Keeping everything real: Triangle panel weighs in on ‘First Man’ movie

Editor’s note: This article about the “First Man” film and the space program is part of WRAL TechWire’s weeklong contribution to the Triangle’s “Lift Off NC: Apollo + Beyond” celebration which features events throughout 2019.

RALEIGH – In the initial minutes of “First Man,” currently playing at the Marbles IMAX and other area theaters, Neil Armstrong, portrayed by Ryan Gosling, struggles to bring his X-15 spaceplane back to earth. Once he has the experimental jet safely parked on the white sands of the testing ground, he responds to the now nearly hysterical ground controllers with a laconic “I’m down.”

Neil Armstrong was a man of few words. How ironic that he spoke perhaps the most memorable words of the 20th century: “One small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”

The “First Man” film is quite a big leap for Gosling and producer/director Damien Chazelle as well. The team last worked together on the award-winning smash hit, “La La Land.” Not a single song-and-dance number in this one.

The film from Universal Pictures and Dreamworks, based on the official biography of Armstrong by writer James R. Hansen, follows the pilot’s career from those days bouncing the X-15 off the atmosphere through landing on the moon on July 20, 1969, 50 years ago this coming summer. There are a lot of tense moments.

A stuck thruster causes Armstrong’s Gemini VIII craft to roll out of control. He’s able to right it just seconds before a fatal blackout.

During training for his Apollo 11 mission he ejects from the LEM simulator just moments before a fiery crash.

On Apollo 11 itself, when the designated touchdown spot turns out to be filled with giant boulders, Armstrong is forced to search for a new landing site as the LEM’s fuel runs out.

At a press conference, recreated in the film, a reporter asks Armstrong what he’d most like to take along to the moon. His reply: “More fuel.”

Armstrong came through these near-tragedies uninjured. Others weren’t so lucky. “First Man” makes clear the terrible price in human lives that made the space program possible. From flight test pilots who died in experimental spaceplanes, to fellow astronauts lost in crashes, to the deaths of the Apollo 1 crew in a fire on the pad, the film shows the toll every death took on the NASA community and the astronauts and their families.

“I couldn’t watch the scene of the fire,” Martha Lemasters said at the First Man Space Panel, held at the Marbles Kids Museum after a media screening of the film. “I can’t describe the sense of dedication that took over the Cape after that. We were under such pressure, but we were all one.”

Lemasters worked at the Cape doing public relations for NASA and IBM during the 60s and 70s and has written a book “The Step” about her experiences there. She’ll be featured in a new documentary “When We Were Apollo” due out soon.

Martha Lemasters at the First Man Space Panel. Photo by Renee Wright copyright Capitol Broadcasting A.R.R.

The film accurately portrays the astronauts, all of whom she knew well, Lemasters said. “I was glad to see Buzz Aldrin portrayed as the know-it-all he was, though I’ve forgiven him since he punched that guy in the face who said the moon landings never happened.”

Martha Lemasters book on marthalemasters.com

Director Chazelle went to extreme lengths to get details in the film just right. Rick Houston, another panel participant who wrote the book “Go, Flight!: The Unsung Heroes of Mission Control,” was brought in as a consultant on the film.

“Damien’s assistant contacted me and said they had two different pictures of Mission Control and wanted to know why they looked different,” he said during the panel. “They sent me the pictures, and I saw that one was the Mercury control room in Florida and the second was in Houston. They were two different rooms 1,000 miles apart.”

Rick Houston at the First Man Space Panel. Photo by Renee Wright copyright Capitol Broadcasting A.R.R.

Soon after, Houston found himself on set in Atlanta, keeping everything real. He even appears as an extra at one of the control room consoles. “We spent 31 hours on the set, and I’m on film maybe 3 seconds, but it was one of the most interesting experiences of my career. Damien’s attention to detail is amazing.”

Rick Houston on thee ‘First Man’ Mission Control set. @RickHouston73

Houston, who now lives in Yadkinville, NC, was also able to field some questions about the film. Many people wonder if the portrayal of Neil Armstrong’s life, including the death of his young daughter, is accurate.

“Neil’s sons, Mark and Richie, were on set and are actually in two or three shots. They both signed off on the portrayal of their dad,” Houston said. “That’s good enough for me.”

One thing “First Man” does not do is glamorize spaceflight or the lives led by the astronauts and their wives. The families face the constant knowledge that death could be right around the corner, that they could be next, all in the unforgiving glare of cameras and press camped on their front lawns.

Space itself is an alien realm – dark and cold and scary. Chazelle uses closeups of Gosling’s face taken with a hand-held camera to great effect, showing the anxiety and tension that accompany every voyage into the unknown.

At one point in the film, after Armstrong’s close call in the LEM simulator, Ciarán Hinds, playing Bob Gilruth, the first director of NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center, asks the astronaut if the program should continue… “at what cost?”

Armstrong replies: “It’s a little late for that question, Bob!”

The price in human lives has already been paid, he’s saying. We must, like our ancestors before us, press on to the next frontier.

“Apollo united us,” Martha Lemasters said. “We saw the world from a different perspective and it changed us.”

Today, people are lined up wanting to go into space, to the Moon, to Mars, despite the risks. And crowds still gather on the beaches near Cape Canaveral to watch the big rockets launch, and, just as in the film, shout: “Go! Go! Go!”