60 years later.liam fennell wrote: ↑Wed Mar 20, 2019 9:40 amApollo 11 is an unexpectedly absorbing low-key (well, after the spectacular launch about a half hour in) and mostly self-explanatory documentary, put together almost exclusively from footage taken from the period of the actual launch. The only thing that isn't from that week in 1969 is Kennedy's speech where he promised to get mankind not only to the moon, but to bring the astronauts back safely as well, and that only comes at the very end of the picture. The voice track is admirably minimalist, comprised only of announcers from the launch, mission control chatter, and the familiar TV broadcasts transmitted from the space vessels by the astronauts themselves. The 70mm footage of the technical apparatus is frankly breathtaking. The weight and impact of the technical achievement just about knocked me out of my seat. The first shot in the movie is a large-format crystal clear high resolution image of the in-motion GIGANTIC tank treads of the platform vehicle as it delivers the rocket to the launch pad, with people walking alongside guiding it and providing scale not just for size of the actual vehicles, but also for the ambitions of the whole endeavor.
I guess the mission was so important that they had cameras everywhere, documenting everything possible, and it really pays off now 50 years later! There's even a guy doing improvised dolly shots at mission control, including one joyous shot where he rolls past rows and rows of humongous computers and seemingly hundreds of men with buzz cuts and thick-framed glasses analyzing printouts and primitive computer monitors! I have a hard time with documentaries, but this picture is really something special. It's so beautiful, everything it says about the America it evokes; almost mythological from this remove. And a little heartbreaking -- where have these self-sacrificing humanitarian ambitions gone?
The only thing I think it could've done without is the somewhat out of place scary-sounding arpeggiator-heavy synth score!! I guess it's preferable to triumphant trumpets and the Star-Spangled Banner, but still.
Out of the hundreds of spectators who showed up to watch the launch and / or camped out, I had to really concentrate to the find one guy (with a beer in hand) who had a pot belly - everyone else was thin as a rail. Even the kids. Of course they were - this was before George McGovern's 1977 U.S. Dietary Guidelines and the start of the low fat high carb dogma.
