McQueen: The Man and Le Mans

[Nine17]

I've just finished watching the Blu-Ray disc of the new documentary, McQueen: The Man and Le Mans. When Mark Morrissey talks about that moment of "inspiration," I have to admit that McQueen's Le Mans made a formative impression on me as a youngster, one that still resonates nearly 45 years later. The first week of its release in the summer of 1971 I sat through it three times. I've been to the 24 hours of Le Mans; the pull is still strong enough that even today I own a proper factory-built racing Porsche.

This new documentary is just phenomenal. The production values are state of the art, and there is scene after scene of "lost" footage along with beautifully staged interviews with many of the surviving principals. We hear from David Piper and Derek Bell; Siegfried Rauch and Louise Edlund; Chad McQueen and Neile Adams; Hal Hamilton and the late Jonathan Williams; Michael Keyser and Alan Trustman; there's even a non-speaking cameo appearance by Rolly Resos.

There are also tape recordings of McQueen made in Mexico just a few days before he died. At the clinic where he finally succumbed to mesothelioma, he had a copy of Le Mans brought to show to the other patients. He tells the interviewer: "My big thing is daydreaming. You know like when you daydream, you go to sleep. In my life my daydreams came true. It's just that I've run out of gas..."

It's a beautiful film. See it.

-- David