Curious Case Study of First Man

Upon my recent viewing of First Man, I wasn’t really searching for Neil Armstrong though that was what the movie was supposed to be about. I was instead searching for Damien Chazelle. To my intrigue I couldn’t find any of the two. Next step in the course of action was to find out who was the Screenplay writer. And getting the answer to that question resolved the auteur queries I had, for the most part at least.

Chazelle, before First Man was going two movies strong. Whiplash still my favorite of his. La La Land was interesting in equal measure. But First Man gives us a lot of insight into what happens when the auteur is just a director. Maybe that was the intention for Damien, that he wanted to challenge himself by directing someone else’s script. To me it was a challenge worth taking and direction wise, I still feel The First Man was a nice outing for Chazelle. But indeed, the screenplay was not his. And of course, auteurs fail as well even when their screenplay is entirely their own. In case of First Man, there were two challenges even before the shoot began. Chazelle had never directed someone else’s screenplay on such a scale. And Josh Singer who wrote the screenplay is known for his event based writing. First Man ideally given Singer’s expertise should have been about the first moon landing. Chazelle, on the other hand, given his expertise, was interested in detailing the conflict of Neil Armstrong. On repeated viewing, this disconnect is evident more so. The movie tried to make me root for Neil, but then there was too much of interest for Moon landing to be explained as well. So, sometimes I was rooting for Neil the person, sometimes I was rooting for the NASA Mission to be successful. I never was rooting for Neil the astronaut. Maybe that was the point all along, that Neil Armstrong can not be separated from the event of landing on Moon. Still, if that was the case then it should have been a story through and thorough about Neil, the astronaut.

Josh Singer wrote The Fifth Estate, Spotlight, and the Post. Chazelle wrote and directed Whiplash and La La Land. The contrast can be seen vividly here. Being an auteur is as megalomaniac as it gets. Being a write too is as megalomaniac as it gets. What happens when these two worlds collide?

We lose on great Art. I’m not sure about it, but really do feel that had Chazelle wrote The First Man as well, the movie would have been entirely different. Why he chose not to, is a question I shall definitely ask once I meet him. An interesting question to ask here would be what’s the Difference between a Biopic and a movie based on a Historical Event. Singer is skilled in narrating Historical events. First Man was supposed to be a biopic. What it feels is neither of the two.

In the past, if history is to be taken as a witness, a lot of auteurs have dabbled into collaborations with screenwriters, and I am sure a lot of them actually made good movies off someone else’s screenplay. Truffaut and Godard wrote Breathless. Tarkovsky co-wrote all his screenplays. I wish somewhere Chazelle should have chosen to co-write the screenplay with Josh Singer. Because a story like Neil’s was the one that not only needed to be told but one that was made to realize us about the immense sacrifice that a man must endure to change the course of history.

If the same choice was to be honored upon me to tell a really great story off someone else’s screenplay, I probably would turn it down. I am and will always be a writer first and director later. I am also certain that I will fail many times in visualizing a story that I wrote. But it is a failure that has its own charm. Failures contribute to good Art as well. And what surprises me is that The First Man is not a failure at all.

It isn’t great Art. It isn’t poor Art. It’s just something in the middle. And that disturbs me. I am not entirely sure what Chazelle’s next move will be, yet I am so sure that he will indeed write his screenplay himself in his next outing. It’s just inevitable for him to not write. He wrote Grand Piano, a movie missed by a lot of people. I absolutely loved the writing of the movie. Chazelle is a talented writer and equally talented director too.

It’s not that difficult to actually see through the hardship of being an auteur and the conflict that comes with it as well. The end should justify the means, right? If we get good Art whether made by an auteur or not, it stands the test of time. I adore movies by john Renoir. He never wrote any of his screenplays. A lot of directors of the past era never wrote their screenplays yet their movies have stood the test of time. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter as well. The process of filmmaking is so elaborate, that everyone involved ought to be driven by a higher purpose to see it through and there is no way any Art worthwhile can be made otherwise. Chazelle must have believed in the script. And given Singer’s stature as a writer he must have believed in Chazelle as well. There is no other way that this movie would have seen the light of the day if that was not the case.

I have to dig a bit deeper to understand myself. Allowing yourself to direct a story written by someone else is a dilemma that I am not sure how to resolve. Would I be able to do some justice to the story written and felt by someone else? The one who writes the story is the one who feels it first. And the language of emotions and feelings are such that they are easy to lose in translation when passed around from a writer to a director. A lot of complaints have been heard of writers being too touchy about how their work was represented on screen. My question is why should they not be touchy about it? Ideally every person trying to do their job to the best of their abilities should be touchy about it. How can they sleep otherwise? Too radical of a thought perhaps, and too idealistic as well given how studio system has always dominated the filmmaking area. Indie movie scene perhaps maybe the only place where everyone is touchy about their work. And sometimes on indie scene too a lot of people are there to feed themselves. Director must take the onus then onto himself to make everyone feel touchy about their work. Maybe there are other ways to get it done, and I am yet to find them. Or maybe I do not want to.