The Men In The Moon

Documentary captures emotions from another world, and another America. By Craig Mathieson.

Fahrenheit 9/11. The War on Democracy. Uncovered: The War on Iraq. No End in Sight. Body of War. Why We Fight. The Power of Nightmares. Taxi to the Dark Side.

The titles alone suggest a narrative. The America - exemplified by the Bush administration and the occupation of Iraq - we see in so many documentaries today is the villain of the piece, the transgressor, a nation standing in the dock before the unofficial court of public condemnation. But one filmmaker, without intending to, shows a different superpower in his new feature.

"The response in America was incredibly strong," notes David Sington, the English director of In the Shadow of the Moon, an uplifting documentary about the NASA astronauts whose missions culminated in man walking on the moon in 1969. "A lot of people said that the film made them cry. It has an elegiac quality and I think its a film about America, the lost America, the America that theyve lost touch with."

The United States that undertook the Apollo program, beginning in 1961 when President John F. Kennedy challenged the nation to reach the moon by the end of the decade, was optimistic and respected. By the time Neil Armstrong climbed out of Apollo 11 and stepped onto the moons surface on July 20, 1969, the Vietnam War and the struggles of the civil rights movement had changed that perception but he still spoke of a giant leap for mankind, not his nation.

Sington, an enthusiastic 48-year-old Londoner whose voice bears the precise tone of several decades working for the BBC before launching his own production company, has come to realise that his documentary is an unexpected reflection of the dissatisfaction playing out in Americas election year.

"The response we got was occasioned by the film but it wasnt simply a response to a movie they liked. It was much bigger," he explains. "We were hitting a chord that was ready to resonate - as Barack Obama does - about the America that was optimistic, idealistic, liked around the world."

The timeliness wouldnt matter, nor would the film play so well to audiences uncaring of the political dimension, if the documentary wasnt so well assembled and tightly focused. The films simple aim was to interview the only 12 men in history who have stood upon another world, as well as the crewmates who took them there, and allow them to discuss their experiences and emotions.

"We were very clear that this was a film about this group of men that shared a unique experience of leaving the earth and standing on another world," Sington says. "The focus is on those men and those missions. Its not intended to be about the Apollo program. Its not intended to be what happened afterwards, because thats so hard to handle."

Norman Mailer once described the Apollo program as "the triumph of the squares", and the young astronauts seen in the film live up to his phrase: crewcuts, creased slacks and protractors create an identikit look. But the now elderly men Sington interviewed have a far richer, and wider, sense of life to them, as well as an unexpected sense of wonder at what theyve witnessed.

"One of the profound moments in ones own life is when you leave home and then return to see your parents or hometown as it really is. The astronauts had that experience with the Earth. Were here and we say, Oh, this is it. They left and they go, There it is," reasons Sington. "Its a profound revelation, and one that was shared to a degree by their photographs and footage. You look at the Earth and realise thats what we are. These guys had that experience personally, viscerally. We can look at those incredible photographs. They took them."

The one astronaut not interviewed is the most famous of all. Neil Armstrong, who politely declined the producers request for an interview by email, rarely discusses his experiences. His image remains frozen in 1969, preserved by the thousands of hours of archival footage that NASA shot, which the filmmakers had unrestricted access to.

The most valuable reels, those shot on the moon, had been stored in liquid nitrogen since they returned to Earth. It was their availability - they were uncovered for transfer to high definition digital video - along with the collective ageing of the astronauts, which got In the Shadow of the Moon under way.

The subsequent response, according to the filmmaker, has been gratifying. Having directed or produced more than 50 documentaries for television, he was merely hopeful In the Shadow of the Moon would merit a film poster he could souvenir for himself. But despite the movies success, hes not interested in duplicating the effect. His next documentary will be about prisoners awaiting execution in US jails.

"There are two things America does well that few other countries even do," notes Sington. "Manned space flight and judicial execution."

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