The Film: For All Mankind, 1989
The Principals: Al Reinert (Director), Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins
The Premise: America decides it’s time to stomp around on the moon. We do. We win.
“Puttin’ dudes on the moon’s fun and all… but I could be with my ladyboy.”
Is it Good: It’s great. When exploring a real event, one of the great strengths of
cinema (documentary or narrative) is the ability to return us to an
emotional time and place- unless of course, we weren’t there when the
event in question happened, in which case it can create within us an emotional
response that approximates what we would have felt. For All Mankind
accomplishes this by stripping away manufactured drama and letting the reality speak for itself: three
dudes in a fucking massive steel rocket blasted over 200,000 miles to a
giant dead rock in the sky. And they came back.
The film
begins with the gentlemen strapping into their suits shortly before
liftoff, and it ends as their return craft safely lands in the ocean-
both segments playing under Kennedy’s announcement speech. The bookends
surround a phase-by-phase look at exactly how the mission went. The
details of the mission have been exhaustively covered in much longer
documentaries, but the simplicity of this film manages to return the
awe to the event in a way a more talky or detail-oriented documentary couldn’t. You’re simply shown what those involved saw. With the
excitement for space that builds when watching, you can’t help but be
disappointed at how grim of an outlook there is for the near future of
manned space exploration.
Joke speaks gapes open for itself.
It’s hard to not be
constantly struck by how dated all of the technology appears, yet they
traveled nearly half-a-million miles inside of it. It’s brings a strange level of humility to a 2010 viewer. You sometimes forget what good ole fashioned nuts-and-bolts science and technology managed to accomplish before Jonathan Ive made everything pretty.
Is it Worth a Look: Yes. You’ll be shocked at how much footage there is that you’ve never
seen. They filmed everything.
“Trained for years. Traveled over 200,000 miles. Fell the fuck down.”
Random Anecdotes: It’s endearing how these guys never get tired of playing with the
lack of gravity. Even in the middle of a crisis involving a potentially
disastrous equipment change, one of the ‘nauts still takes a moment to
playfully flick around a floating flashlight. There is also a montage of the Astronauts –pride of America and focus of the eyes of the world– repeatedly busting ass.
Cinematic Soulmates: In The Shadow Of The Moon, Apollo 13, 2001, Moon
9 comments
Although the structure of the doc makes it look like one mission to the Moon, it is actually a collage of footage from all the Apollo missions. But yes it is rad, and it's on Netflix on Demand so check it out.
Hmm. I knew the narration was from all sorts of various astronauts, but I thought the footage was from the single mission. Makes sense that they took from others, but it's definitely presented narratively as the one mission.
A fart montage? Really? Wow, this is getting watched TONIGHT
This has got a great Eno soundtrack no?
Looks like Renn is going to actually watch and understand the things he posts before posting.
Apparently newer edits of this film have less of the fantastic Brian Eno score than before. The Apollo album that showcased these tracks is amazing (and if you haven't heard it, you'll probably recognize at least a couple of tracks that have been used in other movies).
Oh, Renn, didn't you happen to notice that this film edits footage from SEVERAL space missions into one narrative?
The clips are of various astronauts on various missions, so is the narration. The astronauts aren't even identified or given the talking head treatment. That's why the movie is "for all mankind". At least that's what my Criterion Collection Blu-Ray insert tells me.
I honestly watched this three days ago, and have to say that a ton of this footage is just plain amazing. This is a must watch for anyone with an interest in space.
Funny fact: Jonathan Ive merely ripped off Braun's style from the 60's to make everything pretty…
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