Le Mans
|
Our Price: $37.99 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $6.93 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Le Mans
Movie Review: Porsche 917 vs. Ferrari 512 - a great moment in auto history
Summary: 5 Stars
Not only is this one of the greatest car races, it just happens to be filmed durning the most important climax in Porcshe automotive history.
Porsche had been working on winning the World Championship and had been focusing on making the ulimate race car. The 908s just did not have what it takes against the big Ford GT40s, but when the rules changes to 5 liters - Porsche had been working on the 917 which would rule over the next couple of years.
Steve McQueen was at the right place at the right time. He was heavily into racing and was about to race in the Le Mans in a Porsche 908. He had just finished the 12hrs at Seabring, in second place - just barely losing to Mario Andretti in the Ferrari 512, which was meant to compete with the 917. Steve shocked the motor world with his placing in Seabring. He was not the typical actor to race driver - it was more the other way around.
That year (1970) the film company refused to let him race again, even though LeMans was his dream.
But most amazingly, Steve did what no other person had done before. The movie of LeMans has some actual footage of the 1970 LeMans race, as well as the real drivers.
Steve had a Porsche 908 entered in the race with a front and rear film cameras mounted onto the car. It was an officail race entry. What is even more amazing the 908 camera car finished 8th overall - it had completed the race, while having to make twice as many stops to reload film.
After filming 24hrs of car footage from the race - almost all in car. Steve had to rap a movie around it. He kept it a pure race movie. The whole movie is the race, except for 10 minutes in the begining. Other then the GT40 of Jackie Ickx beating the 908 of Hermann in 1969 by a matter of seconds, only does the movie Le Mans have an equally exciting finish.
I have seen several Le Mans Races on TV and video and I actually went last year to see the Audis take it again (2001), but except for the 1999 LeMans (Mercedes flipping) the movie Le Mans captures the excitment and a bit of important history.
This movie could also be called GULF 917 vs Ferrari 512!
If you are a Porsche fan, a sports car history buff, Le Mans fan, or just like car racing - this is it.
(If you are into auto racing - specially the pinicle years of 69 - 73 check out the movie "The Speed Merchants" it is hosted by Mario and Elford - it covers the 72 Sports Car Championship, and has LeMans, Targa Florio, Seabring and more - more of a documentary. Also check out these books: "French Kiss of Death", "917 the winning years", and "The Unfair Advantage".
Now go and watch Le Mans!
Movie Review: simply astounding - an existenial meditation on racing
Summary: 5 Stars
So many have already praised this movie and rightfully so. It is a remarkable film. Dedicated to the reality of racing, stripped of vehicles like standard plot lines, or contrived love affairs, this is a movie just about racing. It is a cinematographic masterpiece.
Rather than continue to gush praise for this film, I'll try to add a little background that may help other appreciate the lesser known aspects of the movie. This film attempts to capture reality in a pure unadulterated way. While a few sections and crashes were staged. The majority of the film was shot during the 1970 Le Mans 24hrs itself. The movie features the actual cars running the race itself.
The camera car used to film the 1970 Le Mans 24hrs was a Porsche 908 ( a beautiful race vehicle if ever there was one). It ran the race as an unofficial entry, and it was loaded with heavy cameras. Driven by Porsche's Herbert Linge and Jonathan Williams, it travelled 282 laps (3,798 km) and finished the race on 9th position. That's pretty great for a camera car! It would have done better, but it did not cover the required minimum distance due to long stops to change film reels. Your average race car at Le Mans tries to minimize pit stops. The camera car was burdened by cameras, controls, and mounts, AND it had to stop for lengthy changes of film. 9th place. A Porsche 908 running with Porsche 917s and Ferrari 512s. I give those drivers and that car some real credit. The footage shot by the camera car is remarkable. The sequences during the early dawn hours that capture a Ferrari 512 passing the camera car are chillingly beautiful.
The stand-in cars used for the crash sequences were real race cars, Lola T70's, modified to look like Porsche 917s and Ferrari 512s. The Lolas were used because they were less expensive to wreck than would have been the cost of sacrificing a real 917.
If you have an appreciation of racing and history's most beautiful race cars, this movie will not disappoint you. True to the famous quote from the film - racing is life, everything before and after is just waiting. This film is like that - there is the race, and then the scenes in between - which really are about waiting. They may seem slow to american audiences, but this is not really an american film. It is much more a european film, and it possesses a unique pace that is not for everyone, and is not even understood by everyone, but is valid and artistically correct for the existential meditation that this movie truly is.
