FIRST MAN; A Professional Scotsman Review #27

If you think we've never been to the moon - that's fine. The moon landings being faked are kinda like Primary School for conspiracy theorists. Along with the death of Kennedy it's where they all start from. Hell, I graduated from it myself a couple of decades ago! However, I since researched it as best I could and didn't just watch YouTube documentaries and yup, turns out we've been to the moon. There is much evidence for this but ironically one the primary reasons is that given the state of filmmaking at the time it probably would have been easier to actually go to the moon than fake it. Of course, they famously asked Stanley Kubrick if he'd fake the moon landings but he insisted they'd have to go to the moon for realism.

HAL 9000: “I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.”

Certainly, the gigantic shadow of Kubrick's masterful 2001: A Space Odyssey [10], possibly my favourite film ever depending on whether I've watched Total Recall [10] recently or not, hangs over proceedings, fleetingly acknowledged in some of the score. But where that was a deliberately cold, clinical analysis of our past and future, dominated by the flat, utilitarian calculation of the murderous Hal 9000 computer, First Man is essentially an intimidate, very human character study of a husband and wife struggling with grief and loss. Gosling, excellent as the single-minded, driven Neil Armstrong, has Hal 9000 qualities for sure. To protect himself from grief of those around him he shuts himself off from those close to him - his kids, his wife and colleagues - often eliciting one-word answers. Here Gosling's sometimes frustratingly low-key acting tics (Only God Forgives [6] is his worst example) is perfectly cast and I think he'll deservedly be up for an Oscar. But where Kubrick would have probably revealed in pushing the audience away from his humanity, here the director lets his wife, deftly played by Clair Foy, act as the voice of the audience. Whilst she understands his mindset and accepts it she never lets him wallow in it.

HAL 9000: "The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, fool proof and incapable of error."

There is astounding spectacle in First Man - the camerawork and SFX are flawless. Yet most smartly space travel and exploitation are usually shown predominantly from our heroes POV. Almost from his helmet. And by restricting what the audience sees I found myself craning my head to look out windows - it definitely put me in that camped cabin alongside the astronauts. And sure, we know how the journey ends - Armstrong made it - but the journey itself is brilliantly imbued with so much symbolism (I won't spoil this) and we get to know the people involved so well that you root for them as much as if the outcome was a mystery. A smile or a look will take on as much beauty as the most incredible thing we can gaze at in the sky - la luna (anyone who gazes at the sun is a nutter - just ask Danny Boyle's crew in Sunshine [ridiculous 8]). I found myself tearing up a few times and I don't even really know why except that with all Gosling's emotion being supressed I guess it has to come out somewhere.

[On DAVE'S return to the ship, after HAL has killed the rest of the crew]

HAL 9000: Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.

I assume liberties with the truth have been taken. They always are in films. that feature real events and it's often justified. However, I must admit that I despised the director's debut film Whiplash [6] for precisely this reason. Yes, it was technically excellent, but as someone who played two musical instruments as a child I found treating a drummer's development by a demonstrative conductor with such violence as complete and utter garbage. I also boxed as a child - I had a gruelling trainer and even he treated me nothing like his conductor in Whiplash. I hated what it presented as real. Okay so I'm not a musical maestro and my heavyweight champion ambitions have yet to be realised at the age of 39 but I know people who are a success and it didn't happen the way it happened in Whiplash. Also, it was about jazz which we can all agree is a horrifying subject. Yes, I hated that film because it took liberties with the truth but in First Man I couldn't care less. Hypocritical? Yes, I'll accept that. But in this case I think it's because the science feels correct, the action understated, and I believed in the emotional drama, so I'll forgive any time frame compressions or even whether the key subject of loss was true to Armstrong. Crucially there was no jazz in it either. In fact the musical score is beautiful. Haunting and lonely, rousing and inspiring. If the film doesn't win the Oscar for sound design then I cannot wait to hear what does! Goodness me it puts you into the moment. It's truly astonishing, technically superlative, a microcosm of the overall quality of the film.

DAVE: "Alright, HAL. I'll go in through the emergency airlock."

HAL 9000: "Without your space helmet, Dave? You're going to find that rather difficult."

DAVE: "HAL, I won't argue with you anymore! Open the doors!"

HAL 9000: "Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye."

FINAL ANALYSIS: It's flopping at the box office quite spectacularly. Audiences claim they want intelligent, thoughtful, emotional and exciting films but when they come we ignore them. Ah well. I chose to see this because the trailer looked good and Venom looked appalling (Hardy's weird accent plus he seemed to be acting mostly with his shoulders like a 17-year-old). And I'm delighted I did 'cos so far, it's the best film I've seen this year. It is slow, it will be boring to those who have zero interest in the subject. I thought it had a lead female role for the ages and for those who take a chance you will find the emotional core of the movie as breath taking as the ascent onto the ancient, asteroid pockmarked sea of tranquillity.

HAL 9000: "I am feeling much better now."

SCORE: A emotional, breath taking 10. We do a lot wrong as a species, but this left me feeling proud to be human.

ALTERNATIVE TITLE: First Man And Woman