MOTORSPORT: A clearer picture of McQueen’s Le Mans
Long after the original, and the death of its star, comes a sequel that largely explains what Steve McQueen's Le Mans movie was all aboutEvery picture tells a story, supposedly.
Steve McQueen tried to entice masses of people to what were then often called 'the pictures' in the early 1970s to see a movie, Le Mans, that didn’t have much of a story to it.
It had great footage and sound of some glorious sports cars, especially Porsche 917s and Ferrari 512s, racing at France’s world-famous 13.5km Le Mans circuit in the 1970 24-hour classic.
It had beautiful women, handsome, racy men – some of them real race drivers (McQueen was an accomplished racer, although he didn’t actually race in that 24-hour) – but no real storyline.
Starting without a script probably explains why.
McQueen, who played the driver Michael Delaney, didn’t even win the ‘race’ in the movie. Instead, he gave Porsche a one-two finish that nudged Ferrari to third.
The film was, in many respects, a failure, but it developed a cult following among those who fathom and love the weird world of motor racing.
It was a film that needed explanation – and now, almost half a century after it was made and 36 years after McQueen died of cancer – comes much of that explanation, in Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans, which is being released this week.
Essentially Le Mans was about McQueen’s intense passion for racing. It was a sport he 'got', when so many others didn’t – and still don’t.
To McQueen, the ‘king of cool’, racing was the strongest drug on earth. He wanted others to experience it, through a film that he thought could do what words couldn’t.
His dream was to deliver the Le Mans 24-hour, the ultimate race, as the total visual experience, but it had to be realistic. This was in the days before motor racing became a TV sport.
There was little dialogue in the original movie, although it contained McQueen’s memorable line: “Racing is life ... anything that happens before or after is just waiting.”
The sequel explains – through interviews with his son and then-wife, a couple of the actors in the original film, members of the production team, David Piper who lost a leg in a stunt crash on the project, and the retrieval of film rushes long thought lost or destroyed – McQueen’s obsession with making Le Mans, particularly the struggles to get it done.
In many ways it’s better than the original ... because this time, at least, there’s a story to it.
Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans is out on February 24 on DVD and digital.
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