There have been plenty of movies and TV shows about the men with “the Right Stuff,” so why another documentary about the space race?
Well, why not? “In the Shadow of the Moon” has only a slight new twist on the subject, but it’s cannily made and easy to enjoy.
The new twist is that the astronauts who provide testimony have been encouraged to go a bit deeper into their feelings than usual for this one. The focus is on the Apollo program, and the men who actually went to the moon.
There’s a reason we love hearing about this program, of course — it’s a reminder of a time when people dreamed big, and pulled off one of the most remarkable feats in human existence.
The now-graying astronauts seem happy to recall their lunar triumphs. And to recall the saga of Apollo 13, the trip that went wrong — but even that unsuccessful moon shot stands as a testament to ingenuity and grace under pressure.
The story doesn’t unfold as a history, but rather as a general impression of moon voyages. So all the Apollo astronauts tell their tales in random order, and talk about the awe of the journey.
Well, almost all of them. Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon, declined to be interviewed, furthering his reputation as the Greta Garbo of NASA. In a way, though, there’s something cool about Armstrong’s demurral — it increases the sense of myth around him, even if by most accounts he is a solidly ordinary guy.
There was nothing ordinary about Armstrong’s incredibly poised handling of the first moon landing, which was much more complicated than expected. The other Apollo 11 astronauts, Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins, are around to fill in the story.
Among the many interesting clips is President Richard Nixon’s rehearsal of a speech he would be forced to give if the Apollo 11 lunar module were unable to take off from the moon’s surface. This strange little artifact refers to the reality that the astronauts would die in their capsule when their supplies ran out, since no rescue mission could reach them.
“In the Shadow” is not a piece of journalism. It’s an unabashed love letter to a fascinating time. Director David Sington takes a slick, user-friendly approach that doesn’t dig terribly deep, but perhaps that’s for another documentary. This one is an agreeable look back that also raises a question mark about the future.
Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Mike Collins and Buzz Aldrin in a scene from “In the Shadow of the Moon.”
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