It’s probably the most genuinely uplifting experience you’ll have in a cinema
this year. In the Shadow of the Moon is packed with the kind of feel-good
moments that Hollywood screenwriters would trade their typing fingers for.
But this is no schmaltzy family drama. In the Shadow of the Moonis a
documentary that combines dazzling, hitherto unseen footage of the Apollo
missions with dignified and very human interviews with most of the surviving
astronauts. This simple but exceptionally powerful film, shown at this
weeks’s Britdoc festival in Oxford, will be screened at the Edinburgh Film
Festival next month, before going on general release in October.
In just two years, Britdoc, in association with The Times, has established
itself as a dynamic event for film-makers and fans. The three-day event
combines screenings with networking opportunities, pitching forums and a
healthy social scene (including, weather permitting, a croquet tournament).
It was as a result of a chance meeting at last year’s Britdoc that David
Sington, the British director of In the Shadow of the Moon, decided to
reedit his hour-long television version of the film into a feature-length
movie. That film went on to win the coveted audience award at the Sundance
Film Festival this year.
What the film captures most eloquently is the sense of collective excitement
of watching the first lunar landing on July 21, 1969. Sington edits together
archive footage of television audiences the world over, all beaming with
pride as the lunar module crunched into contact with the Moon’s surface.
Mike Collins, one of the most insightful of the Apollo astronauts, sums it
up thus in the film: “After the flight of Apollo 11, the three of us went on
a round the world trip. Everywhere we went, instead of saying: ‘Well, you
Americans did it’, everywhere they said, we – humankind – did it. I had
never heard people from different countries use this word ‘we’ as
emphatically. I thought that was a wonderful thing. Ephemeral, but
wonderful.”
During a postscreening session at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Sington
said that the documentary was as much about America at its best (“America as
it should be but sometimes isn’t”) as it was about the Apollo missions.
Sington, who is married to an American and has spent much of his career
working in the US, recognises that it is easy to be cynical about the
country and its self-appointed status on the world stage. But he feels that
the making of the film reminded him of what he loves about the US and
attributes the film’s success to the fact that audiences feel the same way.
This capacity to make an audience to feel good about itself and the rest of
humanity is perhaps why In the Shadow of the Moon stands almost alone
against the trend for politicised, campaigning documentary film-making. A
look at the rest of the Britdoc programme reveals titles such as What Would
Jesus Buy? (an attack on consumerism produced by the fast food industry’s
nemesis Morgan Spurlock); Taxi to the Dark Side (a harrowing exposé of US
military abuse from Bagram to Guantanamo) and The Devil Came on Horseback (a
film that confronts the horror of Darfur). It is all powerful stuff, and
nobody would argue that this new breed of crusading documentary cinema is
not a valuable tool for change. But In the Shadow of the Moon has in excess
something that is in increasingly short supply in documentary film-making:
optimism.
The film looks back to a simpler time when derring-do, pioneer spirit and a
slide rule were enough to send a man to the Moon. Nasa footage of the
astronauts drawing up designs for the rockets shows the men wrestling with
sheets of paper covered in spidery pencil drawings peppered with ash from
Buzz Aldrin’s pipe. Sington joked at Sundance: “There is quite literally
more computing power in a mobile phone than in all the Apollo spacecraft put
together.”
The behind-the-scenes footage of Nasa’s offices and workshops is just some of
the new material unearthed by the production team. Footage shot in space,
either by the astronauts or for the use of the engineers, has been kept in
cold storage under liquid nitrogen for the past 40 years.
The story of some of some of these hitherto unseen images is an adventure in
itself. Cameras were built into various stages of the Saturn V rocket and
would film on 16mm film for the reference of the engineers. The cameras
would then eject and reenter the atmosphere where they would be caught by
highflying aircraft with nets. The resulting shots – digitally remastered
and transferred to HD video – are some of the most arresting images in the
film.
In addition to the new footage, there are a few stories that haven’t done the
rounds before. Who knew, for example, that Buzz Aldrin used the pause
between stepping off the ladder and down to the Moon’s surface as an
opportunity to partially fill his urine bag? Although the remastered shots
of the expeditions are dazzling, ultimately the main attractions are the
astronauts themselves. Handsome, proud men in their seventies, they are
unashamedly macho (there weren’t, says Mike Collins, any “weak sisters” in
the bunch) and unexpectedly spiritual (several have turned to religion to
make sense of the experience of profound awe in space).
The one notable absence is the famously reclusive Neil Armstrong, who doesn’t
appear in the film. Sington was philosophical about Armstrong’s decision.
“The point is that, as Dave Scott says in the film, the whole world
participated. I was watching as a small boy, and I remember that I took that
step with Neil. So in a way it isn’t Neil’s first step, it’s ours, and by
keeping silent Neil has wisely allowed it to stay that way.”
In the Shadow of the Moon screens at the Edinburgh International Film Festival
(0131 6238030, www.edfilmfest.org.uk),
on Aug 17 and 20, and will be released theatrically at the end of October.
The Britdoc festival continues in Oxford until tomorrow (www.britdoc.org/festival)
Serious business: more highlights from Britdoc
Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go
Kim Longinotto applies her observational and empathetic style to a film about
a school for emotionally disturbed children.
The Monastery: Mr Vig and the Nun
The combative relationship between an ancient Danish eccentric who wants to
found a monastery in a castle on his land and a delegation of Russian nuns.
China’s Stolen Children
Filmed under cover by Jezza Neumann, this reports on a result of China’s
draconian “one child” policy – the theft of male children to be sold on the
black market.
Helvetica
An intelligent and humorous celebration of the 50th birthday of the world’s
most popular typeface.
What Would Jesus Buy?
Supersize Me’s Morgan Spurlock produced this lively film about the Reverend
Billy, a comic creation with a serious message about America’s rabid
consumerism.