Movie Review: The Man Delivered on His Promise
Summary: 5 Stars
To complain that LeMans is short on dialog is like criticizing a butterfly for not having a beak. It's taken more than 30 years, but Americans are finally beginning to appreciate what Europeans and ardent racing enthusiasts around the world have known since they first viewed LeMans: it's an excellent motor racing film. This emerging realization is due to several things, I think. One is that over the past three decades, even the densest moviegoers have had to recognize McQueen's disdain for dialog in ALL of his films. Unlike actors who lobby to have additional lines written for their characters, McQueen preferred to act through gestures, expressions and body language. He was all about presence, and Michael Delaney exudes all the presence of Frank Bullitt and Thomas Crown. Another reason for the growing respect for LeMans the movie is the comparative shallowness of the charade that passes for motor racing today. LeMans was shot on the cusp of the corporatization of the sport. It was well on its way from a gentleman's pursuit, that train had left the station in the mid-1960s, but the earnings of world-class drivers when LeMans was made were still comparable with CEO, rather than rock-star compensation. Importantly, it still took huge balls and a lot of ability to drive a car like the Porsche 917 the length of a 3.5 mile straightaway at 240 mph, at night, in the rain, like Vic Elford did in 1970. Mulsanne has long since been shortened, the number of co-drivers on a single LeMans team has grown from two to your average college fraternity, and drivers need to bring a lot less to the game in terms of guts and skill than they did in 1970. LeMans is not without its blemishes, and by all accounts it was a nightmare of a project, but McQueen delivered what he said he would - a film that did justice to race drivers and racing.Movie Review: One of the best
Summary: 5 Stars
"Le Mans" is, as so many reviewers before me have suggested, a true, tried, and tested classic. The story of a racecar driver, played by the great Steve McQueen, who returns to participate in a race in which he was involved in a major accident the year before, is a simple one. Not many words are spoken and few plotlines are brought into play. Yet the film has more expression and more passion than the best and biggest of dramas. We get to explore the character and soul of the racing driver, get to see and feel the tension and concentration of the race.
Although the acting is somewhat 'simple', for lack of better words, the visual side of the film is overwhelmingly well thought out. The direction and camerawork is, at least in my opinion, very convincing. The actual driving, the epicenter of the film, is extremely good. In fact it is so good and, perhaps more pertinently, dangerous, that I believe we shant see the likes of it ever again on film (unless, of course, it will be as computerized special effects).
"Le Mans" is, however, not first and foremost a visual, but a visceral experience. The sound of the film is nothing, if not fantastic. The roaring engines, the absence of music, the roaring engines. Oh, and the cars sound very nice too. The feeling that the film doesn't favour this or that aspect of the racing experience. No 'fake' tension is built up. We sit there as casual observers to a truly magnificent event, listening, watching, experiencing all that is Le Mans.
I guess if you're not a petrolhead or are unusually empathic and creative, you'd probably think the pacing of the film a bit slow. If you, however, like a bit of speed and or sports (or drink petrol for breakfast) this film was made for you.
Movie Review: Pour les Hommes Normale du Monde
Summary: 5 Stars
I almost want to accuse Steve McQueen of making a self-indulgent film as driving fast cars was his passion; however, using the word "self" doesn't make much sense given how popular the automobile is with the male half of the global population. Cars are to men what shoes are to women. If you are a man and you you aren't interested in fast cars you are probably either 1) not of the majority's sexual orientation or 2) from a part of the World where they don't have them (Moomba maboday jambaa car?).
"Le Mans" is, for most of the film, more like a documentary than fiction. You will feel like you are watching the actual race rather than a fictionalized story set around the race. REALISM is the word.
McQueen plays an American driver, Michael Delaney, on the Porsche team whose main rival in the twenty-four hour race is a German on the Ferrari team. Delaney is haunted by the memory of a crash that killed an Italian driver the year before.
There isn't much dialogue in the film. One notable quotation occurs after the widow of the Italian driver asks McQueen's character why driving is worth the risk: "A lot of people go through life doing things badly. Racing is important to men who do it well. When you're racing, it is life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting."
Don't expect wives or girlfriends to get into this one...