Rating: Summary: Don't Forget Review: Let's not forget in the process of filming this feature, MacQueen entered a car in the actual race and co-drove. Not only did they have to stop for the normal tires and fuel changes , they also had to stop for camera changes. The tech inspection that they had to go through was much more stringent than any of the other entries. The camera had to be encased in the body of the car. Totally enclosed, which meant that the body panels had to come off to change the camera. They finished FITH overall! An amazing accomplishment. After the race, the production had engaged the roads (these are public roads) to do pickups and flesh out the story. The wreck that they duplicate is one of the scariest ever filmed, MacQueen's flashback of the crash is brilliant. If one ever gets the chance , the making of Le Mans in some ways is even better than the feature.(...)
Rating: Summary: Nostalgia on a grand scale Review: If like me you have a passion for things 60's and 70's and 'Bullit' and 'The Thomas Crown Affair' are amongst your favourite films then likely or not one of your heroes is Steve McQueen.Despite the media branding 'Le Mans' as a 'flop' to me it represents the spirit behind the man, his desires, his passion, his frustrations and ultimately and insight into the soul of the real Seve McQueen. True the story line is weak with Steve playing 'Michael Delaney' a loner whos having survived a serious accident the year before which killed his friend and now having to come to terms with confronting his widow is a backdrop in terms of the real thrust of the film which is an action filled semi documentary of the 1970 Le Mans 24 Hour race. The cars are evocative with Porche 917's, my favourite the Lola T70 and many other period cars which raise the blood pressure. The shots of the full speed dash along the Mulsanne Straight are breath taking and with drivers such as Derek Bell providing the stunt driving the experience is in a league of its own. View it having read 'A French Kiss with Death' and your in for a treat!
Rating: Summary: A Never-to-be-duplicated accomplishment!! Review: Today, a film like Le Mans could probably never be made. It really took the insistent passion of Steve Mcqueen to bring the blunt, terrifying beauty of sports car racing to the screen. Though the movie proved once and for all that mainstream audiences simply have no interest in reality-based racing films, for lovers of the "golden age" of sports car racing, this film is pure treasure. The sights, the sounds (The spine-chilling scream of a Porsche 917 changing gears at 8000 RPM; can you ever get over it once you've heard it?) and the gut emotions that racing cars ilicit are right there to have and hold, as in no other film, ever. It is certain that McQueen the racer made this film for us, the race fans. Though a commercial flop, it may well be his most honest, and personal, film.
Rating: Summary: Great guy movie!! Review: This is a good racing movie - racing is the keyword here. Ive gotten many comments from others that this has no plot, no story. In fact, it's just the opposite - the plot is a guy driving in a race, period. The unfortunate thing about this movie is that it was not as popular because GRAND PRIX w/james garner came out right at the time when the studio was working on this film. SO they cut the budget for this film, just imagine the possiblity if there was more money. Steve Mcqueen used to throw beer cans over at James Garner's yard to show his discontent for the movie Grand Prix.
Rating: Summary: Le Mans, a racing story Review: This is a story of racing and the people who live it. There's no story within that detracts from the reason they are at Le Mans. Every human reaction is muted to put the race in the forefront. The romance of this story is the race and only the race.
Rating: Summary: Racing, that's all.... Review: ...that's all it is. What dialogue was shot is so low in volume that you can't hear a lot of what is said and then the rest is covered up by distance or motors. BUT, we knew what this movie was about...it's about PORSCHES! LE MANS! When racing was racing, when it was about 12-Cylinder Turbo 917s and Ferrari 512s. :) The "non-racer" Porsche is not as such...it is a racer in a different -- production -- class. If you listened to the announcer or followed racing, you would knw that they race everything: Corvettes, Lotus, standard 911s, etc. It was just "slower traffic" as the racing boss says to the team owner when asked of the fate of Number 20 after that crash.
Rating: Summary: too boring to watch Review: Well, so I expected a story with the famous race as a background. Wrong, no plot, and probably less than 5 minutes of dialogue in the entire movie ( if you don't count the background Le Mans announcer, incongruously speaking English). Now, maybe a documentary about the race would be OK; but this movie did not have either the continuity or the information content of a documentary. Just endless clips of cars buzzing around, punctuated by the occasional crash. The only place in the movie I was curious -- when Steve McQueen's character ended up behind a non- racing regular driver going about 30 mph (why was this car on the road?) they did not answer.
Rating: Summary: Le Mans Review: I watched this movie with my wife and realized its very short on dialoge, but the movie is full of 917 action with camera angles, for the time that the film was made, that are very exciting and dramatic. My wife says no plot, but as a Porsche owner and racing enthusisit it fits my bill perfectly.
Rating: Summary: Ah, racing Review: This is the best movie ever made for auto racing fans--the un-Driven. (The best movie ever made that includes auto racing is A Man and a Woman.) Here's hoping for a widescreen DVD. I just bought a new copy of this tape, and I've watched it several times this week. The cars are spectacular on the track (remember when cars had more power than grip?). For non-fans, the sketchy backstories of the characters probably are barely adequate. It's taken several viewings for me to even develop theories about the relationship between McQueen's character and The Woman--he reminds me of David Bowman in "2001," and The Woman just seems to *be there* (however, I can name several women in the racing community who parallel her story). The characters are so stoic, it's hard to imagine that they are sufficiently excited about auto racing to justify the risks. A feature of Le Mans, the event, that really helps this movie is that the race has driver changes, which allows the characters to interact and reflect during the event. FYI, if the end seems Hollywood-improbable, it isn't--it incorporates elements of the 1969 race, the year before the fictional race of the movie. My new "CBS Video" copy of this tape seems to have a tracking problem that distorts the hi-fi audio tracks (the only tape I've ever had an audio problem with this VCR). I switched to the mono audio track, which sounds fine. One question: why does "Larry Wilson" sound Austrian?
Rating: Summary: a film for true race fans Review: Of all the classic race movies out there this is probably the most minimalistic and puristic one. Don't watch this movie for the rudimentary love story (if one can call it that way). Don't watch it for dialogue - Steve McQueen does not speak more than a 100 words in this film I would guess. Watch this movie for the breath-taking drama that develops in the pictures, since in racing a picture says definitely more than a 1000 words. The camera work is outstanding, and the story is built in a very detail-minded, documentary-type style that matches the coolness of McQueens persona. We see his charcter develop almost entirely in his actions, in the powerful flashback to an accident a year ago that he reflects upon as he returns to the same scene on the same track. As he drives to the track, stops his Porsche at the scene of the accident and stares back into the past, we begin to understand what kind of a racer he is .We see the quiet, yet passionate rivalry between him and his major competitor for the title in the Le Mans 24 hour race and we see his equally quiet interaction with the widow of the fellow driver who perished in that fateful accident. While personal interactions are very subdued, the true passion erupts on the race-track and this movie is superb in this regard. We see a generous and well-filmed display of the greatest prototypes and road-racers out there at the time. If you are a race-fan, you must see this movie, if you are not, you probably won't get it. As a race fan I give 5 stars.
|