It’s easy to feel divided by man’s voyage into outer space. On one hand, it’s the defining achievement of manifest destiny, a still-inexplicable feat of science and luck that has transported not only machinery through Earth’s atmosphere and into the beyond but also brought human beings into space and onto the surface of the moon. The image of astronauts floating in zero-gravity or stepping onto the pock-marked surface of the moon still instills wonder. On the other hand, the argument persists that we have enough problems on Earth that need to be addressed. The money spent on space exploration should be used to fix mundane issues rather than fund our hubris. Many also believe that humans don’t belong in space. That it’s a journey beyond our understanding.
Though more than five decades have passed since Neil Armstrong issued his famous words, the fascination with space travel and how we achieved it, persists. Todd Douglas’ 2019 documentary, Apollo 11, presented an almost-verité version of the first successful lunar mission. And just this past year, Richard Linklater’s Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood loosely told the story of the director’s experience growing up in Houston in the late ‘60s. Meanwhile, Ronald D. Moore’s speculative television series, For All Mankind, topped many best-of lists last year.
Despite how you feel about the subject, NASA and outer space still capture the imagination. One documentary that has stood the test of time is Al Reinert’s For All Mankind (1989). Taking its title from a plaque left behind on the moon, Reinert’s film is less an informative documentary of just exactly how scientists managed to get astronauts into space and more of an immersive experience that combines footage from numerous Apollo missions into one streamlined encounter. Douglas removed all talking head interviews and everything but in-the-moment dialogue in his documentary, while Reinert uses narration from 13 astronauts here over the footage without identifying who is speaking. This technique may be dizzying at first, especially for one expecting a linear story from take-off to return, but Reinert’s goals are different.
Reinert sifted through hours of film and interviews to create one slim, 80-minute film that encapsulates and encompasses NASA’s Apollo program. None of the astronauts are named. If you are familiar with Buzz Aldrin and Jim Lovell, you may recognize their faces or catch a name on a uniform, but Reinert instead crafts a movie about a singular achievement without ascribing it to any one single individual or individuals. It is a film of hushed reverie with no jingoistic chest-thumping or America-first agenda. There is no mention of a Space Race or the Soviet Union. Instead, we simply see people working together to achieve a seemingly impossible goal.
Beyond flashes of what happens on the ground in Houston, most of For All Mankind’s footage comes directly from inside the lunar module or on the moon itself. We see the astronauts clowning in zero-gravity, attempting to eat and discussing the difficulties of defecating in space. But once they land on the moon, it’s impossible not to get a vicarious thrill as faceless astronauts bounce on the surface, tool around in a rover and admire the blue marble of the Earth from afar.
According to critic Terrence Rafferty, For All Mankind is “one of a kind and likely to remain so. It is, formally, among the most radical American films of the past half century and, emotionally, among the most powerfully affecting.” Yet, images from outer space continue to be more awe-inspiring and beautiful thanks in part to the James Webb Space Telescope and other technological advances. But if anything, For All Mankind captures that first moment when we slipped across to the other side, an instant that remains unparalleled in our shared histories.
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