Notes on Apollo 11

The visually stunning Apollo 11 was the catch-up film of the week much earlier today on Sunday Breakfast with Patrick Doyle.

Director Todd Douglas Miller, who doubles as his own editor, revisits the Apollo 11 moon landing 50 years on with the help of restored archival footage from NASA and the results are visually stunning, utterly immersive, and imbued with a great generosity of spirit. This is a documentary of a rare sort: no talking heads, little editorialising beyond notes of speed distance acceleration and people where relevant – what are you watching is simply footage of the time overlaid with sound of the time. Walter Cronkite’s TV narration laid over helicopter footage of the crowds gathering at Cape Canaveral, the hum of Mission Control as the camera tracks along the interiors crowded with NASA personnel. And this 4K restored footage looks incredible, some of it from neglected 70mm footage shot at the time. There is a 1969 quality to the footage, undoubtedly, but it is so crisp you’d swear it was shot yesterday. The ravages of time have not affected this film footage; unscreened, undamaged, almost a capsule of 50 years ago waiting for rediscovery.

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