There are several historical events I wish I could have seen firsthand. The Apollo 11 mission is at or near the top of that list. Thanks to the documentary feature of the same name, I was able to experience the next best thing. The film uses previously unseen footage from the NASA archives along with stunning photography from the mission itself. Seeing the moon landing live on a fuzzy TV back in July 1969 would have been thrilling in the moment. Watching the Apollo 11 documentary on the big screen is seeing history come alive.
The film follows the eight-day mission as it happened. The first shots are of the Saturn V rocket being rolled out to the launch pad, but things quickly transition to launch day. Instead of using a narrator, archival recordings play throughout. The soothing voice of Walter Cronkite is used heavily leading up to the launch, only adding to the illusion events are unfolding in real time. After launch, some graphics are added to show how fast the spaceship is going or to illustrate the maneuvers needed to get to the moon and back again, but the majority of the movie is made up of archival footage. And it is stunning.
Todd Douglas Miller both directed and edited Apollo 11. He and his team pored over 11,000 hours of video and audio material to make the film. Taking that amount of information and distilling it down to a little over an hour and a half must have been a herculean effort of filmmaking. The editing in the film is especially noteworthy as Miller often uses split screens to show what’s happening on Earth and on the spacecraft at the same time. Far from being information overload, this approach helps the audience understand two very different viewpoints of the same event.
The view from the ground provides insight into just how massive the Apollo project was. Mission Control features row after row of technicians staring into green screens or, more comically, watching the progress of data being printed on rolling paper in front of them. The fact that we made it to the moon using technology this antiquated is impressive. The fact we couldn’t go back to the moon using our current technology without significant lead time is just sad. The view from space shows how focused three men had to be to carry out a mission this audacious. Neil Armstrong, ‘Buzz’ Aldrin, and Michael Collins all come across as affable professionals. The only hint of how much stress they were under comes when the flight surgeon reads out their heart rates. Armstrong, in particular, gave himself quite the workout.
The film is also a fascinating glimpse into another time in American history. There is ample footage of spectators on launch day. One memorable shot shows a J.C. Penney’s parking lot full of them jammed in to see blast off. It was about 8:00 in the morning, but several people were enjoying a nice cold beer. In their defense, Florida summers are muggy. I got a kick out of seeing weird sun visors sponsored by RCA on some of the spectators at Cape Canaveral. I guess some things never change. It was funny to see people waiting for the launch scarfing down Krispy Kreme donuts. The audience at my showing got a good chuckle over the low price of a cup of coffee. Of course, every other person seemed to have a cigarette in their hands. One ashtray in mission control was filled to the brim with used butts.
Taking a trip back to the 1960s is just an ancillary part of the show though. The movie is really a testament to the staggering achievement of fulfilling President Kennedy’s goal to put a man on the moon before that decade was out. In the end, the Apollo 11 mission went more or less by the book thanks to all the hard work leading up to it. Later missions would not be so lucky (if you haven’t already seen Ron Howard’s excellent Apollo 13, skip work or school to do so), but Apollo 11 smoothly sent three men on a 476,000-mile round trip so they could walk where no one else had done so before. Even knowing the outcome, watching Apollo 11 is still an electrifying experience. It left me wondering when we will come together as a nation or world to do something so grand again.
Apollo 11 is currently playing in theaters. While seeing it at home will still be impressive, something this epic was made for the big screen. If you have any interest in the space program or great documentary filmmaking, try to catch it in a theater.
