LE MANS (1970) could be almost a near sequel to FORD vs FERRARI, if it didn’t come with such baggage. If GRAND PRIX (1966) is motorsport’s LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, LE MANS is either Steve McQueen’s FITZCARRALDO or road racing’s APOCALYPSE NOW (probably both).
An overblown epic with artistic pretensions and a breakdown from the director, it has like APOCALYPSE NOW, been supplemented by an excellent making of documentary, detailing once again the story of a directors obsessive push for realism. Unlike Coppola’s Vietnam war classic and GRAND PRIX (1966), the other great motor racing epic of that era, LE MANS has been considered a a doomed folly of movie, but does contain gems of cinema brilliance, along with incredible moments of motorsports history.
LE MANS Mans is such a singular movie it is best accessed on two levels, as a race experience, and as a movie.
LE MANS (1971) AS A RACING EXPERIENCE
After a nightmare production (see below) movie was eventually released in 1971, having been shot during the previous years 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans event.
Without doubt this is best watched as a visual record of the 1970 Le Mans 24 Hours, which was a historic even in itself. 1970 began an era of dominance for Porsche. The year before in 1969 Ford had stolen the race from Porsche with the last run of the GT40 in one of the closest races in history. Ford had dropped out and the top end Group 5 battle was between various Porsche and Ferrari teams, with Porsche on a real mission to win their first Le Mans.
Heavy rain reduced the Ferrari power advantage and made for non ideal shooting conditions for the movie. The real stars of the movie are the Porsche 907 Ks and Ls. The short tailed Gulf Porsche’s are K’s. The long tailed white Porsche which initially leads the race is an L from the Austrian works team.
They faced the Ferrari 512S, which had a 5.0L V12 developing 550 bhp.
Ferrari 512S, and also came with a a long tail variant.
The only other Group 5 hardware in the mix Anglo American Lola non which seemed barely competitive in this short lived high power era.(Though MQueen’s character does tell his team mate too look out for the red Lola at the start). This is a snapshot of an era that did not last long – Group 5 cars in 70 were so monstrously powerful they were banned as the movie was released.
The 907 Porsche’s featured are now an iconic machines. Viewers might like some background on the Gulf Porsche team – you won’t get it in this movie. from wiki
“After an inauspicious debut in 1969, extensive work was done by Porsche to fix the stability and reliability of the 917. After being beaten by a supposedly obsolete car..”
(the Ford GT40 as seen FORD vs FERRARI)
“.. Porsche contracted John Wyer and his Gulf-J.W. Automotive Team to become the official works-supported team and development partner. During tests in Zeltweg, Wyer’s engineer John Horsmann had the idea to increase downforce at the expense of drag, and so a new short tail was moulded with aluminium sheets taped together. This worked well as the new tail gave the 917 better stability. The new version was called the 917K (kurzheck or ‘short-tail’). A new aerodynamic version was developed for Le Mans with support from the external consultant Robert Choulet. The 917 L (langheck) featured a spectacular new “long tail” body with a wing, which had very low drag. They were dubbed “batmobiles” by the media. Two engines were available: the 4.5-litre flat-12 now capable of 550 bhp, and a new 4.9-litre version (590 bhp). Most drivers preferred driving the K even though it gave away as much as 25 km/h (15 mph) in top speed. The langheck was less stable and needed far more concentration to keep on the track.”
This ‘short tailed’ solution will be familiar to watchers of SHELBY AMERICAN, as his team came to similar conclusions at the same time. The 1970 24 Hours Race was actually won by Porsche 917K of Herrmann/Attwood, a Swiss works team, not by Gulf Porsche.
In the first of many compromises he was forced to make, McQueen had to give up his dream of actually competing in the race to make the film. The plan was to race with Jackie Stewart as co driver. Insurance issues prevented the worlds greatest movie start participating in one of the worlds most dangerous events, something that might have been foreseen if clearer heads had been in charge. (Ironically Jackie Stewart was also a notable absentee from GRAND PRIX)
Rumours persist McQueen drove the camera car for some stints. The camera car actually finished the race with an impressive position, not bad for a machine carrying access weight and based on an “a supposedly obsolete car”. (It was the only GT40 based machine in the race!).
The way the weather and the dirt affects the cars and the circuit is fascinating and beautiful. It is strangely fitting that the weather in 1970 is crap, it washes off the glamour and adds to the grit. In places this is more like a French Woodstock documentary. We almost expect to feel the heat and smell the smells.
Flimsy fireproof suits and skinny helmets don’t look effective against mild flu germs let alone a 200mph crash on the Mulsanne straight in a 600hp car filled with 30 gallons of petrol. As described in the documentary, these soon to be banned Group 5 machines were ‘sharp knives’. The driver death wish of the time is of course the focus of GRAND PRIX, and LE MANS wisely chooses to mainly avoid that.
Compared with GRAND PRIX (1966)
The 1960s Hollywood race for “ultimate racing picture”, aka “DAY OF THE CHAMPION”, became eventually became Frankenheimers GRAND PRIX vs McQueen’s LE MANS. Somehow this schism echoes in Hollywood to this day, evidenced by the complete absence of any mention to F1 in Le Mans centered FORD vs FERRARI and SHELBY AMERICAN.
GRAND PRIX is period motor racing experience for the brain (and the nerves). LE MANS intends to be a far more emotional experience, the showing the gut sensations of being at the French event as a spectator and a driver. It tries to keep the detail sparse and it doesn’t make it easy for the casual viewer – for example, the the main rivalry confusingly is between an American driving a German car and a German driving an Italian car.
