by Moe Zilla

Created on: February 18, 2008   Last Updated: February 19, 2008

Just one year before the first man walked on the moon, Robert Altman released "Countdown," a disturbing look at the pressures an astronaut faces - both on earth, and in space. The 1968 film boasts a tense script and a great cast, including James Caan and Robert Duvall.

James Caan plays the hero, while Duvall plays his intense rival, an astronaut who desperately wanted the chance to be the first man to walk on the moon. Government bureaucracies threaten the entire mission, and there's also a strange isolation from the uncomprehending friends that visit the astronaut and his wife at a pre-flight cocktail party. In space, technical problems require the astronaut to cut off his contact with the world below. All the clustering pressures loom in the background before a crucial decision which leads to the film's climax.

There's a very real chance that after enduring all these troubles, the astronaut will have to abort the mission and return to earth. The moon is in sight - but he needs to identify the one landing site which was previously stocked with supplies. In a moment of tense
uncertainty, the astronaut refuses to return to earth, committing to the moon landing even without knowing where to find the safety shelter. When he ultimately reaches the moon, he's in a very dangerous situation. He's unable to contact earth, and he's left wandering the lunar surface in hopes of stumbling across the shelter. And he has just two hours of oxygen left.

Altman always enjoyed deconstructing traditional heroes in his movies, whether they were in the military, politics, or the old west. Here he's disassembling the new hero of the late 1960s - the cool astronaut who would carry the nation's hopes into space. The astronaut played by James Caan is finally just a man, plagued by the people around him and his own emotions. Altman always confronts his characters with intense situations and the very real threat of death. In the last shot of "Countdown," he surprises the audience by delivering the astronaut into one final moment of determined ambiguity.

The astronaut has reached the safety shelter - but he's also out of air. Will he make it to safety, or die alone on the harsh lunar surface? Altman leaves the audience wondering...

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