APOLLO 11 (2019)
“It’s 3 hours and 32 minutes until man begins the greatest adventure in his history…”
Director: Todd Douglas Miller
Cinematography: Buzz Aldrin, Bob Bird, Jerry Bray, Mike Collins, Adam Holender
Editor: Todd Douglas Miller
Music: Matt Morton
Notable Cast: Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Johnny Carson
I’m not a big documentary guy, in general. I don’t seek them out, I’m not a connoisseur, maybe not even an admirer. It’s usually PBS level shit that has no POWER, no STRENGTH, at least in the cinematic understanding of those terms. I’m a movie guy. SHOW me something dope, present it in a unique way. I want to be wowed.
What’s that? You’ve unearthed a ton of never-before-seen archival 70mm footage of the Apollo 11 mission? And restored it using 16k scans of the original film negatives?
As the kids are prone to say these days, let’s fucking go!
1ST 5 MINUTES
First thing we see after the requisite production company logos, is the title, Apollo 11, in a really nice font. Already, despite having seen barely anything yet, you can tell there is a certain taste level at play here. Fonts used for titles are an incredibly important indicator of the quality of a film. When a director is clueless when it comes to fonts, what else are they clueless about? Usually, much more than just the font selection. Are there good, even great films where the font is not great? Absolutely, but it is not common. At worst it’s usually a neutral font that is neither good nor bad. A lot of films fall into that category. But when you see a truly nice font, done stylishly, you know you’re in good hands.
And that judgement is vindicated by the first image we see. What appears to be a giant tank rolling along very slowly, with something gargantuan and unseen as its payload on top, flanked by an “olde tyme” fire truck. Immediately, you’re struck by the quality of the film you’re seeing, the texture, the clarity. How is this possible?
Check out the red of that fire truck and tell me you’re not in heaven. I dare you. You almost feel as if they somehow took a modern camera back in time and filmed this event in 1969, that’s how sharp and clear this over 50 year old footage is. It’s startling, it’s sumptuous, it’s sublime. And makes you thirsty for more.
When you see the reveal, that what they’re transporting on those giant tank treads is the actual Saturn V rocket, the sheer scale of it, immense, and how small the humans who built this thing look, it’s hard to believe it’s real. How on Earth, no pun intended, did they build this fucking thing? It’s gargantuan. How do you even conceive of all this technology and then build it and make it work with what is now considered pre-pocket calculator technology?! It boggles my mind. Humans are insane. All these thoughts race through your head as you’re watching this, but one thought predominates, “we used to be a real country.” (This serves as your semi-regular reminder that no nation has been able to replicate this feat in the intervening 50+ years since, including the good ol’ U.S. of A. Weird, right?)
We are treated to more absolutely breathtaking shots of the rocket itself. The colors. The fucking colors! The colors in this archival footage, the way they pop, you’ve never seen anything like this before. Hard to put into words just how amazing all this 70mm footage looks. And we’re not even 2 minutes into this movie!
I don’t even have a Favorite Shot because EVERY 70MM shot is my favorite, it’s impossible to choose. From a simple shot of a technician checking data to tracking shots of crowds to panning shots of the rocket to that dope shot of the rocket as it hurtles itself into orbit. Every shot is a feast I gorge myself on with each viewing.
A title card announces the launch date, and Walter Cronkite’s reassuring, dulcet tones, resurrected from long ago, play on the soundtrack.
We then get a shot of some kind of comms panel or something. No idea, but it’s old 60’s tech, and the image is just… I want to bite it! The washed-out whites in this flick are so nice, so era specific, I want to do more than watch this movie. I want to enjoy it on more levels than the laws of physics will allow me.
I want to eat these images.
I want to snuggle with them and hug them and maybe even take them out to a nice restaurant.
Dear reader, I would make love to these images if I could.
That’s how knocked out I was, not only when I first saw this, but every time I have watched the film since. There’s nothing else out there like it. Nothing.
And along with that dope old tech panel with the silver switches, we hear the first notes of Matt Morton’s score. Not really sure how to explain it. Music operates on an emotional level that is hard to intellectualize. Just listen to this track, in isolation. How amazing is this music?
And then, when you see the images that accompany this music, the stark washed out whites of the control center and the astronaut’s uniforms as they get ready to lift-off and land on the Moon! The fucking Moon! They truly had no idea what they might find back then. Imagine the balls on these guys?
After this 1ST 5 Minutes, you’re seriously going to take this movie off?
Nonsense.
These 1ST 5 are some of the best 1ST 5 you’ll see anywhere, documentary or not.
The rest of the flick
A shot of Neil Armstrong’s back as he readies himself for the mission ahead. Cronkite’s real time play by play kicks in… and we get my Favorite Line in the film.
“In addition to the mission the 3 astronauts will perform, and the experiments they’ll undertake, these men will carry with them many other things, many things… not nearly so easy to describe…”
We see Armstrong look down, thinking of something, seems far off, and we get my Favorite Scene. It’s really quite something and shows the subtle genius of director Todd Douglas Miller. As the Matt Morton music continues to play, we cut to a series of stills of Armstrong. Family photos, from childhood to the present, mixed with archival footage of some of his early pre-Moon missions.
