Sebastien Kraft

CAP Green Group

4/26/2015
4th Quarter Cinematic Analysis-Apollo 13

PART A
Released in 1995, the film Apollo 13 starring
Tom Hanks takes place in 1970, after the Apollo 11
and 12 missions have already landed on the Moon. The
film portrays the concept that only the most dramatic
occurrings that is, those that involve an incident or
catastrophe garner public attention. At the films
commencement, veteran astronaut Jim Lovell and his
crew are chosen to pilot Apollo 13. A newspaper
reporter then asks Lovell whether he considers his

Houston, we have
problem. Jim Lovell

mission routine as many Americans perceive it. Lovell responds that no journey
to space is ever routine, and that, upon exiting the safe haven of Earth, one must be
prepared to face countless dangers. In space, Lovell, Fred Haise, and John Swigert
transmit their first television broadcast; however, Lovells wife, Marilyn, is informed
that the transmission will never air publicly. Reporter Henry Hurt then notifies Mrs.
Lovell that the astronauts will be granted a mere segment on the news. The ensuing
explosion of the crews oxygen tanks puts the astronauts lives in jeopardy, and
causes reporters to flood the Lovell residence. As Hurt puts it, Things are different
now the press wants to know exactly what is going on. The films action reaches
its apex when the crew reenters Earths atmosphere; by the films conclusion, the
crew has returned home with enough power remaining and with its heat shield still
intact. The astronauts are welcomed home as heroes and are praised for their
bravery. That being said, what Apollo 13 seeks to convey is that we must not wait
until the dramatic takes place to recognize undertakings that are perilous to begin

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Sebastien Kraft
CAP Green Group
4/26/2015
4th Quarter Cinematic Analysis-Apollo 13

with.

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Sebastien Kraft
CAP Green Group
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PART B
The accuracy of Apollo 13 extends down to the smallest detail; for instance,
on the day before the missions launch, Marilyn Lovell (played by Kathleen Quinlan)
lost her wedding ring while taking a shower. I was taking a shower and it just
slipped off my hand and went into the drain, states Lovell in an April 2010
interview with Matt Lauer (Apollo 13: The Real Story. NBCNews.com, 13 Apr. 2010).
I was just terrified, because to me it was like an omen, adds Lovell; that very
omen would be included in the film. In the same interview, Jim Lovell tells Lauer
that, [In the New York Times] before we took off the only mention of Apollo 13
was on the weather page about 97 pages in. Indeed, quite overshadowed by the
news that the Beatles were breaking up, the moon launch failed to draw in the
majority of the press. In the film, even 16-year-old Barbara Lovell ( Mary Kate
Schellhardt) forgets the importance of her fathers impending launch, choosing

instead to immerse herself in regret at the Beatles separation! According to Jim

Lovell, news of the launch barely even scratched the surface of most networks;
One network had The Dick Cavett Show, another had Lucy, and most people in
Texas were busy watching the baseball game. The film, in turn, features several
scenes in which the Lovells are watching Jim and his crews broadcast on a NASA
screen, while live television is airing one of the aforementioned shows. All in all, the
relevance of Apollo 13 is clear, and its representation is effective; however, its bias
arises in its chronological re-creation of the mission. For times sake, the film omits
conversations that likely took place in mission control, during the long period of
time when no one really knew what had caused the incident. Whereas the true
cause was later discovered to be an explosion of the command modules oxygen
tanks, a BBC News television broadcast from April 14, 1970, states that the
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Sebastien Kraft
CAP Green Group
4/26/2015

explosion, could have been the result of a meteorite crashing into the service module
(Critical explosion cripples Apollo 13. BBC News. 14 Apr. 1970). Meanwhile, in the

film, Lovell (Tom Hanks) suggests only briefly that there could have been a
meteorite. In a 180-minute, movie, some elements have to go; that being said, to
render his cinematic representation increasingly life-like, Director Ron Howard
probably shouldve considered adding more of the uncertainty that the BBC article
so clearly conveys.
PART C:

Discuss how various cinematographic techniques are used to

increase the viewers awareness of the setting, characters or plot
development.
Its a view from the ground up - a view of the mammoth vehicle exiting the
confines of NASAs Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) - that sets the stage in Apollo
13. The aforementioned mammoth vehicle is the great Saturn V rocket, which
carried numerous astronauts from the Earth to the Moon. In Apollo 13, Director Ron
Howard shows Jim Lovell walking steadily with officials in front of NASAs crawler,
as it has come to be known, a platform that carries vehicles to the launch pad. The
viewer is then treated to a climbing perspective, as the camera pans up a sort of
dolly, in film terms revealing the enormous, gargantuan sight of the Saturn V.
This viewpoint is effective in conveying the notion that the Apollo astronauts, no
matter how properly trained, were but a bottle cap at the top of an agitated bottle
of soda. Indeed, the astronauts travelled at the top of the Saturn V in a capsule,
with according to Jim Lovell - 5.5 million pounds of high explosives piled below
them. The films cinematography is also effective in showing that no trip to space is
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Sebastien Kraft
CAP Green Group
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routine, for there is constant potential for something to go wrong. Whether it be

merely the loss of an engine - merely in quotes because no incident in space is
so insignificant that it amounts to nothing - or perhaps a more catastrophic
explosion similar to that of the Apollo 13 mission, something must always falter. The
film portrays that cause for defect quite accurately, and does so in multiple
fashions. Upon several occasions, the camera performs somewhat of a zolly or
dolly zoom by zooming in on the astronauts capsule and reducing the
background space to a narrower figure. In addition, the films cinematographers
perform the opposite action; for instance, when the command modules oxygen
tanks explode, the viewer observes the capsule veering off toward the Moon,
leaving a trail of oxygen in its path. These techniques show just how arbitrary life
and death can be when one is travelling through the dark vacuum of space, and
how infinitesimally small we are in the grand, star-filled complex called the
Universe.

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Sebastien Kraft
CAP Green Group
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Works Cited
"Critical explosion cripples Apollo 13." BBC News. BBC. London, 14 Apr. 1970. Print.
Transcript.
Lauer, Matt. Apollo 13: The Real Story. NBCNews. NBCNews.com, 13 Apr. 2010.
Web. 26 Apr. 2015. <http://www.nbcnews.com/id/36471007/ns/dateline_nbcnewsmakers>.
Wilford, John Noble. "Power Failure Imperils Astronauts; Apollo Will Head Back to the
Earth." New York Times [New York, NY] 14 Apr. 1970: n. pag. Print.

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