Geekery: ‘First Man’ Looks at the Realities of Space Travel
Neil Armstrong’s path to the moon was long and difficult. This new movie takes an intimate look at what it took to be the first man to walk on the moon.
Director Damien Chazelle and Ryan Gosling are together again, but don’t expect jazz and dance numbers. First Man focuses on Neil Armstrong during the decade before the historic Apollo 11 flight. The screenplay by Academy Award-winner Josh Singer is based on the astronaut’s official biography James R. Hansen. It looks at the cost and triumphs of spaceflight – not just the physical dangers above the Earth’s surface, this movie examines how the process changed all involved.
The reviews coming out of the premier at the Toronto Film Festival, including approval from Armstrong’s sons…
“When they started this project, Damien and the screenwriter Josh Singer started with the only authorized biography that our dad ever participated in called First Man, and it’s a very heavy, dense book, but it’s full of detail, and that’s where they started. They spent two or three years after that going deep, getting the details in between the chapters, in between the words, in between the paragraphs, and I’m here to tell you that they got it right. And we absolutely would not be here today if they hadn’t, so I’m really grateful to them.”
First Man arrives in theaters October 12th.
