A
film review by Martin Liebman for blu-ray.com on May 13, 2011.
Auto
racing isn't exactly a stranger to motion pictures, nor is general automobile
mayhem; cars are fast, flashy, and require incredible amounts of skill to
precisely control at high speeds and through dangerous pathways and around
various obstacles, making them the perfect tool to showcase high-speed action
and establish the skills of heroes and villains alike as forces to be reckoned
with within the confines of the story. Real-life auto racing might not have the
Hollywood sheen about it, but the inches-from-death reality that hangs over it
certainly makes it as dangerous, dramatic, and heart-pumping as even the best
of the cinematically-staged events. Le
Mans uniquely combines a Hollywood flair with a real-life race; it tones
down the plot and emphasizes the very real emotions and dangers of the race,
giving audiences the best of both worlds and resulting in a movie that's as
breathlessly exhilarating as it is dangerously real. Foregoing all but the most
necessary dialogue, toning down the out-of-the-car drama to a bare minimum, and
showcasing only the realities of the 24-hour race condensed into a tidy and
ever-excited runtime, Director Lee H.
Katzin's picture is a definitive racing movie that zooms on past others of
its kind because of its no-nonsense approach.
Racer
Michael Delaney (Steve McQueen, The Towering Inferno) is a veteran
driver who's participated in the famed 24-hour Le Mans race, and he has the
emotional scars to show for it. A violent accident in which he was involved a
year ago left another driver dead, and with this year's edition of the race
right around the corner and his unavoidable interaction with the deceased
driver's wife Lisa (Elga Andersen),
he's forced to struggle with his despair but prepare for another turn at the
wheel. Le Mans isn't just another ordinary race. It begins on a Saturday
afternoon and concludes 24 hours later. There are 110 drivers assigned to 55
cars, and refueling pit stops usually change drivers and sometimes tires. No
driver can drive more than 14 hours total, or more than 4 hours at one time.
It's also not a race confined to an oval track that requires the drivers only
to make left-hand turns. Rather, it’s a winding road course that is open to
regular traffic 363 days of the year and is difficult to navigate at speeds that
average nearly 150 mph and peak at 230 mph on the Mulsanne Straight. Each lap
take 3-4 minutes and requires the drivers' utmost concentration to navigate
through any weather condition, day and night. There are six classes of cars on
the circuit and the faster cars must maneuver around the slower ones. Delaney is
driving for Porsche and racing against rival racer Erich Stahler (Siegfried Rauch) who is driving for
Ferrari. With so much on the line and so many physical and emotional battles to
wage, can Delaney navigate his way safely through the world's most enduring
race and come out on top?
Le Mans ranks as one of the
finest auto racing movies ever crafted because of its strict adherence to
immersing the audience in the world of the race. There's only a minimal plot
which pretty much begins and ends with the emotions of the race. There's no
phony drama or disingenuous love story angle; this is a real racing movie in
every sense, the film absolutely focused on the race and its peripherals and nothing
else. The film is busy, always moving, and not always absolutely clear; it's
almost partly a first-person perspective type of experience as the viewer often
feels like a spectator, sometimes with special access but merely a spectator
nonetheless, privy to the general overview but not aware of every critical
behind-the-scenes development. It places the viewer very much in the moment, so to speak, providing a
no-nonsense look at the world of racing that remains focused on the task and
never becomes skewed, confused, or watered down. In fact, Le Mans is almost completely free of dialogue; the film takes more
than half an hour to offer anything but hard-to-hear loudspeaker announcements,
and only afterwards comes sparse, intermittent dialogue that's mostly
background chatter down in the pits with only a few true behind-the-scenes,
apart-from-the-raceway exchanges between characters. Le Mans lets the emotions, thrills, and ever-present dangers of
the race do its talking. It's a little disconcerting at first to be sure, but
it quickly becomes clear that this style is, for this movie, a strength rather
than either a weakness or a curiosity. Three cheers for focus and three more
for something different.
Le Mans is more than even
that. The film's heartbeat comes from the raw emotions of the race and the
people involved and the very real life-and-death dangers that come with the
high-speed action. That fear hangs over the entire movie; it's conveyed in the
characters' eyes and actions, established with the emotions of the past year's
deadly accident, and punctuated time and again by race cars severely damaged at
high speeds through sharp turns and failing to avoid already-damaged or
broken-down vehicles. It's as if the drivers, spectators, and viewing audience
altogether await the cry of the alarm klaxon that alerts to the tragedy of an
accident. The dark chill that hangs over the movie is palpable from the very
first moments, and is only escalated once the race is underway. This is all a
byproduct of the strong direction and quality acting that make Le Mans a complete experience. Despite
the absence of steady dialogue and, indeed, an intricate storyline -- it seems
more like a framework than anything else -- the acting is superb. Both Steve McQueen
and Elga Andersen act with their eyes and postures, conveying more in a glance
and the way they carry themselves than could be communicated through pages of
dialogue. Direction by Lee H. Katzin and cinematography by René Guissart Jr. and Robert
B. Hauser is superb, not only capturing the speed and dangers of the race
but doing so from several unique perspectives that give the viewing audience
both a long look at the action from nearby the track as well as from the
perspective of the drivers as they maneuver the course and avoid dangers both
on the track and from within their own psyches alike, resulting in some of the
most spectacularly intense racing scenes ever captured on film for a motion
picture. [Liebman’s rating: ****½ out of 5 stars]
Blogger’s
comment: I’ve labeled it a documentary, because that’s really what this is. The
lack of any real human interaction makes the film much less interesting for me,
and I much prefer Grand Prix (1966).
Labels:
action, adventure, auto-racing, documentary, drama, sport
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