Choosing "The First Man on the Moon" as the opening film of the 75th Venice International Film Festival in 2018, it can be said that the most authoritative international film festival has given the hottest star director-Damien Chazere enough For sure.
Counting from the time when the director’s childishness left the student’s work and really entered the film industry system, the first film directed by "Burst Drummer" really burst into the film circle as soon as it appeared, and all aspects can be described as stunning.
The second film "Philharmonic City" became a hit at the Venice Film Festival that year, and later won the Oscar for Best Director in one fell swoop, and is also the youngest Oscar winner in history.
1. High-profile Chazele
By the time the third film "First Man" (First Man), he directly made the opening film in Venice this year. The 33-year-old Chazerei, it can be said that the two different film systems in Europe and the United States have achieved different results. In the expectations of others.
Compared with the new generation of directors of the same age, Chazele seems to be more comfortable in the industrial system, and has always been well-balanced between the mass market and the artistic level.
The third film "The First Man on the Moon", in addition to inheriting the high reputation accumulated by the previous two masterpieces, is the first time that Cha Zelei jumped out of the comfort zone of a music film, abandoning the past unrestrained emotional expressions, and turned to A more restrained and quiet introverted soul mining.
The new film continues to use "City of Philharmonic" male star Ryan Gosling (Ryan Gosling) as the male number one, which is the commander of the Apollo 11 moon landing spacecraft in the film-Neil Armstrong.
Regarding the "first moon landing in human history" 49 years ago, the film works did not involve much. Most of them are described in the form of science fiction imagination or documentary exploration, but the film that really starts from the inner feelings of the moon explorer, "The First Man on the Moon" can be said to be a precedent.
Although in other artistic fields, David Bowie's "Space Oddity" once described this magical moment through the mentality of an American moon explorer before the launch of the spacecraft.
The moment I saw "The First Man on the Moon", the author's heart throbbed when I first heard "Space Oddity". In the dialogue between Major Tom (fictional character) and Control Ground (ground control center), Bao Ye created the psychedelic sense of the lost universe with extreme imagination. It is convincing that Damien Chazele, who is proficient in jazz and pop music, was inspired by "Space Oddity" to create his own journey to the moon.
Compared with David Bowie’s "Space Oddity" in which human beings are lost in the vastness of the universe, the psychedelic sense of mankind is lost in the vastness of the universe. Although Chazelei's "First Man on the Moon" also looks at the history of the first human landing on the moon from a personal perspective At the moment, a lot of focus is placed on the exploration of the spirit and emotions within the characters.
Since human beings have learned to fly, in the popular imagination, space travel has been portrayed as a mysterious, soaring majestic realm free from the constraints of gravity. Very few works will bring the depression and fear in the process of lifting into the air. Show it straight and naked.
But in Chazelle’s "The First Man on the Moon", Neil Armstrong and this NASA space project that is a milestone in human history, the relationship between man and the outside world, the relationship between man and family, and even the relationship between man and himself , Make this seemingly step-by-step plan for the moon landing full of turbulence and fascinating drama.
In the film, riding in a rocket ship surrounded by instruments and dials and full of depressive narrowness, there is no quiet or reassuring place, and the space presented is closer to a cage trapped in fear.
In this historical event with a known ending, Chazere faced the same challenge as Nolan, how to bring the audience into the emotions created by the film and convince the story behind the macro history. At this point, the new work "The First Man on the Moon" proves that even without the unrestrained appeal of "Blasting Drummer", without the candy-toned whims of "City of Philharmonic", with a restrained and calm introspection. Chazelei's exploration is also convincing enough.
2. The "first person" is also the "last person"
In the works of James R. Hansen, the film "The First Man on the Moon" records Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) from being recruited by NASA to the launch of Apollo 11 experience.
The focus of the script is not to sing an ode to the epoch-making victory of American Airlines, but to record the plight of a father who lost a daughter between family and life. Armstrong is always eager to rebuild a new life, vacillating between getting rid of the pain of bereavement and a firm will to survive.
