The 2020 Odell Public Library films begin Tuesday, January 14, with “First Man,” the story of Neil Armstrong and his historic walk on the moon, on July 20, 1969. Ryan Gosling stars as Armstrong, and Claire Foy is his wife, Jan. The movie will be shown in the Odell Public Library Program Room, 307 S. Madison Street, Morrison, IL, beginning at 2:00 p.m., with complimentary popcorn and a drink.
A little over 50 years ago, everyone was glued to a TV set as America and the rest of the world watched this unimaginable feat. The film truly takes us “behind the scenes” as Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin train for this mission. For Armstrong and his family, the seven year lead up for the moonwalk was filled with loss, sacrifice, and failure–three things we don’t think about when we see the traditional image of Neil Armstrong.
He was doing a job, but it was a job that could kill him. He knew it, his family knew it, and his fellow astronauts knew it.
There is no glamor in the readying for space exploration. It is merely being shoved into a tin can, and that is what the training simulator looks like, which will catapult the Gemini astronauts into space. The actual spacecraft is no better. It is claustrophobic and scary and makes them woozy. There is no guide for the dangers they are facing, only the still vivid memory of the cockpit fire that killed Ed White, Gus Grissom, and Roger Chaffee during preflight testing of the first manned Apollo mission.
In the comforts of his home, Armstrong is no stranger to tragedy. He and his wife had recently lost their young daughter, Karen, to cancer. Now their two growing sons must face the possibility that their dad could die in space. Armstrong, ever the good NASA pilot, is ready for whatever happens, but although Jan puts on a brave front with her sons and the other astronauts’ wives, it takes a toll on her. She explodes at the engineers and executives, “You’re a bunch of guys making models out of balsa wood. You don’t have anything under control!”
From the moment Armstrong makes his first step on the moon, it is not the words for posterity, or the global cheering, or the enormity of the mission which matters most to him. It is the simple gesture the moon walker makes in honor of his daughter in the hushed mystery of space.
Don’t miss this wonderful film about an American hero and a mission in space that changed the world.