First Man‘s moon landing
It’s a shame that movie theaters are struggling to attract customers nowadays, because 2018 was overflowing with movies that deserved to be seen on the big screen. Think about the dizzying heights of Mission: Impossible – Fallout, the rugged plains of The Rider, and the languid sunsets of Burning. These images are stunning in any format, crucial reminders that cinema is as much an aesthetic object as a storytelling device. But projected onto a wall-sized screen in a dark room with surround sound, they’re immersive, transporting the audience to a whole other world.
No 2018 film was more transporting than First Man. Ostensibly a fact-based chronicle of a space mission along the lines of Apollo 13, Damien Chazelle’s Neil Armstrong biopic actually bears a closer resemblance to Gravity, using its space mission as a metaphor through which to explore its protagonist’s psyche. It unfurls with present-tense urgency, shot by DP Linus Sandgren in jittery, claustrophobic close-ups; we catch each time Ryan Gosling’s eyes twitch or Claire Foy’s mouth tightens. Anxiety suffuses even the most mundane domestic scenes.
This results in a movie – a thriller, no less – whose climax constitutes its least stressful part. As Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon, the camera goes still, the picture sharpens, and the aspect ratio switches to IMAX. Captured in majestic wide shots and nearly free of dialogue, the sequence is less interested in conveying the texture of the lunar surface than the texture of the space engulfing it, the unfathomable distance between where the astronauts stand and where they came from. It conjures a sense of loneliness as vast as the cosmos. Paradoxically, these are also the most intimate moments of the film, the first and only time Armstrong feels within reach.
All due respect to Marco Rubio, but afterward, it is extremely difficult to give a flying flag about a piece of fabric being planted in a rock.