Meeting Gorbachev/ Apollo 11

During my Delta flight to Atlanta I caught up on two notable documentaries of summer 2019, one notable for its narrator, the other for not having one. I am a longtime fan of Werner Herzog’s films and inquiring mind, but not so much that I appreciated his equal billing with the former Soviet leader. Not only did we have to see and watch Herzog’s ponderous interviewing, but when the movie moved beyond “Mikhail Sergeyevich’s” answers we were led by Herzog’s voice-over. Gorbachev played a hugely important and little understood role in world history, and it felt a little uncomfortable to see him treated as a curiosity in a senior-citizen home.

Apollo 11, which boasted unseen footage of the historic 1969 moon mission, was wildly dramatic, even though the story was well known and the outcome was never in doubt. This illusion was aided by the absence of any knowing voice from the present. All the dialogue was taken from contemporaneous TV interviews, tapes of mission participants and the resonant broadcasts of Walter Cronkite, giving a “You Are There” feel to the proceedings. Finally, one couldn’t help but marvel at the still-amazing feat of sending men to the moon, with a small side question of “Who was Neil Armstrong?”

 

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