A Documentary in the Shadow of No Other:  In the Shadow of the Moon

by Christian De Matteo

HUGE

Maybe five years ago I broke my exclusive love affair with fiction and started reading non-fiction as well.  I was, and continue to be, fascinated by the idea of learning more and finding out about real events and people in the world that were often as colorful, if not more colorful, than anything I'd read in fiction.  I now read a fiction book, a non-fiction and a play, constantly cycling around in that order.  One of the first non-fiction books I read was Chuck Yeager's amazing autobiography.

Around that time I also started watching documentaries along with my usual constant regiment of fictional films.  I watched a lot of terrible ones.  Recently, however, I've begun seeing a brand-new crop of extremely interesting new documentaries coming out.  Those that come to mind quickest have been The Devil and Daniel Johnston, Sketches of Frank Gehry, and, most recently, the excellent The King of Kong:  A Fistful of Quarters.  These three were excellent. 

But last night  I had the privilege, thanks to Janet Maslin and the wonderful people at the Jacob Burns Film Center (a reason all by itself to move to Pleasantville, New York) to see an advanced screening of what might be the best documentary I've watched so far:  In the Shadow of the Moon.

What an incredible film.  I admit I went there expecting to like it, but more often than not, such feelings and high hopes end up being a recipe for disaster.  In the Shadow of the Moon surpassed my hopes.  I've always been fascinated by the space program, believing truly that it is one of the most important things both America and mankind in general can do, and if there was ever a film that showcased all the reasons my belief was right, it was this film.  But how do you make this film so it doesn't feel like one of those awful, chronological histories used in Junior High School classes?

Director David Sington finds the answer in the actual astronauts who were the Apollo program's daring adventurers.  Sington realized correctly that we are at a point in history when some of the country's greatest men are in their waning years, preparing to take huge portions of America's biography from the first person with them.  Some have already passed.  Men and women who were there when the monumental events of the 20th century, a century that by itself defines the S-curve of technological advancement Joel Garreau discusses in his excellent book, Radical Evolution. 

The S-curve is the pace at which technology, starting at the bottom of the curve begins accelerating exponentials up over the top, until finally waning back at the bottom of the top.  Garreau maintains that since the 20th century we've been jumping faster and faster from the wane of the top of the S to shoot right through a next one, one wave of advancement immediately creating exploding into the next.  One of the astronauts in the film even makes the comment that his father had been born almost immediately after the Wright Brothers had taken their first flight... and then he got to see his son conquer space.  Amazing.

But more amazing than the progress itself, is the ability to hear it from the mouths of the men (they are all  men) who were not only there, not only alive, but did it.  Men who took the immense risk of putting themselves voluntarily in an utterly inhospitable and, frankly were anything to go wrong, inescapable situation so that others would not find it so.  These men are truly heroes, pioneers and, ultimately, real, true, men, in the most traditional use of the word.  And all of them are getting very old.  Thanks to David Sington and the folks at Thinkfilm, we now have them immortalized, getting to tell their tales and our history in a way they'd never had the chance before.

Using these interviews, quick comments and new insights as the backbone, Sington then weaves together massive amounts of archive footage (including some wonderful pop culture moments, like the old sponsor advertisements from television).  What makes this truly special and exciting, is that much of the footage used in the film is material that has never been seen before by any large audience.  Some of it is footage that wasn't even viewed by anyone ever until very recently.  And what pictures they are.  Un-doctored or tampered with in any way, audiences can now get a special, intimate view into moments that occurred outside of our atmosphere, another fantastic testimonial to the technological explosion of the 20th century.

Finally, clearly a completist of the first degree, Sington both peppers the documentary with reminders of what else was happening in America and the world during this time as well as making sure to cover all bases as far as whatever other questions or comments the subject matter must raise.  Note in particular the interview footage that plays during the credits where the astronauts get to respond to the beautifully ludicrous conspiracy theory that the entire moon landing was shot on a soundstage in Burbank, California.

After the movie, the Jacob Burns Film Center had arranged for a Q&A with ThinkFilm's Mark Urman, the man with the exactly right impulse to pick this up at, I believe, Sundance Film Festival.  The interview, thanks both to Mr. Urman's honest and straight-forward approach to answering questions and discussing film and Ms. Maslin's honest and straight-forward approach to asking questions and discussing films, was extremely informative (much of the trivia and information peppered through this very review comes from Mr. Urman's enlightening answers).  Thinkfilm has been and continues to be a company to watch, thanks much to the presence of Mr. Urman who is responsible for much of their more daring acquisitions.  After all, as I found out last night, he's the man to thank for distributing the disgusting brilliance that was one of my all-time favorite documentaries, The Aristocrats.  And, by the way, I did thank him for it last night.  Now he has brought us In the Shadow of the Moon, a movie I will do my best to bring Oscar attention to.  I don't know if I can think of a more important documentary in recent years, with the possible exception of Deliver Us fro Evil.  And this is just as timely.

I am completely awed by this film and will be taking my father and wife to see it, as soon as it opens everywhere.

You should too.  See this movie.  Bring people to see it.  This is a film about one of America's proudest moments and one of the world's.  It is a testimony to what man can do, what he can conquer and what he can achieve.  And on top of that, it's just extremely cool.  The film will make you realize truly just how lucky we are to be alive at the same time as men like this.