Weekend of a Champion

Not really that great a documentary but still an interesting and surprisingly intimate look at Jackie Stewart's race day at the 1971 Monaco GP. The fact that Polanski is obviously a close friend of both Stewart and his girlfriend makes it possible for him to get his subjects to be quite revealing and candid. However it does drag on a bit and could benefit from some rigorous editing.

This was made prior to Stewarts safety crusade had gotten into full swing, he had by this time however lost most of his close friends to fatal racing accidents. You can see the seeds of his interest in improving driver safety in the conversations he has with Polanski. For his part Polanski is probably a bit too much the friend and the film has a bit of a superficial feel as a result, no really probing, revealing questions or insights here.

This is a review of the 2012 version of this movie: It's great! If you know who Jackie Stewart is, and have a sense of his importance in the history of auto racing, you will totally enjoy this pic, because he talks in great detail about lots of aspects of F1 auto racing. There is a memorable sequence when he sits across a breakfast table with Polanski and discusses how to treat a motor car that is positively spiritual. We get to see in lots of detail the 1971 Monaco Grand Prix, including practice laps, driver shots, glamour hubbub, and the race itself from Stewart's viewpoint. We also see brief glimpses of various other competitors, famous drivers from the past (a fab moment with Fangio), and the Monaco Royalty giving out the prizes. Mostly done with hand-held, and pretty riveting for all that.

Then, in a final sequence shot in 2011, Stewart and Polanski get together again for a chat about how racing has changed. (And this is not a spoiler because the pic is a documentary!) Lots of discussion of safety, some footage of bad crashes, Stewart discusses his (lack of) formal education, in sum: 2 interesting oldsters reminiscing. In the rather slim genre of Formula 1 movies, this pic is among the best.