This is a movie that helped teach me how to watch movies, in particular how to watch a long movie. It’s my earliest memory of tacking a film over Three Hours Long. The Godfathers didn’t count. They played so regularly in my house they were like an art installation, and I was free to dip in and out at will. The Right Stuff started on a similar path. We just got cable TV and this PG rated epic seemed to always be on. I knew it was about the space race, though I would often catch parts that seemed to have nothing to do with outer space. Siskel & Ebert both named it the best film of 1983, which is ultimately why I decided to show patience and watch the entire film.
My key to unlocking long movies is in the opening section, which stars Sam Shepard as Chuck Yeager. The section connects the mythology of the West with the coming of astronauts. Yeager ultimately breaks through the sound barrier, which kicks off the entire space program. He’s the true pioneer who fades into obscurity while a less ornery bunch of glory hounds become the main heroes of the story. His section is crucial because it underpins the more standard biopic events that follow and we watch some of our heroes rise up to embrace the quieter stoicism of Yeager. So, you could easily cut Yeager from the movie and make the running time shorter, but then you wouldn’t have such an extraordinary film.
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