'Pushing the envelope' is one, of the mind and the machine simulataneously, when the pilot takes his winged craft and tries to breach the invisible barrier in the atmosphere that envelopes the earth, both in terms of speed and the elevation, and achieve something that was hitherto deemed out of the reach of human grasp. Before the American space program could run, it tried to walk by picking pilots from the US Air force who didn't mind putting their lives on the line for a piece of glory and history of being the first, handing them over incredibly powerful aircrafts and letting them get into a race of mad dash, pushing the physics of the human body and the mechanics of aircraft all the way till breaking the first sound barrier. And all this, while USSR was leap frogging away with their own COSMOS program eyeing for what is ultimately considered the holy grail of space exploration back then, putting the man on the moon.
Tom Hanks' series 'From Earth to the moon' chronicled the American space program right from its nascent stages when the nation was shocked first and then whipped into a fervor by the sudden news of the Soviet man Yuri Gagarin landing the first blow by being the first man in space, prompting the President John F Kennedy to announce the space program as his administration's top priority, allocating all the necessary resources - men, money and material - to make sure the Americans had the bragging rights over the Russians first, and second (only second), pushed the frontiers of science and technology in pursuit of hidden, mysterious and wondrous facets of the unknown universe. And to build the machines necessary and fly them around were brought together the finest mathematicians, scientists, engineers and doctors that the country produced at that time, placed under great managers and supervisors from a cross section of the American Industry to oversee the operations, and finally welded them with the pilots, from commercial and military aviation, to put all those well laid plans into action...
Where did these men come from, who didn't mind venturing into the unknown with scant regard to their well being? What was their impetus to achieving the improbable, equipped with enough inspiration to dream the impossible? Though 'First Man' attempts to look at the life of one such, Neil Armstrong, in his successful journey to the nearest celestial body to earth, the story could as well be one of any of those strong willed pilots who volunteered and fought for their places in all the missions starting from Mercury to Space Shuttle, risking their lives and livelihoods. It takes incredible amounts of courage, not to mention some serious helpings of foolhardiness, to put the hand up and sign up for a program that required people to essentially be the lab animals offering their bodies up in the name of science. While it was all for name and fame is perfectably understandable from the perspective of ones venturing into the void, the fact that they had staked their families for that slice of history - wives and children, waiting on the ground listening in on all the anxious moments played out in real time on the live feeds, crying, praying and hoping for their safe arrival back to earth, in those machines whose chinks weren't completely ironed out - make them not just stupendously brave, but staggeringly insensitive. In that way, the gamble and the sacrifice was not just of the man, but of his family's as well.
Chronicling the epochal moment of setting the first step on the moon is not the true mission objective 'First Man'. It is more intent on turning the gaze away from the mechanical and glorious aspects of the space travel - the grandeur of the lift off, the glamor of the weightlessness, the marvel of space docking etc - and focus rather on the personality (his inner turmoil while coping with the tragedy of a personal loss) of Armstrong, his inability to share his grief with anyone around, his frustrating reticene and the toll that it all takes on his wife and kids, who had to not only come to terms with the loss of a family member but chin up to the possibility of losing the head of the household himself in a quest that made little sense to their daily grind. Interestingly space travel wasn't just about space travel, it required appeasing and schmoozing the politicians who controlled the purse strings, it required placating a frustrated public who had to be constantly reminded that space programs shouldn't be seen as another line item in yearly budgets, even when each machine that burst into flames before the voyage, every accident that happened on the ground during testing, meant millions of more dollars up in smoke that couldn't otherwise be diverted to welfare programs, it required the astronaut's families play the perfect hosts - ever smiling, camera friendly, proud and brave - calming and soothing the jangling nerves of a nation, masking their own personal fear and insecurities behind foundation and makeup. The movie would have been more apt with the title 'First Family'.
Ryan Gosling who probably has the best vacant stare in the business that doesn't let any emotion or feeling seep out of his dead-panned face (and eyes) fits snug into the suit (and shoes) of Neil Armstrong, as an inaceesible, unemotional man of little words (but when he did speak to the world from beyond, they simply became memorable). The tone of the movie assumes the same quality as its protagonist - sparse, distant and merely observant, which sits nicely with the object of exploration at hand, a mass of emptiness and a blob of nothingness. As the Nietzsche quote, When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes back at you, 'First Man' aims at peering into an even deeper abyss, the human heart as it looks into at an empty beyond.
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