First Man (film)

• 1. Introduction

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  First Man, the 2018 biographical drama directed by Damien Chazelle, opens not with the Moon but with a moment of quiet terror. Neil Armstrong, played by Ryan Gosling, is piloting the X-15 rocket plane when it unexpectedly bounces off the top of the atmosphere. He manages to land in the Mojave Desert, but his colleagues are already worried. They suspect his concentration is failing. What they may not know is that Armstrong's two-year-old daughter, Karen, is dying of a brain tumor.

  That collision between history's most celebrated explorer and an ordinary family's grief is the heart of the film. Chazelle and screenwriter Josh Singer, adapting James R. Hansen's 2005 biography, chose not to make an anthem. They made something far more uncomfortable. The film tracks Armstrong from 1961 through the Apollo 11 lunar landing in 1969, asking what it costs a man, and the people who love him, to be the one chosen for an impossible task.

  The project had a long and complicated road to the screen. Clint Eastwood was originally set to direct back in 2003, but that version never materialized. By the time Chazelle, fresh from the critical success of Whiplash in 2014, took the helm, the film had been dormant for years. What finally reached theaters on the 12th of October 2018 was something critics largely admired and general audiences largely stayed away from, with a worldwide gross of $105.7 million against a $59 million production budget. The reasons for that gap, and the American flag controversy that shadowed the film's release, turned out to say as much about the moment of its release as the era it depicted.

• 2. A Long Road to Production

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  Clint Eastwood's interest in the Armstrong story dates to early 2003, when he and production associates at Warner Bros. secured the rights to Hansen's biography. Eastwood had directed the space-themed film Space Cowboys in 2000, though he said he likely would not appear on camera in First Man.

  That version of the project never moved forward. Universal and DreamWorks eventually took it up in the mid-2010s. Chazelle signed on, brought in Josh Singer to rewrite the existing script, and by November 2015 Ryan Gosling had committed to the Armstrong role. The two had already worked together on La La Land. Hansen himself was hired as co-producer, given his authorship of the source biography. Wyck Godfrey and Marty Bowen produced through their company Temple Hill Entertainment, with pre-production beginning in March 2017.

  The casting of the supporting roles drew on a broad ensemble. Actor Jon Bernthal was originally attached to play David Scott, but had to leave the production when his daughter became seriously ill. Christopher Abbott took the role instead. Among the many NASA figures depicted, Kyle Chandler plays Deke Slayton, Corey Stoll plays Buzz Aldrin, and Lukas Haas plays Michael Collins. In a notable behind-the-scenes detail, Neil Armstrong's own son Mark portrays NASA public affairs officer Paul Haney in the film. Mark's brother Rick also appears in Mission Control, and Mark's son Andrew plays a flight controller seen playing guitar after the Gemini 8 docking sequence.

• 3. Shooting Without Green Screens

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  Principal photography began in Atlanta, Georgia, in November 2017, and the production's technical ambitions were immediately distinctive. Chazelle and cinematographer Linus Sandgren decided to shoot in four different formats: Super 16mm for most interior spacecraft scenes, 35mm Techniscope and Super 35 3-perf for the Armstrong home and NASA facility scenes, and IMAX 70mm for the Moon sequence itself. Each format was chosen to serve a specific emotional register rather than a uniform visual style.

  The film was shot without green screens. In their place, LED displays of up to ten meters were used to project simulated views of Earth, space, and the lunar surface through spacecraft windows. Alongside those screens, several physical spacecraft simulators were built and programmed to move in synchronization with the projected images. Chazelle's stated reason was to keep the actors inside a genuine perceptual environment rather than reacting to empty space.

  For the lunar surface sequences, the production sculpted the landscape of the Vulcan Quarry just south of Atlanta. Chazelle filmed those scenes at night, using a custom 200,000-watt light to approximate the effect of sunlight on the Moon. A balancing system was built and calibrated for each actor to simulate low gravity. Technical consultants included NASA historian Christian Gelzer, and astronauts Al Bean of Apollo 12 and Al Worden of Apollo 15. Paul Lambert served as visual effects supervisor, with DNEG providing the visual effects work. The team also unearthed archival Apollo launch footage from a 70mm military stock that had not previously been seen, cleaning it up and extending each frame for use in the film.

• 4. Music and Atmosphere

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  Justin Hurwitz, who had scored both Whiplash and La La Land for Chazelle, wrote and conducted the First Man score. It was performed by a 94-piece orchestra, and the instrumentation was deliberately unusual. Alongside traditional orchestral forces, Hurwitz incorporated a theremin, a Moog synthesizer, Leslie speakers, and an Echoplex, all vintage sound-altering machines. The goal was to balance warm analog textures with something stranger and more electronic, fitting for a story that crosses between the domestic and the interplanetary.

