“First Man”: The Rest Is History

Release Date：Oct/12/2018
Genre：Biography/Drama/History
Director：Damien Chazelle
Cast：Ryan Gosling、Claire Foy、Pablo Schreiber、Kyle Chandler、Ethan Embry

Viola's Rating：8.0







Prior to the 50^th anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s “one small step” on the moon, Oscar winning director, Damien Chazelle’s latest feature film, “First Man”, takes mankind back to the history when the “giant leap” was made.

Based on “First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong”, the official biography of the accredited astronaut, written by James R. Hansen, a professor of history at Auburn University, this biographical, historical drama takes a look at the life of the astronaut, Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling), and the legendary space mission he executed with Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, which led Armstrong to become the first man to walk on the Moon on July 20, 1969. “First Man” focuses on the years from Armstrong being selected to the success of the mission because the rest is history.

Growing up, we’re all familiar with the name “Neil Armstrong”, but all the unsung heroes played critical roles in the Apollo 11 mission. “First Man” not only commemorates the crew killed by a fire during the Apollo 1 mission, Ed White, Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee, but also reveals the mysterious veil of Buzz Aldrin, the second man walking on the moon, and display the authentic life of the astronauts’ family during the mission and training.

Directed by Chazelle, who’s famous for 10 Cloverfield Lane, La La Land and Whiplash, it’s guaranteed that the scores and songs in “First Man” are of high quality. During the intense mission with great psychological pressure, the soothing music in the film helps to calm everyone down.

It requires two sides to compete, and of course, there are pros and cons doing so. Even as a drama, “First Man” carries a documentary ambience, which provides the background history of this legendary mission.

Instead of bestowing accolades to Armstrong, the flick shows more of his “failures” and how he handled them. Nevertheless, it is from these attributes that we know what kind of mindset a great person should bear.

Throughout the motion picture, moviegoers get to see how amazing the technology already was in 1961, but at the same time, the control panels, equipment and training sessions at NASA are so different from what we saw when Curiosity does its job on Mars.

All in all, Neil Armstrong is such a round character in “First Man”, in which his family life, relationship with his teammates and images in front of press are all shown. Besides, with Ryan Gosling’s awesome acting skills, the emotions of Armstrong are deep and varies in different phases.

“First Man” is not only informative with the stories before the rest became history, but also a brilliant way to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of landing on the moon.

Picture Credit: IMDb