, the idea of a person consumed with a task at the cost of relationships with others is always good for drama, but Neil doesn't face any repercussions as a result of his absence in being a husband and father. It's too bad that Chazelle is never able to elevate the scenes where Armstrong isn't operating a craft to reach the level of drama needed to sustain the film's lengthy running time, but I wouldn't call them a wash either. There are some interesting dramatic ideas put on the table while staying true to Armstrong's character, but Chazelle doesn't give them enough emphasis dramatically to make us fully invest in caring about them.

Of course the film's climactic landing on the Moon (no spoiler warning necessary for this one) is the highlight, and it sure is gloriously worth the price of admission. While Chazelle certainly displayed a deft technical hand directing La La Land, what he manages to put on screen in First Man is mesmerizing. I don't want to lean too far into hyperbole to dub the Moon sequence 2001 or Kubrick-esque, but it's handled with such precision and yet lack of bloated Hollywood spectacle that I wouldn't scoff at the comparisons either. The sound from the picture goes out entirely, the camera in a wide shot slowly pans across the surface of the moon, a vista with the infinite blackness of space as the backdrop. We alternate between POV shots from Armstrong tentatively stepping along the surface to more wides of the Moon's surface. It never gets showy, and Chazelle even now doesn't elect to give Armstrong his glamor shot, Hollywood biopic moment at his life's pinnacle moment. This, like all of the other distinct decisions Chazelle has made, will split a lot of people, especially those that have sat through two hours of Gosling's stoic play of Armstrong yearning for his big moment to sweep even him up in the grandeur of it all. But it never comes. Armstrong is too professional, too humble, and just doing his job. For some this will all feel anticlimactic, but I can't agree. Armstrong isn't a prototype protagonist; he doesn't really change, he doesn't have any epic speeches, and his climactic moment is carried through with a pragmatic efficiency. This will frustrate viewers that want more from First Man than just to be wowed on a technical level and want insight into the mind of a man who made history and how it shaped him. And to an extent I can understand that, but that's not Chazelle's creative liberty to take either. Chazelle has made a conscious decision to not go the conventional route, to not anoint Armstrong as someone he wasn't for the sake of dramatic liturgy. This isn't a perfect film narratively or emotionally, but it's far from your standard plot beats biopic that we assuredly get thrown at countless times every year. This is a film that takes big risks but embraces them, and fortunately for Chazelle they mostly pay off. Let's not forget that this is a movie whose plot is structured around an event we already know the outcome of. And yet there's a constant tension every time Armstrong is in that cockpit. In First Man, space isn't this glorious, magical, limitless place like so many movies before it have personified it to be. It's a void that swallowed up many men before Armstrong trying to reach it. Even in his triumphant moment, Armstrong is in a fearful awe of the darkness he's enveloped in. Chazelle might not have delivered the biopic of an American hero that most will want, but he's made an extremely daring film that refuses to become another conventional afterthought, and that's worth applauding.

8/10

I think I sit between Drac and Phantom on this one. I admire the craft and I think the film's central question of "was it worth it?" (which is clearly the overriding theme of Chazelle's career) provided some interesting food for thought, but I also feel they could have gone further in really probing this question. More to the point, while I felt the themes of the work satisfying to ponder, my emotional reaction to the film was pretty muted.

I'm honestly surprised to hear so many "It wasn't emotional" responses, cause I thought emotion was one of the things this film was chock full of. It may not have worn its heart on its sleeve, but fuck, did it get me invested.

Even if you don't care, the film still sells the shit out of that scene, but it also helps set up how Armstrong will be written/portrayed throughout the film, and when his daughter's bracelet comes back into play at the end, it's a tremendous payoff and a gut punch.  And it makes that scene work even more.

Part of the problem there is that Armstrong seems to be just as stoic before his daughter dies as he does after, you don't really feel like this is wildly out of the ordinary for him. Like, to the point where when the bracelet comes back at the end we're like "oh yeah, that happened to him once."

Right, that's certainly what they were going for, but they failed to really sell that as the driving force through the preceding two hours. It mostly just felt like you were watching a movie about a quiet professional, and that just didn't really work.

I don't mind, and actually like, movies where the emotions are muted (think Michael Mann*.) What I don't like are movies that are pretentious as hell, and that's exactly what Damien Chazelle is doing here (and with LA LA LAND, which I hated WAY more than this.) The difference between this and other movies that follow the "muted emotions" logic is that they are better at showing us why we should care about these people. Yes, there is a theme here of 'at what cost', but the movie is too busy trying to be cool and chic, instead of actually showing the cost.

* - Mann, by the way, I see is getting more and more ripped off as time goes on.

Yeah, I just obviously see this in a different, much more positive light.