Lost In Space

Yesterday I ran across a DVD I'd never seen before, "For All Mankind" (1989) which is a documentary assembled by Al Reinert from NASA footage that's never been publicly released.  Some of it is training films, some is "engineering films" designed to document various aspects of various missions, and some of it was 16mm home movies made by the astronauts themselves on their missions.  All of this footage had been carefully stored in liquid nitrogen in a facility in Houston, and Reinert was the first guy to ask to see all of it (all 8 million feet).

He got permission from NASA to defrost the original film, and blow it up to 35mm, so it looks better than almost any film NASA ever released before (which was mostly copies of copies of copies).

Reinert made the decision to treat the Apollo missions as a single trip to the moon.  He took the best liftoff, the best booster separation, the best in-flight footage, the best insertion into lunar orbit and the best descent to the lunar surface.  He said the astronauts all worked for the same team, and to a man had no ego about who did what.  It was always mission first.

So he got the cooperation of 20 of the 24 astronauts that had been to the moon.

Interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, reminiscences, and stunning photo quality make this a compelling documentary.  And one thing I did not realize, when I bought it, is that this movie is the source of Brian Eno's album, "Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks."  He worked closely with Reinert to develop a soundtrack in 1987-8, when the documentary was being edited and still called "Apollo."  Later in 1989 Reinert recut it to make it more cinematic, changed the title, added some narration, and added some non-Eno music, which still keeping most of it in.  Fascinating to hear these peices in their original context.

So of course after "For All Mankind" I had to re-watch "Apollo 13" which is little Opie's masterpiece.  Apparently it's so accurate and true to life that even the  astronauts couldn't tell what was archive footage and what was recreated for the film.