directed By Joe Johnston, written by Lewis Colick based on the book by Homer Hickam, Jr.
I’m going to pick 13 movies. They may be an influence on my writing, on my filmmaking, or on my thinking. They may just be movies I like. There may be more than 13.
Every man loves October Sky. If you don’t love October Sky, you are probably a woman, in which case, you love October Sky because it’s impossible not to love October Sky. The only reasons I can conjure for not liking this movie are: 1. You’re a coal miner and don’t want to spend one more minute in a coal mine, celluloid or otherwise; 2. You are one of those insufferable types who rejects any classically-made movie in the English language not specifically about marginalized people—except for marginalized people who work in coal mines because they listen to country music, hate Thai food, and don’t have the same taste in movies as you. Your loss.
The movie is based on the book Rocket Boys, and the publicity materials claim they changed the title so female audiences wouldn’t stay away. (They also claim they deliberately chose an anagram of Rocket Boys, which I seriously doubt.) To be sure, this is a “Boy Scout” movie, in part because Joe Johnston directed it. This is the man who helmed The Rocketeer, Hidalgo, and Captain America: The First Avenger—all stories with upright heroes with pure hearts who dive headlong into adversity, win the prize, and get the girl. Funny—many women I know enjoy exactly that kind of story. There must be something satisfying about young men who embrace the trials of manhood head-on rather than surrendering to indolence and dissipation.
In October Sky, Homer and his friends have been dealt low cards, but something inspires them to try something new. It’s not so much that building rockets is their ticket out of Coalwood, it’s also fun and exciting! These are exuberant boys, not yet crushed under the weight of work and hopelessness, a despair so beautifully illustrated in the title sequence. When he hears the news of Sputnik, the old nameless miner with the radio is not inspired. His face exhibits only grim pessimism as the elevator lowers him into a hellish darkness.
The youthful energy of the Rocket Boys crashes headlong into adulthood as the story progresses, and it is here where the heroics kick in. Midway through the film, Homer’s father John is seriously injured, and Homer must leave school and work in the mines. In a quiet sequence buoyed by Mark Isham’s elegaic theme, Homer cleans out his locker and tries on his new miner’s helmet, the photo of his idol Werner von Braun conspicuously tucked into the corner of his mirror. While all the other miners keep their eyes down as the elevator descends, Homer looks skyward, his eyes fixed on the passing Sputnik overhead. When Homer enters the mine, his face unblackened from years of work, the music changes, and young Jake Gyllenhaal’s face subtly falls. As Aeneas descended into the underworld to see his father, so Homer has descended into his father’s world—and into a heroic manhood.
Why is this heroic? Because Homer is doing what needs to be done. In fact, everyone around Homer behaves heroically. John is hurt saving his men from a cave-in. In a resolute moment of heroism, Homer’s older brother Jim, reluctantly donning his mantle of “man of the house,” gives up his football scholarship to work in the mines. But Homer realizes the opportunity Jim is forfeiting and convinces him to go to college. In doing so, Homer extends grace to John and Jim, who antagonized him even as they loved him. And so we see in the small town of Coalwood, there are no villains. There are only people with different concepts of doing what needs to be done.
The screenplay for October Sky is a masterpiece of efficiency and connection. There seems not a wasted line in the entire movie. Scenes move effortlessly from one to the next. If there is a flaw, it’s the love interests, such as they are. Homer pines for the popular Dorothy, and ends up with a quiet, admiring girl whose name is never mentioned (it’s Valentine, according to IMDb). The scenes with Dorothy and Valentine are never plumbed for depth. No matter. The feminine influences on Homer are not girls, but women.
Homer’s mother Elsie gets a small but consequential amount of screen time, and actress Natalie Canerday makes the most of it. At first, it seems as if she will be a stereotypical 1950s housewife, cowed into submission by her strong husband. October Sky signals early on this will not be. Elsie and John Hickam are in love, complementary, and both strong-headed in their own ways. Elsie exhibits heroic resolve when she forces John to end a strike for Homer’s sake. She has been painting a mural of Myrtle Beach on her kitchen wall—like Homer, who looks up when everyone else looks down, Elsie clings to her vision of color and sunshine, refusing to let the gray surrounding crush her soul. Homer gets his practical fortitude from dad, but his dreaming spirit from mom.
The other key woman is Miss Freida Riley, the boys’ science teacher, also a dreamer and an inspiration. In the days before Wikipedia and the internet, she acts as the conduit of information, opening up worlds of wonder in her students’ limited environment. This is where the conceit of film, a visual medium, uses Laura Dern’s star power to its advantage. She plays Miss Riley on the knife edge between maternal nurturing and chaste sex appeal—just enough to inspire the burgeoning young men. When Principal Turner reprimands Miss Riley’s rocket boys, she gently touches his arm, craftily diverting his wrath with feminine charm.
But as in any Boy Scout troop, the boys follow the men. Just as the film refuses to consign Elsie to “wife” status, so October Sky refuses to paint the men as patriarchal monsters. Take Principal Turner, who seems to oppose the Rocket Boys’ adventures, especially when they’re accused of starting a wildfire. When presented with evidence of their innocence, he comes to their defense. John uses his fists to defends Rocket Boy Roy Lee from an abusive stepfather. John is always referred to as “strict but fair.” In reality, he is anything but fair. He favors football standout Jim over the bookish Homer. (Shades of Esau and Jacob?) But with the intervention of Elsie, he sees his error in time to correct it. When Homer says-but-doesn’t-say John is his hero, he means it. John is dour and stoic, but he has shown his son what it means to be a man. That includes owning up to your mistakes.
In a short list of Great American Movies that would include classics like It’s a Wonderful Life, Sullivan’s Travels, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, I would append October Sky. All of these films endeavor to show what it means to strive, to persevere, to be brought low, and to abound. And they are also about doubt, about questioning your station. Virtue means not discovering oneself but denying oneself in the service of others. I would rather be trapped in a collapsed mine with George Bailey or any resident of Coalwood than with Charles Foster Kane. I think anyone, man or woman, can at least agree on that.
