Live from the Moon: Film, Television and the Space Race

(Paperback)

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Description

"We choose to go to the Moon, not because it is easy but because it is hard." President John F. Kennedy's words spoke of an American enterprise that rivalled, and echoed, that of the discovery and settling of his own country a century before. At the height of the Cold War between America and Russia, hundreds of spacecraft, both manned and robotic, travelled into outer space - the New Frontier. They sent back awe-inspiring images and sounds from Earth orbit, the Moon, and the planets of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Venus; they also overturned our preconceptions about our own planet. "Live from the Moon" is the exploratory story of this remarkable cultural and political phenomenon. Expert and enthusiast Mike Allen examines these images sent back from space, their use as propaganda, their value as drama and entertainment, and their spiritual role in shaping humanity's changing view of itself across the second half of the twentieth century.
He looks at the complex relationship between space exploration, film and television during these decades to show the synergy between them in pushing forward the frontiers not only of our knowledge of the Universe, but of our need to visualise the furthest reaches of our imaginations in order to fully know what it is to be human.

Reviews

'A fascinating, comprehensive and lively account of how we got those history-changing pictures. Allen takes us behind closed doors to reveal what even those of us involved at the time never knew. A must read.' - James Burke

Author Bio

Michael Allen is Senior Lecturer in Film & Electronic Media at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the author of 'Family Secrets' (1999), a study of D.W. Griffith's feature films, and of 'Contemporary US Cinema' (2002). He is also editor of 'Reading "CSI"' (I.B.Tauris, 2007). He has been a space enthusiast since he was ten years old.