On DVD: Shooting for the moon

Why didn't someone think of this before? Talk to the Apollo astronauts about what it was like to go to the moon. Intersperse news and NASA footage of rocket launches, space flight and such.

That's what "In the Shadow of the Moon" (ThinkFilm, $20) consists of. It's so simple, so obvious -- and a revelation.

The astronauts themselves are the biggest revelation. Shot in closeup, their seamed, trim faces resemble moonscapes --moonscapes with white hair. There can't be many instances where talking heads have been used to such expressive effect.

Director David Sington has an understated, unhurried style that lets the power of the closeups sink in and the personalities of the individuals emerge.

The crew-cut, can-do manner of the astronauts made them heroes at the time -- and makes them seem like anachronisms now. Even then, their manner made them seem like ciphers.

Of course, in a precelebrity era, that was not only accepted, but preferred. Neil Armstrong, with his surpassing reticence, is the most famous astronaut, but, in that respect, is perhaps the most representative.

Norman Mailer, in "Of a Fire on the Moon," presented the Apollo astronauts as noble robots, valiant but boring. In "The Right Stuff," Tom Wolfe portrayed their Mercury brethren as colorful fighter jocks.

What Sington gives us is something far richer. These men are funny and articulate, wise and unpretentious. That unpretentiousness makes all the more moving the sense of wonder they convey as they describe their barely imaginable lunar experience.

This is the real right stuff.

Extras include an hour of bonus footage, a featurette on the score and filmmakers' commentary.