This contradictory state of existence not only creates the motivation for his "moon landing", it is also the source of the film's protagonist's emotional struggle before "moon landing".
The beginning of the film is Armstrong piloting an X-15 fighter jet. The jet plane is spinning in the air. The sky changes from a dark midnight to a bright blue. The sun’s rays are jetted from the edge of the earth and reflected on Armstrong’s mask. The plane re-entered the earth’s atmosphere and returned to land in turbulence.
The huge noise generated during the flight is like the fear in the blood vessels throughout. Armstrong traveled through the atmosphere and returned to the surface. The film was suddenly silenced, and the sudden beauty of silence created a visual effect with "silence is better than sound".
Rather than treating "The First Man on the Moon" as a space movie, it is better to say that this is a purely biographical character's psychological growth film.
The film does not show too many so-called space scenes and technologies. In fact, the lens staying in daily life may be more tangled than space roaming. The young girl died of illness, the dispute with his wife, the family was on the verge of collapse under tremendous pressure, and the relationship of competition and cooperation between colleagues, in the context of the Vietnam War and the “US-Soviet competition”, the historical significance of the “moon landing” Victory is infinitely magnified, but the film brings the audience's attention back to the reshaping of personal values.
In the entire film narrative text, two structural elements of the text are particularly prominent. The first is the family relationship between Armstrong and his wife Janet. Faced with the constant changes in life and the death pressure caused by the failure of other aviation missions, the contrast between the hustle and bustle of the outside and the silence inside whirls out the individual and the environment. Tension.
On the other hand, the film did connect this aviation mission to the wider world environment. During the same period, anti-Vietnam War protests broke out across the United States, and the space race looked like an expensive men’s game. The film chose "Whitey on the moon" released by Gil Scott in 1970, which supplemented the film's political intent.
Of course, the perfect expression of emotions in the film benefited from the excellent interpretation of Ryan Gosling. Gosling tried his best to downplay the natural charm of the characters in the film, lightly portraying a person's process of dedicating himself to a job, and minimizing the conventional Hollywood interpretation of self-expression.
Armstrong was unwilling to boast about his historical achievements, and the silent behavior in the film even made the media feel at a loss. This makes the interpretation of the characters run counter to the Hollywood standard concept of the same type of historically significant characters.
As director Chazele said, “Armstrong is not a person who likes to talk, most of the astronauts may be consistent with the public’s impression, they look very firm and capable.”
He also said, "But Armstrong is very different. He is very quiet and introverted and doesn't speak much, but the task is done very well. I saw the shadow of Armstrong from Gosling, and I think he should be able to present this well."
Other veteran actors such as Kyle Chandler and Cyaran Sinz also incorporated their usual solemn performances into NASA’s authority roles in the film, and Chris Thor played the outspoken but funny The honest and honest Al Delin, harmoniously coordinated the serious tone of the whole film.
On the whole, the main narrative of the film focuses on the male-dominated whole and the main character Armstrong. There are few narrative assignments of individual roles. This is also the point where the film's overall fullness is slightly lacking. As a film driven by personal narratives and emotions, the focus is on the protagonist alone. It is inevitably too thin, and it is difficult to form a self-consistent relationship between the characters themselves and the outside world in terms of overall completion.
Technically speaking, Nathan Crowley's visual design restores the life of the American middle class in the 1960s. Put the characters in an ordinary environment, pull away all the heroic chants of Armstrong before the moon landing, and use Gosling's low-key character presentation to show the calm and restrained emotions.
Chazelei has always been good at capturing the lens language of the character's eyes, sorting out Armstrong's inner sway between struggle and restraint, and the impressive effect produced, which makes people feel the psychological pain of getting into the flesh.
Swedish photographer Linus Sandgren once again photographed Damien Chazele's work after "City of Philharmonic". The language of the lens follows Lubetsky’s aesthetic style, and a large number of long shots bring out the rhythmic rhythm of Chazele’s work as always. Armstrong plays with the children while whispering to his daughter, the space distance of the characters and the position of the light, etc. They are all very delicate and in place.