  The score album was released on the 12th of October 2018 through Back Lot Music, the same day the film opened in the United States. Critics responded strongly to it. Hurwitz won the award for Best Original Score at the 76th Golden Globe Awards, one of the film's most prominent individual honors, and also won at the 24th Critics' Choice Awards in the same category. The Critics' Choice ceremony also gave the film its award for Best Editing.

  At the 91st Academy Awards, the film received four nominations: Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, Best Production Design, and Best Visual Effects. The visual effects team of Paul Lambert, Ian Hunter, Tristan Myles, and J. D. Schwalm won in that category. At the 72nd British Academy Film Awards, the film received seven nominations but did not win any.

• 5. The Flag That Wasn't Planted

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  On the 31st of August 2018, two days after the film's Venice premiere, it was reported that First Man did not include a scene of Armstrong and Aldrin physically planting the American flag on the lunar surface. The story spread quickly.

  Florida Senator Marco Rubio publicly described the omission as "total lunacy." President Donald Trump stated that it seemed as though the filmmakers were embarrassed by American achievement, and said he would not watch the film because of it. Chazelle issued a direct response: he explained that the American flag is visible standing on the lunar surface in the film, but that the physical act of planting it was one of several moments he chose not to center. He stated plainly that this was not a political decision, and that his aim was to show the less-known, more personal dimensions of the mission.

  Analysts later debated how much the controversy affected the film's box office performance. On its opening weekend, First Man debuted to $16 million, finishing third behind Venom and A Star Is Born. Anthony D'Alessandro of Deadline Hollywood argued that the under-performance had more to do with the 141-minute runtime and the film's dramatic rather than spectacular tone. Michael Cieply, also writing for Deadline, acknowledged that the flag debate generated substantial online hostility and may have kept some potential viewers away. The film dropped 47% in its second weekend, grossing $8.6 million.

• 6. What Critics Heard

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  On Rotten Tomatoes, First Man earned an approval rating that pointed toward broad critical enthusiasm, and on Metacritic it received a weighted average of 84 out of 100 from 56 critics, a score the site categorizes as indicating universal acclaim. Audiences were more measured: CinemaScore polling gave the film a B+ from opening-weekend audiences, and PostTrak reported a 79% positive score from filmgoers.

  Owen Gleiberman of Variety called it "so revelatory in its realism, so gritty in its physicality, that it becomes a drama of thrillingly hellbent danger and obsession." Nicholas Barber of the BBC awarded it five stars and wrote that Gosling and Foy's performances were probably "too unshowy to win awards" but should, because "they could hardly have been bettered." Michael Nordine, writing for IndieWire and giving it a B+, praised the opening X-15 flight sequence and Gosling's performance in particular.

  Not all the prominent voices agreed. A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote that the film "gets almost everything right" but called it "strangely underwhelming," arguing it stops short of the further imaginative leap the subject demands. Anthony Lane of The New Yorker was wry in his praise, writing that if Armstrong had been the kind of person likely to cry on the Moon, "he wouldn't have been the first man chosen to go there. He would have been the last." Richard Brody, also of The New Yorker, offered a sharper critique, describing the film as appealing to those with a narrow and regressive emotional perspective on American life. First Man appeared on numerous critics' year-end top ten lists for 2018, including first place from Kyle Smith of the National Review, the same publication where Armond White gave it a negative review.

• 7. Grief as the Hidden Story

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  Karen Armstrong, Neil and Janet's daughter, died at age two from a brain tumor. Her death is the film's quiet center. Armstrong keeps a detailed log of her symptoms and researches treatments in the early scenes, and the loss visibly shapes him through everything that follows. The film's most contested invented moment comes near the end: standing alone at Little West Crater on the lunar surface, Armstrong opens his gloved hand and drops Karen's bracelet into the crater.

  The source biography and historical record confirm that Armstrong did visit Little West Crater during the moonwalk, but there is no documentation that he brought the bracelet or performed any private gesture there. The film treats the moment as emotional interpretation rather than documented fact.

  Claire Foy's performance as Janet Armstrong drew significant attention. Janet confronts Neil before the launch, insisting he sit down with their sons and explain the real risks of the mission to them. The film's version of that conversation is one of its most direct scenes. Janet Armstrong died a few months before the film's theatrical release in October 2018, and the film's portrayal of her renewed wide public interest in her life and story. Foy received a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 76th Golden Globe Awards for the role. The film's closing image, Neil and Janet separated by quarantine glass after his return from the Moon, leaves the weight of survival as its final note.