It never fails to provoke an emotional reaction within. No matter how many times I watch this quick, pictorial biography of Neil Armstrong, I get tears in my eyes. It’s so powerful how this single human, who is flying to land and walk on the moon, was once just a child from a small town in 1930’s Ohio, like so many other children back then, but with a destiny for the stars. The storytelling is striking in its simplicity. Just letting the images speak for themselves, showing the sweep of one’s man’s life when contrasted with the truly infinite cosmos he is about to launch himself into. Incredibly effective and breathtaking filmmaking here (this bit reminds me, thematically, of Terry Malick’s magnum opus, The Tree of Life, when he cuts to the creation sequence after the death of the brother).
There’s more shots of the technicians and control rooms/firing rooms, banks of computers spitting out data, and then the moment when the astronauts leave the space center and head for the launchpad. The shot of them, pre-dawn, coming out of the building and getting into the van that’s to take them to the rocket… what am I even looking at? How does this look so good? This is night footage from over 50 years ago and it looks like it was shot yesterday on the best cameras money can buy.
Hard to watch this film without your mouth hanging open. The brilliance of this restoration job cannot be overstated. There isn’t praise enough in this grand universe for the cameramen who captured this footage lo those many decades ago. What unheralded masters of cinema. I’m not joking. Astounding work.
Simply put, every single piece of this film before they take off for outer space is perfection. The shots of the crowds, gathering in anticipation of witnessing history. The agonizingly long countdown to launch. The helicopter tracking shots of the spectators. The old film cameras everyone is holding. The goddamn phenomenal tiny font Miller uses throughout the mission. The sheer immensity of that launch with the promethean fire shooting out the bottom. There’s not one misstep here, at all. The feeling of watching this is indescribable.
I especially love the look at the 60’s, the decade before I was born. The details of the clothes and the cars and the styles, it’s intoxicating. This movie is a goddamn time machine in real life, perhaps the closest we’ll ever get to time travel. Savor it.
And NO narration, at least narration in the sense of how we usually understand the term. It really lets you settle into the era and the mythos surrounding our journey to the Moon. There’s just something about a documentary with no narration. Some of my favorite feature length docs lack narration (Dope Sick Love and Leviathan are the only ones that come to mind).
While you’re still obviously being guided by the hands of the filmmakers, when there’s no narration you feel you can draw your own conclusions without the need for someone to explain it. That said, great narration can really elevate a picture as well. It all comes down to what the material demands. For Apollo 11, as with many other decisions, the one to forego traditional narration is genius.
Unfortunately, the Earthbound segments to me are the real meat of this flick. While I like and appreciate the second act in space and on the Moon, and while there are some terrifically tense moments despite knowing what actually happened, I find my mind wandering somewhat.
Which doesn’t mean it is bad, by any stretch. It’s just the 70mm footage is so captivating, and once it basically disappears in the second act, not to really return until they themselves return to Earth, I’m really just waiting to see more of that gorgeous footage.
I’d be remiss to not mention how much I love the minimalist graphics used during the entire flight and landing sequences. Miller makes the right choice each and every time, from fonts to music cues to cuts. It always goes back to taste level. In the hands of different filmmakers, sure, the images may have been nice, but everything else could have gone pear shaped. Thank God we got Todd Douglas Miller to spearhead this project and turn these historical events into high art.
Take the end credits, for example. Fantastic use of cutting between title cards and footage of their return, quarantine, and subsequent celebrations and ticker tape parades, scored perfectly by Matt Morton (especially when his score goes super electronic towards the very end. I’m in actual nirvana). Shoot this shit right into my fucking veins. Seriously. I flat out LOVE the music in this film. Hard to believe this movie would be nearly as good with different music.
And really, how many films have end credits that are some of the best things in the entire movie (Off the top of my head, all I can think of is Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake, of all the fucking things in the world)? Unreal.
Can’t recommend Apollo 11 enough. The 1ST 5 Minutes show you everything that is going to be great in the next 92 minutes.
I feel sorry for anyone who will go through life having never seen this flick. It’s that good.
The One Sheet
Unfortunately, the posters for this film leave something to be desired. Can basically guarantee Miller had NOTHING to do with this, as the taste level is just completely at odds with the film itself.
This first poster, with the shot of the rocket at dawn, is… fine. Whatever. Looks like a typical PBS doc you’d watch on TV. That is emphatically NOT good enough for a film this fantastic!
Ditto goes for this next depressing poster, which looks like every goddamn other thing I’ve ever seen about the space race and going to the Moon. Nothing about either of these posters give you any hint of the brilliance contained therein, no hint of the glorious footage you’re about to witness.
How about using one of those glorious restored 70MM images from the film as a poster? Or maybe a series of stills in one poster, like the aforementioned, The Tree of Life.
But no, we get the usual crappy graphic design we’re accustomed to in the Photoshop era. These marketing fucks get paid big money and this is what they came up with?
Laughable. Embarrassing. Wonder if Miller was pissed at how the marketing geeks botched the roll out of his baby…
Hate to leave on a sour note, which is unfortunately becoming all too common with these one sheet sections, but that about does it for Todd Douglas Miller’s Apollo 11. A stunning achievement, a time machine containing a timeless work of art.
Treasure it, as nobody knows if we’ll ever get a documentary this sumptuous ever again. And it was all there in the 1ST 5 Minutes.
See you in two…