From the composition design, it is easy to recall "The Tree of Life", juxtaposing the gentle beauty of life with the claustrophobic blast-off shot. The sense of clean lens and the anti-climax script arrangement form a highly consistent style, forming a metal-like fine and oppressive feeling in the film.
In the home scene, the camera pushes from a dark room to a bright exit, forming a kind of traction in the dark, which seems to simulate wandering in a black space.
In the moon scene, the telefocus lens makes the helmet blur the line of sight of the camera lens, allowing the audience to enter the psychological state of the film characters. When the moon appears on the horizon, looking out from Armstrong’s perspective, the surface of the moon reflects On the helmet glass, the lens captures the resonance between emotions and miracles. It is the immersive experience that makes the film's emotions transcend the lens.
3. We all guessed the ending, but don’t know what brought us to the ending
There is no deliberate boiling point of humanity in the film "The First Man", no patriotic enthusiasm that has been rendered, and no tragic drama tearing. It uses almost silent pain to restrain and calmly complete the character arc. Bring a kind of moon landing frenzy that is easier to sing, and return to the longer anti-climax life essence.
The explorer returned from the unknown world, mysteriously withdrew from public life, and witnessed the world's exploration of space from fanaticism to flameout. Just like the Concorde, it is a kind of futurism and has become a thing of the past. In this journey of gazing at the earth from another planet, the lens looks at this existential adventure in a fair light.
One scene of the film is viewed from Armstrong’s perspective. When the first human’s footprints are on the dust of the moon, Gosling’s calm face twitches, which is a trance of incredible and unreality. It is also "a small personal step, but It’s a big step for mankind.” The excitement, the silent lens language brings out complex emotions, and completes the biggest character highlight in the film.
The biggest dramatic tension of the film "The First Man on the Moon" lies in the repeated pull between reality and surrealism.
In most people's perception, the film tells a historical event with a known ending, and the language of the lens itself plays a neutral and expressionless role. With the help of Armstrong's perspective in the film, the audience sees the gloomy rubble ground from the window of the space capsule, reveling in the texture of the lunar gravel.
When Armstrong took the first step, he stared at the ghostly distance under the boots with the camera. There was a hint of surrealism, but the spacecraft eventually pulled it back into the real life of the earth. It is this surreal sense of floating intertwined with real life struggles that make humans truly experience the psychedelic sung in "Space Oddity".
The capture of death in this movie has always been the main element of the script. The death of Armstrong’s wife, the death caused by other failed plans before the Gemini space program, the fear of death caused by mission risk factors, and the most terrifying driving force in the mission. It's all a dream when hypnotized at the edge of the abyss.
The film "The First Man on the Moon" redefines what space travel is, lives outside our imagination, and captures the true relationship of hitting the bullseye for the first time.
In fact, space travel is more dangerous and more difficult than we think. This is the most important part of the original theatrical power of "First Man". However, what bothers you in the end is that the danger of boarding a rocket ship embodies some indelible things about the space program: not only a "new frontier", but also a certain cultural way of resisting death, making it change. It is not only unforgettable, but also more exciting.
When Armstrong’s body got stuck in the claustrophobic space of the Gemini space capsule, the uneasiness caused by the camera's violent shaking of the spacecraft was not only because the flight was rougher and more terrifying than ever, but also because of the nervousness. The fuel comes from the externalized material world.
The unprecedented industrial technology of mankind can magically put mankind itself on a machine, tearing a gap in the sky. This process of separation is not only the separation of the sense of practicality in reality and the place, but also the disintegration of the known world in the human spirit.
Like the Apollo 11 mission to the moon in 1969, Chazele took his new work to complete a difficult adventure.
Author | Peter Pan; Public Number | Seeing Death in Movies
Edit | Riding a Rooftop Boy; please indicate the source for reprinting
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