Intensity	Stupidity:Nudity Ratio 2:1	Budget Big

Steve McQueen loved racing. Ironically just as he was getting to the point that he could afford to race as an independent, the studios would not let him. They did not want one of their valuable stars risking his life. Still, he was able to get this film made and to drive really fast race cars in 1971. There is very little dialog in this movie. We spend an insane amount of time watching cars and their drivers. And the cars. Sigh. This was one of the best eras of car racing. The cars were becoming safer and the concept of safety belts was firmly established. Aerodynamics was starting to play a big part in car design, but "ground effects" was not being used. The garage was still a garage and it was a place where guys with dirty hands would work on cars. Obviously being 1971 there are no computers in sight and, in fact, the phone on the wall is an old crank set. So why was this one of the best eras. Because racers from this era on had a better chance of leaving racing alive. Don't get me wrong, it did not make racing safe as we like to think of the word. The San Marino Grand Prix at Imola in 1994 will always stand as a reminder of just how our concept of safe does not apply to some of the things that humans do. During the course of the weekend, Ruebens Barrichello would suffer some nasty injuries during practice. Roland Ratzenberger would lose his life during the last practice day and then there was a huge accident at the start. Shortly after the race was resumed, Aryton Senna would leave the course at 135 mph and crash into a wall dying instantly. I was watching a delayed broadcast of this event. Senna crashed and the station cut away for commercials. When the race was back on the air, the announcer said that Senna had been pounced dead at the local hospital. It took a while for me to be able to enjoy watching a race again and watching Le Mans brings back many of these conflicting emotions.

As the movie starts, we watch Steve McQueen drive a Porsche through Paris. He pauses briefly as the camera follows a woman buying flowers. Steve then drives off through the countryside to stare at a patched section of retaining wall. He has a flashback to a race where a driver is killed. He then gets back in his car and drives away. Soon we are at the course for the 24 Hours de Le Mans. We follow multiple drivers around as they get ready to start the race. The race starts and the cars roar off down the track. After a few hours a car crashes and the smoke distracts Steve for a minute and he totals his car in a very spectacular way. He eventually has a conversation in his trailer with the woman that we saw buying flowers earlier. The team director enters the trailer and tells Steve that he needs to take the place of another driver that is not fast enough. Steve goes out and finishes second.

Apparently the director was actually able to get a camera car into the 1971 event and got a lot of footage. I don't know if they were able to get the actual cars that were in the race, but they look identical. I suspect that even then Porsche and Ferrari were not too keen on letting each other get too close a look at what was under the hood. Still the big crash sequence for Steve's character was breath taking. This is another instance of a film maker doing something that I don't get for a couple of days. I prefer to think that this is because I am so wrapped up in the movie that I am not analyzing every little thing right away, rather than that I am just plain slow. At any rate, one of the Ferraris has just had a spectacular crash and is burning releasing a huge plume of smoke. We see a long shot of this, a close up shot of Steve's eyes lingering on the smoke and then a forward shot of one of the slower cars on the track and then another close up of Steve's eyes getting very big. In long shots we see his car swing inside to avoid the slower car, fishtail badly and then slam into the inside wall only to launch into the air and fly across to the outside wall and then crash heavily into the retaining wall just past a course entrance. You can see a wave run down the retaining wall from the force of the collision. Then we get another close up of Steve. His eyes are still big. Very big. The scene is played back in pieces in slow motion with Steve not budging an inch. Then there is frantic motion as he is pulled from the car and moved to safety. At first I thought this was a little bit of self indulgence by the director. Later I understood that it was just reality catching up with the driver. When you are driving down a course at about 170 mph and crash, it lasts about 8 seconds. You have time for maybe one or two attempts to save the car and then you are a passenger. The director is just showing the driver absorbing what the hell just happened.

Oddly enough I had watched "Heartworn Highways" the same week as Le Mans. Highways is a series of vignettes of some wonderful Texas songwriters just hanging around. The documentary has no narrative, no real theme, and no storyline. Le Mans has no storyline either and has a very documentary feel to it. We can infer a few things, but we have no idea what the connection is between Steve and the woman. We know that her husband died at last year's race, but beyond that, nada. There is a scene as the race draws to a close with Steve and the woman having a talk. Steve says that sometimes racers die. The woman asks (in a quiet, bitter voice) shouldn't people die for a something. Steve is then left with the unenviable job of trying to explain why people do risky things. If you have a little understanding as to why men and women will risk their lives in endeavors like racing, then the explanation mostly works. If you don't, this monologue won't enlighten you.

If you are not a racing fan, Le Mans could be a bit much to sit through, in which case I would say watch it as a lesson in film making and if you have no interest along those lines, skip it.

A few racing notes. Derek Bell and Jacky Ickx are listed as race car drivers in the credits and in fact Ickx has six victories at Le Mans, three with Bell. During the course of the movie the announcer makes a passing mention that the traditional Le Mans start is no longer used. This consisted of the drivers standing across the road from their cars which were parked on the side of the road at an angle. They would sprint to the cars, jump in, start the cars and take off. As I was watching the movie I was marginally disappointed about this, but obviously the drivers would not be able to put on their safety belts in that situation. Remember these belts were and remain a fairly complicated five-piece affair. In going over Ickx's career, I can across an interesting bit of information. Turns out that at his first appearance at Le Mans in 1969, he walked across the road, carefully put on his safety belts and entered the race last. His point was proven minutes later when an unbuckled driver was killed in a crash. Jo Seifert is also listed as a driver. He would lose his life in October of 71 when his damaged car crashed and caught on fire. He was unable to get out of the vehicle and died of smoke inhalation. The fire extinguishers that the course workers had were not operational. This tragedy instigated a number of newer safety standards for both cars and courses. Something of a hold over from the real old days of racing is the length of the course. At over 7 miles in length this is probably the longest circuit course left. Originally the Nurburgring in Germany was 17 miles long but has been pared down to just over three miles. If you have ever heard the NASCAR boys whine about trying to set up a car for four different lefthand corners, imagine what they say about a 17 mile road course with dozens of turns. To be fair to the NASCAR boys, the reasons that the courses have been shortened include just that problem; there are too many corners for the drivers to remember exactly right.

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