What is Philip Kaufman's adaptation and directing technique of "The Right Stuff" based on historical facts?

“The Right Stuff” synopsis

October 1947. Legendary test pilot: Chuck Yeager becomes the first to break the sound barrier with the X-1 rocket. October 1957. Soviet Union successfully launches Sputnik. Confronted with the fact that he was far behind in the space program, President Eisenhower of the United States selected astronauts to help realize the Mercury program. Seven pilots with excellent qualities = "The Right Stuff" came together. What awaited them, who became heroes who flew out into the unprecedented space, was the danger that bordered on death and the conflict as human beings.

``The Right Stuff'' (1983) is a masterpiece depicting the history of American space exploration, based on Tom Wolfe's best-selling nonfiction book. Until this movie appeared, ``space'' had only been the setting for science fiction (or science educational films and documentaries). However, this film was the first to open up a new historical genre of ``space movies based on true stories,'' and served as an inspiration for subsequent works.

It is also a human drama that depicts a little-known test pilot who silently challenges the limits of aircraft speed and altitude while his friends aim to become astronauts one after another and are hailed as heroes.

What impresses me as a film is Philip Kaufman's perfectly crafted composition, with no wasted shots. Every time I watch it again and again, I find myself discovering things like, ``Oh, was this a foreshadowing of that scene?'' or ``Did this line have a meaning?''

“The Right Stuff” preview

Therefore, in this article, I have deliberately tried to compare the movie and historical fact, even though I am aware of this. This reveals how Kaufman dramatized the actual events.

Index

• The path from original release to film adaptation
• Participation of Philip Kaufman
• Script writing
• XS-1 exceeds the speed of sound
• Challenge to Mach 2
• astronaut scout
• first American space flight
• Grissom was unhappy
• Glenn's orbital flight
• houston ceremony
• Jaeger aiming for space with NF-104A
• ending
• Reaction after publication

The path from original release to film adaptation

Author and journalist Tom Wolfe wrote The Right Stuff, a nonfiction book based on six years of in-depth research.

The program consists of two main blocks: the first involves boarding an experimental aircraft, the Bell This is the story of aircraft test pilots, led by Captain Chuck Yeager of the Army Air Forces, who took on the challenge. At the time, there was a widely held hypothesis among aviation experts that an invisible barrier known as the 'sound wall' existed in the atmosphere, making it impossible for objects to exceed the speed of sound.

The other is the story of seven astronauts (*3) known as the "Mercury Seven" of NASA's (*2) first manned spaceflight project , Project Mercury.

When this book was published in 1979, NASA's human spaceflight program was in a long-term Intolerance. In other words, the United States had not sent anyone into space since the Apollo-Soyuz test program in July 1975.

On the other hand, the huge hits of Star Wars (1977) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) led to an unprecedented space science fiction boom, not only in movies but also in novels, illustrations, music, TV dramas, etc. It had occurred. Furthermore, it was around this time that the science documentary program ``Cosmos'', which cost 2 billion yen to produce, was produced with the supervision and appearance of astronomer Carl Sagan (produced in 1978-1979, broadcast in 1980). year).

``The Right Stuff, '' released under these circumstances, quickly became a bestseller and won the nonfiction category at the 31st National Book Award.

Immediately after the original work was released, the battle for film rights began. The rights were ultimately won by film producers Robert Chertoff and Irwin Winkler, known for their work on the Rocky series.

They immediately asked William Goldman (*4), who wrote `` Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid '' (69) and `` The All the President's Men '' (76), to write the script. From Wolf's original work, he removed Chuck Yeager's elements that are not directly related to space, and completed a scenario that focused only on Project Mercury.

Chertoff and Winkler pitched their project to United Artists in 1980. The company agreed to produce the film on a budget of $20 million, but it soon went bankrupt after making a huge loss on Heaven's Gate (1980), and was acquired by MGM.

Next, they approach the Rudd Company. The company is a start-up studio that was independently launched in 1979 by Alan Ladd Jr. , who was successful at 20th Century Fox by financially supporting Star Wars and Alien (1979). And he actively invested in ambitious projects such as `` Blade Runner '' (1982). Rudd Jr. promised to invest $17 million (finally $27 million) and gave the green light to production.

*1 When Chuck Yeager first broke the speed of sound on October 14, 1947, the aircraft's name was XS-1 (eXperimental Supersonic-1). In 1948, the name was changed to X-1. In addition to the X-1A, which will be described later, the X-1B, X-1C, X-1D, and X-1E were also developed for different test purposes.

*2 The Soviet Union launched mankind's first artificial satellite on October 4, 1957.Sputnik 1succeeded. to thisshockAmerica receivedNACA(National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics)As an organization that has strengthened and reorganized itsNASA(National Aeronautics and Space Administration)was launched on July 29, 1958.

*3 Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, Donald Slayton, Scott Carpenter, Walter Schiller, Gordon Cooper.

*4 Goldman took on the script because of what was happening in Iran at the time.American embassy hostage incidentIn part, he was looking for a patriotic theme out of anger. Goldman wrote a nationalistic story, emphasizing elements of opposition to Soviet space exploration.

Participation of Philip Kaufman