And its script, unlike his previous films, was not written by Chazelle. There is a clear through line in Chazelle’s work: Greatness requires uncommon sacrifice.įirst Man, of course, is not about music. In Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, Guy turns his life over to music (and another woman) at the expense of Madeline. In Whiplash, Miles Teller’s character turns over his life to music at the expense of love and his physical well-being. In La La Land, Gosling’s character turns his life over to music, at the expense of love and his dignity. To do so requires an exceptional commander.įirst Man is also a movie that shares thematic touchstones with Chazelle’s previous films, particularly an obsession with the rigor and commitment that young people apply to achieve extraordinary goals. And navigating them amid the stars, we understand, requires uncommon fortitude-intestinal, intellectual, and otherwise. Fire and atmosphere and wear have turned these machines into rickety, uncertain vessels for dangerous travel-death traps. His spaceships and test crafts and launching stations are made of bolts, gears, and machine parts, not buffed and polished science-fiction mega-metal. Chazelle’s film takes practical effects to a new plane. Abrams’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it became fashionable for filmmakers to tout a return to “practical effects.” This meant that in their movies, when spaceships docked on desert planets, they would be made of lived-in graphite and polycarbonate. ‘High Life’ and ‘First Man’ Look to the Stars and See Very Different GalaxiesĪround the time of J.J.
Chazelle does so by keeping his own feet on the ground. First Man is methodical, focused on the science and math of the men who traveled to space, admiring their stoicism and their dedication without devolving into hero worship or cowboy poetry. It isn’t interested in charm or pluck or wonder. But First Man is not like Apollo 13 or The Right Stuff, and it’s certainly not like modern, fantastical visions of interstellar travel like The Martian or Gravity. Apollo 13 is the pinnacle of true-life thrill rides set in space. These movies are often the domain of the surreal, the imagined, or the embellished. Space has been the setting for some of the most rousing films ever made, starting with Georges Méliès’s A Trip to the Moon from 1902 and leading all the way up to Claire Denis’s recently debuted, bodily-fluid-obsessed galactic opera High Life. It is both an act of faithful restraint-Chazelle largely based the film on James Hansen’s rigorous 2005 biography of Armstrong-and an unusual risk. It’s a fascinating contrast of forms-a physically overwhelming, tension-filled film surrounding a quiet, withdrawn performance. The star is Ryan Gosling and he is portraying a man who is perhaps the most emotionally inert American hero we’ve yet encountered in movies, NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong. First Man is Chazelle’s fourth film, and it is a technical marvel orbiting an unlit star. It’s a still, beguiling sequence in an often still and beguiling movie. For eight minutes, there’s hardly anything but the lunar surface and that infinite black. It happens on the moon, where there is no sound, only sensory-commandeering blackness all around. That’s all we can hear when Damien Chazelle’s First Man reaches its final destination. The Venice world premiere was announced just in time for the 49th anniversary of the moon landing: On July 21, 1969, the Apollo 11 astronauts were the first humans to set foot on the moon.Ĭlick through the picture gallery above to rediscover some of Ryan Gosling's diverse and celebrated film roles, including his Golden Globe-winning performance in La La Land, and his recent turn in the Bladerunner sequel.Silence.
He described the film as "a very personal, original and captivating work."Ĭlaire Foy ( The Crown) plays Armstrong's wife Janet, while Corey Stoll ( House of Cards) performs the role of fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin. The film was directed by Damien Chazelle, with whom Gosling already worked in La La Land, and has the coveted opening slot at this year's Venice Film Festival, festival director Alberto Barbera announced yesterday.
In the drama First Man, the 37-year-old plays Neil Armstrong, the astronaut who was the first person to set foot on the moon. But will it finally win him an Academy Award? Oscar-nominated actor Ryan Gosling is set to fly to the moon.
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