NONFICTION FILM - Their walk-on roles - The lunar-landed astronauts of the Apollo program have a story to tell. One director is out to make sure it's captured for the ages.
Looking up at it from down here, the moon seems all mystery -- a vast, nebulous, glowing ball illuminating the dark sky to ease the fears of mankind below. But for the 12 men -- only nine of whom are still living -- who have walked upon the moon's surface, the planetary body has come to represent far more than a night light.
Though Neil Armstrong's renowned "one small step" line has come to define the importance of the nine Apollo missions to the moon from 1968 to 1972 for many Americans, most still haven't an idea of what it was really like to be up there, looking down at this place we call home.
British film director David Sington recognized the significance of the untold tales of the moon still kept by the astronauts, and decided to bring one astronaut from every Apollo mission together for the first time to tell their stories in a documentary, entitled "In the Shadow of the Moon," which opens Friday.
"There wasn't really a film out there that looked at things from the astronauts' perspectives," said Sington. "To me, it was just an obvious thing that needed to be done. It was irresistible."
With the help of Dave Scott, who served as the command module pilot on Apollo 9 and commander on Apollo 15, Sington began recruiting the aging astronauts to the project in 2004.
Despite the fact that Sington ultimately ended up with an impressive cast, one big player was missing from the lineup: Armstrong. Although he was in e-mail correspondence with the first man to walk on the moon, Sington was never able to persuade the notoriously tight-lipped Armstrong to participate in the film.
"It was like getting an e-mail from Archangel Gabriel," Sington said, remembering receiving e-mails from Armstrong. "I'd leap up and hide under the bed and press the button to see what he's said. But he made a conscious decision to take his own ego out of that historical moment," he added. "It's actually a magnificent gesture of restraint, to allow us to all share in this moment that the whole human race has."
With Armstrong out, the crew began an extensive research period before interviewing the astronauts. Each interview, shot in tight close-ups of the men's faces, was preceded by 60 pages of notes for preparation and each took nearly two days to complete.
