What is so fascinating about the moon? Since ancient times, poets have written about it, lovers have gazed at it and explorers have dreamed of flying to it.
On July 20, 1969, Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first to walk on the moon. Now, almost forty years later, director David Sington sets out to recreate this journey in his award-winning documentary In the Shadow of the Moon. With never before seen archival footage from NASA, and candid interviews from ten Apollo astronauts, In the Shadow of the Moon brings a fresh perspective to what is arguably one of the greatest achievements of our time.
The film tells the story of the Apollo program, which saw nine American spacecrafts voyage to the moon between 1968 and 1972. Fueled in part by the Cold War rivalry with the Russians, the moon landings became a trademark of American potential, but also a source of pride and optimism for the millions watching around the world.
In the Shadow of the Moon is a captivating and inspiring film. It is not merely so because of its brilliantly restored footage, or that we have the privilege to listen to the astronauts' unique experiences, but because as both the images and these men testify, the voyages to the moon were more than a technological feat. They were ultimately about rediscovering ourselves and the earth we live on—something that is often forgotten today.
In an exclusive interview with the Epoch Times, director David Sington talks about his experience as a filmmaker, his personal fascination with the project, and also addresses the environmental lessons the film and the space missions can teach people in dealing with climate change today.
ET: What inspired you to make a documentary on the Apollo program almost 40 years after the first landing?
The opportunity came along because Dave Scott [Apollo 15] suggested that it was time to try to get the moonwalkers together for some kind of reunion event because 12 people walked on the moon, but three of them have already died, so it felt like the right time. As men in their 70s, they might be ready to be more reflective about their experiences, perhaps than we've seen them before in interviews they've given. So we felt confident that firstly we would be talking to people who don't normally talk among the NASA astronauts and also that perhaps we could get a slightly different perspective from those who have talked before. And we were surprised of how much new archival material we were able to find. So it was the promise of that kind of freshness about it that made it a very attractive prospect and from a filmmaking point of view, the Apollo moon landing is one of the most important events in history. To be able to think that we were going to have new things to say and also new things to see about it, that's a really appealing prospect for a filmmaker.
ET: What surprised you the most after talking to these men who have been to the moon?
DS: I was surprised how funny they were. They have very different sensibilities and different perspectives, but they all share this unique perspective on life, which gives them a certain kind of-- wisdom isn't too strong a word for it. It's down to earth, but it's very profound nonetheless. It gives, literally, a very good perspective on what's really important.
ET: Do you think that comes from seeing the earth from a distance?
DS One of the things people have said after watching the film is that you'd expect these guys to have very big egos and I think that is certainly the effect that Jim Lovell (Apollo 13) is talking about. When you've been somewhere where you can hold your hand up and hide all the earth behind your thumb, as Jim Lovell says, 'Everything that you've known, your business, your friends, or your problems-- all behind your thumb.' What room is there? How can you have a big ego when you've seen how completely small and insignificant the earth is in the context of the universe?
There's something rather compelling about going back and seeing the personal effect on these people, of having that most profound experience. I think that all of them have this perspective in common. For some of them it issues in a kind of spiritual sense, others it's a physical sense about the futility of humans-- the small-scale petty nature of human quarrels, which seem really important for us, but really aren't important in the cosmic context. And of course, what they understand is that the earth, in the context of the universe, is almost nothing. Yet it's also an infinitely precious oasis in the vast, sort of sterile, perhaps beautiful, but sterile and forbidding universe.
ET: The film contains an environmental theme about how we're basically damaging our fragile earth. What lessons can this moon landing teach us today?
DS: What we are doing with climate change is that we are fiddling with the thermostat of our planetary life support system, this is just a very dangerous thing to do. John Young's (Apollo 16) insight was that you can actually see the way that we're changing the atmosphere from the orbit. This is a man who's been up in space more than anybody: he flew both the Gemini and Apollo missions, and he's been up six times from the 60's through the 80's. He's seen from space the changes that are happening. I think that we truly don't pay attention to these people.
ET: Usually when we think about the moon landing, we think about the achievement, but we don't really think about the impact it has on the people involved.
DS: I set out to make a film about the astronauts, the experience that they shared. But, films always take a life of their own. It also became about how that experience was shared all around the world. As Michael Collins (Apollo 11) said, not the least interesting thing about Apollo was that as he went around the world afterward, he found that everybody said, 'We've done it, we've finally done it.'
Apollo was an event which allowed everybody to experience their common humanity—for a moment forget all the things that divide us and remember that really, the things that make us one are much more important and much more profound than the things that separate us. We are first and foremost human beings and that's the most important thing. That's 99 percent of who we are. We're human beings first, and then we're Americans or Frenchmen or Catholics or Muslims (etc.).
Ron Howard Presents: In the Shadow of the Moon is now in limited release throughout North America.
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