LE MANS is if anything too respectful, almost reverential. GRAND PRIX is sometimes contemptuous of the cult of death in the sport and the spectators. There is a common theme in both of drivers trying to deal with the widow of another driver. Both are more interested in driver deathwish psychodrama than the machinery, perhaps an inevitable consequence of the danger of the era
Again like GRAND PRIX the camera car footage is exceptional.
“I’ve never met a racing driver who could tell you WHY he races, but I could probably show you”
LE MANS (1971) AS A MOVIE
This isn’t just a sincere attempt to get endurance motor racing onscreen with all its grit and glory, it also serves as the mausoleum for one of the 20th century’s greatest movie stars, a man who became so obsessed with his subject he drove his career and life into a wall in an attempt to catch it on film.
As detailed in the excellent STEVE MCQUEEN THE MAN AND LE MANS, the cult movie star of the 1960s lets his racing hobby possess him, and he allows himself to be dragged into a Hollywood production race to film the ultimate racing movie. He ultimately loses this movie release race to John Frankenheimer’s GRAND PRIX, though he does manage to get a whole sequence of that movie cut due to an exclusive deal signed with the Nurburgring. With F1 taken away from him McQueen moved his attention to the 24 Hours race at Le Mans, perhaps inspired by the events of Le Mans 1966 featured recently in FORD vs FERRARI. We can see Hollywood directly responding here to two great American achievements in world motor racing, GRAND PRIX after Phill Hill wins the F1 world Championship, and LE MANS after Ford wins the 24 hours.
The problem obviously was that 24 hour endurance racing between large teams and multiple classes of car is even more difficult to capture in a 2 hour narrative than an F1 race. McQueen in his obsession to out-do GRAND PRIX in authenticity might have seen that as an asset, but when your project loses the greatest action director of the era, alarm bells should be ringing. John Sturges, director of MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, GREAT ESCAPE, ICE STATION ZEBRA, EAGLE HAS LANDED among many many others, walked off the set because of McQueen’s obsessive behaviour. They clash reportedly over the amount of romantic content in the film, possibly because his own marriage is breaking up, McQueen pushes the romance element (essential to a big budget movie of the era) to the background and loses probably it’s greatest asset.
The making of this movie is so doomed at one point it crosses over with the tragic events referenced in ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD. By pure coincidence the name Sebring shows up constantly in this era, as a venue for a US endurance racing and the surname of one of the victims of the Tate murders. A jaded depressed McQueen is even briefly seen Tarrantino’s movie in a cameo played by Damian Lewis.
Performances have real issues, and this is where lack of a decent director shows. Even GRAND PRIX struggles in some respects with this, as if near proximity to something as real as fatal motor racing accidents drains all the confidence from an actor. Even without that having a star as big as McQueen so intimately involved in the project must have completely undermined the eventual stand-in director Lee Katzin. Considering Katzin’s later work includes some truly awful Dirty Dozen sequels we perhaps should be thankful the acting parts of LE MANS aren’t a lot worse.
Hideous commentary narration from the circuit announcer is eerily reminiscent of the infamous Harrison Ford voice over in the first movie release of BLADE RUNNER. If anything it’s worse; intrusive, monotonous and probably not needed anyway. It certainly undermines the stark purity of the experience. How immersive would it be without that commentary continually stating the obvious about the events onscreen? 1971 was long before the concept of the Directors Cut, but if McQueen were alive to change anything in a re-release you feel leaving the events bare, without the commentary, would only have added to the experience he was trying to present.
LE MANS is certainly comparable to Coppola’s APOCALYPSE NOW in one respect. Coppola’s anti war classic was made in the Philippines under conditions which ironically came to mirror the actual war it was depicting. (As shown in that movie’s essential ‘making of documentary). Though LE MANS appears to be concerned about drivers safety, the fact that two drivers, Derek Bell and David Piper were pushed into near fatal accidents in during it’s production suggests, like Coppola’s film, a dangerous obsession which has completely lost sight of the original intention of the project.
The movie has some plusses aside from the racing footage.
LE MANS is definitely of a place and an era. It’s not GRAND PRIX directed by Jean Luc Goddard but it is as French as any American movie you will ever see, and like Frankenhiemer’s movie it shows its era with pride. At various points it even seem to lapse into boho Easy Rider psychedelia aided by the colours and sights of the event itself. This dated really quickly. Now, like GRAND PRIX, suitably aged, seen on a big screen and in hi def, the movie is a dazzling time machine to the spectacle of 50 years ago.
Michel Legrand’s wonderfully atmospheric soundtrack for LE MANS only became available with the release of the documentary last year. This is a pointer to how badly the film was received by standard movie fans, and another indicator to how essential the documentary is (currently available on BBC iPlayer apparently).
The final moment to enjoy is is McQueens gesture of nonchalant defiance at the climax. This is race between a American and German, driving for German and Italian teams at the French Mecca of motor racing. Despite British drivers featured throughout the movie, as drivers and members of John Wyer’s Gulf Porsche team, there are no Brits in the movie.
British acknowledgment is left to the very end of the movie, and the McQueen goes about it in a typically McQueen way, by flipping off his rival not with the finger but with the two fingered salute he’d seen so often used by the racing types he idolised in the pits. After seeing FORD vs FERRARI with it’s similar downbeat conclusion, signing off Le MANS with the cheeky British ‘Fuck You’ makes perfect sense as a sly wink to the likes of Derek Bell, David Piper, and Ken Miles.
It is also, obviously, a calculated piece of defiance to every suit who tried to apply the brakes to this historic piece of sports cinema.
