For All Mankind
Director : Al Reinert
USA, 1989
Unlike David Sington with 'In The Shadow Of The Moon' 18 years later, 'For All Mankind' director Al Reinert doesn't address conspiracy theories about faking the moon landings. He doesn't need to, he's just sat through 6 million feet of film from the Apollo and Gemini missions. He has watched President Kennedy's speech about putting a man on the moon in which he makes clear that the technology for doing this has not even been invented yet. He has seen the tragic deaths of the crew of apollo 1 in a roaring fireball in a test before they even got off the ground. He has seen footage of touchdowns and take-offs from the lunar surface. He has heard hours of detailed communications between astronauts and the ground crews. There is no need to waste screen time in addressing idiots. It reminds me of seeing a protest against Scientology in Edinburgh; to me, Scientology is so ridiculous that to protest against it gives it a weight that it doesn't desertve. Interestingly, Reinert also doesn't waste screen time on most of the things that 'In The Shadow Of The Moon' would take up; the cold war, the fighter pilot backgrounds of the apollo crews. That film takes a more conventional all-around documentary approach, with close-up talking heads whose names and missions are restated on-screen each and every time they speak. With this film there is none of that, in fact it's often difficult to decipher who is speaking and which particular mission footage is from, or even if the voice and the footage are from the same flight.
The different missions are instead merged together in a single sequence, beginning on the launch pad, all the way into orbit, lunar landings, reconaissance on the surface, take-off and return. Each mission was essentially the same as any other from Apollo 11 onwards, with the exception of Apollo 13 which blew an oxygen leak and had to be abandoned. The drama of that situation is massively underplayed here, there are none of the great sweeping strings moments, we have only highly professional men doing highly specialised jobs... at least until we get out of earth's gravitational field.
What follows from this point is the strength of 'For All Mankind'. Everyone has heard about the cold war, beating the Russians, the whole world watching on tv as Neil Armstrong comes down the ladder. Our sense of wonder was in looking at them, their sense of wonder was in looking at what they could see and experience directly. As soon as the gravity departs, these ultimate professionals become children again, spinning torches in zero gravity, bouncing around on the moon singing "tum ti tum ti tum..", playing country music on tape recorders, listening out for college football scores. We even see astronauts messing around so much that they go sprawling on the ground, only to end up scolding each other for getting so dirty.
Not telling us exactly what is going on, or who is speaking, or exactly what you are watching can be frustrating, but it allows us a view of events free from the context of politics, nostalgia, even personality at times. Dave Scott of Apollo 15 stands looking upon the Moon's hilly terrain and observes "I realise there's a fundamental truth to our nature... Man must explore". Absinthe minds will enjoy the sense of wonder that comes from seeing people on the surface of another world, far increased over most film representations by being real footage with real people.
Even so, there is a little directorial dishonesty, or artistic license depending on how you want to look at it. Scenes from Gemini are inserted to appear like those from Apollo. Kennedy's opening speech has a word dubbed, altered from "for the progress of all people" to "for the progress of all mankind", in order to better suit the purposes of the film. Understandable, perhaps, but why fiddle it? Similarly a memorable audio clip describing how the Moon was perfectly lined up ahead of the space shuttle as it stood on the launch pad is accompanied by a clip showing this. The only problem is that this footage did not exist - it was created for the film by pasting a photo of the Moon over the command module, now in a museum. Again, understandable, and seeing the Moon through that window alongside the description is indeed memorable. but when you find out that it was created and inserted it's a bit of a let down, like finding out that the Ramones legendary live album 'It's Alive' was largely re-recorded in a studio afterwards.
What isn't at all a let-down is the Brian Eno soundtrack, whose eerie ethereality keeps you in mind of the dimensions of space as compared to the delicate tin can of the lunar lander modules. The fragility of these vehicles is best summed up by the little windows, which look almost impossibly delicate given that one small breach would mean near-instant death for all on board. Amidst the euphoria and clowning, Eno retains and carries our sense of delicacy and amazement.