Le Mans (1971) - movie review

Some time ago, I wrote a blog post about Le Mans, the 1971 movie set around the famous 24-hour race in France, starring Steve McQueen.  Recently I dug out the DVD again to renew acquaintance with the film, and thought that I would share some of my observations.

It is probably fair to say that opinion on this movie has been mixed down the years. Many have pointed to the excellent racing scenes, but poured scorn on the plot and other aspects of the story. Personally I really like Le Mans, but it almost feels more like a documentary in places, and I can readily appreciate how many "laypeople" will find it pedestrian, dull even. Many things are underplayed, which is admirable from an artistic and authenticity standpoint, but people have perhaps become conditioned to expect a racing movie to be over-the-top and hysterical in tone.

The visuals are lovely, the sound impressive and Michel Legrand's music classy and atmospheric. These all help the film to capture the essence of the event and the times. The plot is hardly imaginative, but I feel that it is handled with restraint, by the standards of racing movies anyway. There is less melodrama, or pandering to the base instincts of the audience. Many of the sub-texts are implied rather than outlined explicitly, especially the emotional and "romantic" elements.

The realism of the racing sequences is difficult to dispute, as the footage was shot with real racing cars and drivers, much of it at the time of the 1970 Le Mans race. However, this does make some of the pitlane scenes seem a little "artificial" by comparison, if not excessively so. Another noticeable trait of the picture is the sparsity of the dialogue.  The narrative and the exposition are driven largely by the visuals and the words of the circuit commentators.

A thing which stands out for me in the film is ambiguity in the characters and their attitudes. The awkwardness of Michael Delaney, for example (well suited to McQueen's "underacting" here), an inscrutability which reminds me slightly of Pete Aron in John Frankenheimer's Grand Prix.  Not really cast in the comic-book image of racing drivers, who are not "meant" to be taciturn or reticent.

Of course the story and the characters are fictional, but I don't really blame the film-makers for distilling it down to "Porsche v Ferrari".  The "heartbeat" sequence before the start of the race strikes us now as hackneyed and even corny, but I guess that it may have been innovative and affecting in the early Seventies. The two main crash sequences are well done, evoking the violence and the energy involved.  The slow-motion reply of Delaney's accident has I think become quite iconic in its way.

Apart from McQueen, the cars are the stars, and few of the supporting actors make much of an impression. Ronald Leigh-Hunt is likeable though as the Gulf-Porsche team manager;authoritative but occasionally avuncular. Elga Andersen also has great screen presence as the racer's widow - those eyes!

In its tone and general aesthetic, Le Mans feels more like European art cinema than Hollywood.  We have the obligatory thrilling climax, but even here things are somewhat inconclusive, in keeping with the generally reflective and sober tenor of the movie.

I still think that, for all its faults, Le Mans is a fine document. Technically very good, and the fact that a mainstream audience would assert that as a movie it "happens" only fitfully frankly elevates it in my estimation.